Resumen de Beauty Incarnate: A Symbolic Approach to Interdependence and Nothingness
This essay explores the possibilities of a symbolic theory of beauty based on a dialogue between the ideas of Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō and the Spanish philosopher Eugenio Trías. Two main approaches are presented: beauty as a relationship between opposites, and beauty as a phenomenological manifestation of being. Symbology is used as an epistemological anchor to explain concepts through an integration of dual and connective structures (e.g., “and”). From this perspective, opposites are treated as conditions of the possibility of relationship. For Trías, the beautiful and the sinister are interdependent concepts. A particular mode of thinking is employed to overcome a rational and ontological model of contradictions, showing a horizontal and mutual necessity, often expressed in the arts. Once understood, this model enables a progressive turn to a meta-conceptual understanding of symbolic events as the incarnation of beauty. Finally, beauty is related to the permanent experience of the nonself (Nishida’s notion of 無我) during what Trias calls the Age of Spirit, thus blending the two philosophical proposals in a symbolic approach.
