PULCHRUM SEQUITUR ESSE REI. U źródeł transcendentalności piękna
PULCHRUM SEQUITUR ESSE REI: At the Source of the Transcendental Beauty

Summary/Abstract: In the article, the author discusses insights into the nature of beauty obtained in the field of realistic metaphysics. The research in question has been focused on two questions, namely, ‘What is beauty?’ and ‘Why is beauty?’ Since no ultimate answers have been offered, the dispute over the understanding of beauty is still ongoing in metaphysical inquiries. The main area of investigation is that of the nature of beauty and of its source, the fundamental question being, ‘What and why is beauty?’ Is beauty a universal value, or a paradigm (paradeigma) of all beautiful things? Or is it inherent in any and every real being? However, the discovery of beauty as a transcendental prompts the following conclusions: (1) In the case of any being, beauty reflects the fulfillment of its existence. The ultimate fulfillment of beings consists in the unity (synthesis) of the good and the truth incorporated in them (in the case of natural beings) by the intellect and the will of the Creator, or (in the case of artefacts) by those of the artist. (2) The transcendental beauty of beings reveals to us the source of the life of a human being conceived as the life of a person. (3) Beauty denotes and expresses the objective ‘conditions’ of the total fulfillment of a personal being. (4) Detachment of beauty from being as such and approaching beauty as an independent value which exists outside the world of real things, or relating it to merely a single category of beings (as is the case e.g. in contemporary aesthetics), is a consequence of a misunderstanding of the reality. Such an approach entails absolutization of a chosen aspect of a lived-through experience, of an experience or of a viewing, which undermines the essence of beauty, namely, the fulfillment of a being accomplished within the unity of (1) truth and goodness, (2) will and reason, and (3) love and contemplation.

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