If beauty is a property, then the truth contained within it is truth about the world. At the very least, the beauty which is evident demonstrates the truth of itself. Beauty, if a property, becomes demonstrable in the very fact that it exists and is experienced, and so through the very fact of experience it reveals truth about the beautiful object. The truth “this is beautiful” is communicated in the same instance that we recognize the beauty in the object. Much the same as the truth “this is red” or “this is nine inches wide,” beauty-as-property contains the minimum of truth in the demonstration of itself, thus communicating a fact about the object being experienced.
Beauty-as-property means that beauty is objective. It is, by its very definition, not something which exists in our minds but something which exists in the object. We then recognize that property we call beauty in the object, that is, in the universe outside our own heads (or in a specific part of that universe). As a result of this, any truth contained within the beautiful is a truth about the world, as stated above. What we find to be true in the beautiful exists, as it were, independently of our experience of it. What sorts of truths would we then find?
Delving into philosophy of religion, we find a common conception of God as possessing three “transcendental properties:” truth, goodness, and beauty. Peter Kreeft, in his essay “Lewis’s Philosophy of Truth, Goodness and Beauty” writes: “Our minds want not only some truth and some falsehood, but all truth, without limit. . . Our desires, imaginations, feelings or hearts want not just some beauty and some ugliness, but all beauty, without limit. . . For these [truth, goodness, and beauty] are the only three things that we never get bored with, and never will, for all eternity, because they are three attributes of God” (Baggett 23).
It seems, therefore, that the truths we find in beauty could be truths about God. God is revealed through His attributes. God, the Truth of all truth, that which is more true than any other thing and which would be true were all other things false, is God, Beauty of all beauties, beside which all other beautiful things are ugly and the source and reflection of beauty in all lesser things. The experience of beauty-as-property could therefore be an experience of God, and if it is an experience of God then it is also an experience of truth, and quite possibly of absolute truth.
If beauty is a reaction, the truth within beauty is subjective, and is truth about ourselves. We experience an object and do not see it to be beautiful, but see it to be beautiful. That which we experience does not possess the property ‘beautiful,’ but engenders the reaction within the subject which is identified as an experience of beauty. Therefore the aesthetic experience occurs not between an object and subject, where the subject identifies facts about the object, but instead within the subject’s consciousness, with the object acting as a catalyst or spark through which to undergo the beautiful reaction.
This means that, if beauty is a reaction, when and if we experience truth in beauty, we are not given access to truths that exist anywhere but inside our own minds. There is nothing about the object which admits of the descriptor “beautiful,” and so whatever truth we see within it is either a truth about the reaction taking place, i.e. “I am having an experience of beauty,” or contained and directed toward our own consciousness, which is the ultimate source of the reaction to the object. Note that if beauty is a reaction, there is nothing beautiful without human experience of it. An object’s beauty is dependent upon our evaluation of it. There is no proposition “This is beautiful;” there is only “I think this is beautiful.” When the “I think” of the statement is removed (or before it arrives) objects merely exist without aesthetic properties. The first sunrise over a newly-formed Earth and the wheeling of undiscovered galaxies are not beautiful, because we never experience them.
It would seem that beauty-as-reaction lends itself to the expression of truths such as “I enjoy x” or “y is aesthetically pleasing to me,” but those truths are intensely subjective, and are in point of fact more like opinions than meaningful truth claims. To put it simply, we may discover truths about ourselves through beauty-as-reaction, but those truths will be only facts about our preferences. An aesthetic experience will amount to a recognition of the world as a lens through which our minds impose meaning upon the universe, assigning values of beauty and pleasure to objects totally devoid of such attributes, truly shaping the way we view existence.
So while the truth contained within beauty is far more limited than the truths received through ordinary experience, they are in a certain sense more unassailable. When beauty is a property, we may indeed mistake our awareness of something for an awareness of beauty, but the fact is firmly planted in the outside universe and independent of our experience of it. However, if beauty is a reaction, our sense of the beauty of something is always true, and we cannot be mistaken. Just as one cannot be mistaken that they are in pain (only perhaps confused regarding language), one cannot be mistaken in regards to subjective beauty. In other words, beauty-as-property can be doubted/mistaken by the subject, but true independent of that subject; while beauty-as-reaction cannot be doubted/mistaken by the subject, but is only true as long as the subject experiences that reaction.
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