" Standing at the Very Edge of the Infinite”

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between the experience of beauty and intuitions of transcendence. The first two chapters explore the role that natural beauty plays in humans’ existential ruminations, finding an intimate connection between beauty and belief in transcendent realities. The final three chapters examine the post-WWII turn away from beauty in fine art, and argue that this turn is intimately connected with a broader turn away from transcendent horizons in the wake of the second World War, e.g. that seen in Rawlsian Liberalism. Finally, an argument is developed that a culture without transcendence and beauty is unlikely to thrive in the long run, and so the postwar turn against same should be carefully, soberly abandoned.