Tragic Beauty in Whitehead and Japanese Aesthetics

This book examines Alfred North Whitehead’s process aesthetics focusing especially on two categories, including the penumbral beauty of darkness and the tragic beauty of perishability, while further establishing parallels with the Japanese sense of evanescent beauty as yûgen and aware. It clarifies how both Whitehead and Japanese tradition develop an aesthetics of beauty as perishability culminating in a religio-aesthetic vision of tragic beauty and its reconciliation… (more)

This book examines Alfred North Whitehead’s process aesthetics focusing especially on two categories, including the penumbral beauty of darkness and the tragic beauty of perishability, while further establishing parallels with the Japanese sense of evanescent beauty as yûgen and aware. It clarifies how both Whitehead and Japanese tradition develop an aesthetics of beauty as perishability culminating in a religio-aesthetic vision of tragic beauty and its reconciliation in the supreme ecstasy of peace.