- Well, the Truth/Beauty angle has always been consciously present (I kind of equate the two).
It is interesting that you seem to share plato's view on beauty in considering it, in a way, identical, or at the very least inextricably paired with truth. I have always been fascinated by that view and I would like to hold it myself. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how this relation hold. For plato, as you probably know, there is a form of beauty (the good) by which anything that we see as beautiful has that capacity only by sharing in, or partaking in that form. When I see you, I can see that you are beautiful (assuming of course, that you are), and to that extent that I do it is because you partake in the form of the beautiful. On the other hand, because you are not the beautiful itself, but only beautiful to the extent that you partake in the form of the beautiful itself, I would also notice in you certain imperfections that somehow fall short of it. Knowledge of beauty only as it would appear to me through my senses - ie. you - would be incomplete, because I wouldn't know beauty itself, only a veiled and/or limited particular manifestation of it. Knowledge of the beauty by which anything can be beautiful would, on the other hand, be complete (reachable only through reason), because I would know not instances of beauty, like instances of someone showing courage, but I would know what the beautiful itself is, or what courage itself is. This implies a relation between ontology and epistemology: beauty is ontologically prior to beautiful things and what is 'said of' beauty would constitute a higher degree of knowledge than what is simply 'said of' beautiful things. Beauty in this sense, since it is ontologically prior, corresponds to what is true, for there can be nothing said of anything else which is more true than what is said of the beautiful itself. Indeed it is wholly true.
This is one way of equating beauty with truth.
Now, the way I think of it, I might, whenever I experience something beautiful (a beautiful figure, a mathematical function that expresses a fundamental law of nature, a mountain range, or, what the heck, being on mdma experiencing the warm embrace of another) get an overwhelming sense of it's trueness, but I very much doubt that truth, as when Dostoevsky writes "As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true.", means true in the way we ordinarily think of truth. It refers rather, I think, to an affirmation of the total, inward felt rightness we tend to have when something feels good as triggered by encountering perceived beauty. And I ask myself, assuming that it does indeed speak about truth: how can this be related to truth? Truth can't just be a felt positive experience (of an object), can it? Mustn't it be expressed, or at the very least, grasped? Because I think that if wo/man (or, more precisely, sentient beings capable of grasping truth) doesn't exist, neither does knowledge. So, there might arise the possibility of there to be beautiful things, but no truth.
Also, colloquially, we often talk about the capacity for a truth to be ugly, just like for a person having the capacity to be ugly. That is simply a mistake then? Or perhaps what they are saying isn't true? Or perhaps the object of their truth doesn't qualify as a proper object?
.. but still, I really am attracted to the idea that what is beautiful is bound up with truth in someway, so I would be very much delighted if you could try to elaborate on your view on this
Love: The expression of inner beauty and the palpable awareness of the beauty in others
Related to the above, if beauty is somehow linked to truth, then this definition of love must certainly be true!
