Philosophical Aesthetics
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Philosophical aesthetics is the theory of aesthetic phenomena in their entirety. Hardly any other discipline is subject to as many different assessments as this one. On one hand, the theory is said to have lost much of its significance, but on the other hand it is claimed that it is the heir to what was traditionally called first philosophy.[1] This ambiguity is also reflected in the field, which has been a subject of controversy since the very beginning. Up until the 19th century, the subject of the field were beauty, the sublime, art and sensibility. All these attempts at definitions are now considered inadequate by numerous philosophers.
The field of philosophical aesthetics overlaps with those of other academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, musicology, literature, art history and art criticism. However, philosophical aesthetics distinguishes itself from these disciplines in its methods and the issues it deals with, which are of a general nature; philosophical aesthetics analyses the phenomenon of the aesthetic in general; it is not tasked with analysing and evaluating single aesthetic objects. Philosophical aesthetics is not an empirical discipline; the issues it deals with are not based on observation and experiments, but on the analysis of commonly used aesthetical terms.
History
The term aesthetics was first introduced by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in his 1750 work ‘Aesthetica’, in which he defined aesthetics as the study of sensual knowledge.[2] By ‘sensual knowledge’, Baumgarten was referring to knowledge through sensual perception. Baumgarten is therefore often viewed as the father of philosophical aesthetics, even though philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle had already examined the topic in the ancient world. Aesthetics as we know it today has three roots:[3] Since the publication of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s works, the discipline has primarily been understood as a branch of the philosophy of art. It was redefined as the theory of the ‘beautiful’ and, with the definition having firstly been broadened to include the sublime and the splendid, the elegant, the graceful, as well as the ugly and the grotesque[4] among other subjects, the discipline is now generally regarded as the theory of aesthetic values and how they are experienced and assessed. The term ‘aesthetics’ was coined by Alexander Baumgarten, who designed the concept of aesthetics as being a philosophical discipline of its own in his 1735 dissertation ‘Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus’. His magnum opus Aesthetica, which remains incomplete/of which only fragments remain, was an attempt to systematically execute/put this concept into effect/practice. Baumgarten wanted to combine the logic he understood to be the doctrine/teaching of the knowledge of reason/intellect/the mind with the doctrine of sensual knowledge (Aisthesis). He was one of the first during the Enlightenment to stress the intrinsic value and unique cognitive power of sensually vivid experiences, contrary to the one-sided/biased appreciation/esteem/ respect for rational, conceptual knowledge. In his view, such a brand of aesthetics also involved/included the theory of the expression of such sensual knowledge. He emphasised that the way in which sensual knowledge was expressed was far more important in order for it to be successfully communicated to others than in the case of knowledge of reason. Historically, these three definitions of aesthetics as the theory of the ‘beautiful’, the theory of art and the theory of sensual knowledge are closely related to each other. In Hegel’s view, the philosophy of art (largely) coincided in essence with the theory of the beautiful because, for him, beauty represented an essential feature of works of art. For Baumgarten, aesthetic experience was the core issue of the theory of sensual knowledge. His brand of aesthetics was intended to provide the foundation/basis for the theory of fine arts. However, these theories had been described as inadequate since the 19th century as they neither comprised/covered all areas/aspects/fields of aesthetics nor even dealt with matters that went beyond aesthetics. In analytic philosophy, the clarification of the key terms used in philosophical aesthetics, such as aesthetic experience, aesthetic object and aesthetic property, is now regarded as its fundamental task/issue.
Fields of philosophical aesthetics
Problems with traditional definitions
Theory of art
The first traditional definition of aesthetics as a theory of art is often criticized as too narrow.[5] Although art is an essential component of aesthetics, since many aesthetic experiences are based on works of art, there are aesthetic experiences which are not exclusively evoked by artwork. These include events in nature, which are often called "the natural beauty" in aesthetic literature. A rainbow, for example, can trigger an aesthetic experience even though it is the result of natural circumstances. But everyday things such as a carefully laid breakfast table can have an aesthetic effect on the observer.
Theory of beauty
Against the traditional conception of aesthetics as a theory of beauty, it is argued that there are aesthetically relevant issues that have nothing to do with beauty. Examples include the issue of the authenticity of performances, or the issue of the relationship between originals and fakes. Furthermore, objects that are not beautiful can also be subjects of aesthetics. Many objects that are not considered beautiful or even ugly, are therefore generally recognized as works of art (e.g. Caravaggio's painting the Medusa, the works of the Viennese Actionists in the 1960s, the paintings of Gottfried Helnwein and the caricatures of Manfred Deix). Furthermore, it is argued that objects that can touch us aesthetically have other qualities besides simply being "beautiful" and "ugly"; they can also be "graceful", "sublime", "touching", "poetic", “kitchy”, "sensual", "expressive", "shallow", "boring" and "humorous".
Theory of the sublime
While Kant used the concept of the sublime solely for overpowering natural phenomena, Edmund Burke introduced the sublime as the second basic category of aesthetics alongside the beautiful in his Philosophical Investigation on the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757).
Theory of sensual knowledge
The historically very powerful determination of sensual knowledge as a field of aesthetics is criticized for being too broad (on the one hand), because not every perceptual experience is an aesthetic experience, since the recognition of aesthetic qualities is only one of many aspects of sensory perception. On the other hand, this definition is criticized as (being) too narrow, since not every aesthetic experience is based on a perceptual experience. Literary texts, for example, have aesthetic qualities (such as suspense, poetry and humour) which can only partially be attributed to sensory qualities.
Modern Definitions
Maria Reicher defines aesthetics as the ‘theory of aesthetic experience, aesthetic objects and aesthetic qualities’.[6] In her definition, an aesthetic experience is an experience that involves grasping/understanding an aesthetic quality and an aesthetic object is an object with at least one aesthetic quality.
References
- ↑ See: Günther Pöltner: Philosophische Ästhetik, Stuttgart 2008, S. 13
- ↑ Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: Aesthetica § 1.
- ↑ See: Franz von Kutschera: Ästhetik, Berlin 1988, S. 1–3
- ↑ Karl Rosenkranz (1853), Ästhetik des Hässlichen (in German), Königsberg: Verlag der Gebrüder BornträgerCS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
- ↑ For a critical overview of the traditional concept of the subjects of philosophical aesthetics see: Maria E. Reicher: Einführung in die philosophische Ästhetik, Darmstadt 2005, S. 13–16
- ↑ Maria E. Reicher: Einführung in die philosophische Ästhetik, Darmstadt 2005, S. 17f.
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