About the aesthetic situation

in #philosophy6 years ago (edited)

The aesthetic situation is such a form of connection between the subject and the object, which is expressed in the immediate contact of the person with a sensual or imagined object or phenomenon where man is induced to an aesthetic assessment or to aesthetically significant transformation of this subject. Therefore, the aesthetic situation is created at two levels: at the psychological level, which is resolved in aesthetic contemplation and at a practical level, which is allowed in aesthetically contemplated action. But in both cases the aesthetic situation implies a connection between the subject and the object outside of which the aesthetic as such can not arise. The first condition for the occurrence of an aesthetic situation is the presence of direct sensory contact between the person and the object. Logical knowledge does not require such a direct link between the subject and the object. Although living contemplation is the first stage of the process of knowledge, the cognitive act takes us to a very extreme point of view far from contemplation - in the sphere of essences and laws, which is in principle inaccessible to him. Moreover, science often deals with objects that are outside the limits of contemplation or even the notion of so-called "seeming objects," with abstract categories. But even when scientific knowledge faces particular objects, it can not always be based on their contemplation by the scientist.

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The same difference can be found if we compare the aesthetic attitude with other forms of value orientation. In order to judge the utility, the fairness, the progressiveness of a phenomenon, we do not necessarily have to see or hear it, all such assessments can be given in a mind-boggling fashion based on analysis and theoretical reasoning. However, there are no intellectual operations capable of replacing a man's life as a basis for aesthetic perception, because there is no beauty, grandeur, tragedy, or comism outside of this aesthetic sense. Indeed, there is another category of "values," analogous to aesthetic values ​​- that is what we define with the terms "pleasant," "disgusting," "terrible," "funny." Obviously it is precisely for this reason that ordinary consciousness and even the theoretical consciousness often identifies similar "values" with aesthetic values. In reality, however, we are faced with two qualitatively different levels of human orientation - physiological or, at best, psychophysiological level and spiritual, social psychological level. Because, above all, "pleasant" and "disgusting" characterize such objects that affect all sensory organs without exception - by means of these terms we also appreciate the color, the sound, the smell, the taste of the food and the inner self-esteem, "wonderful" and "immoderate" assessments are applicable only as a characteristic of phenomena subject to visual and auditory perception.

On the other hand, even within that framework, the "wonderful", as found by Plato more and later explained by Kant, is far from being "pleasant to sight or hearing": in the latter case, it is purely sensual pleasure or discontent , and in the first, a spiritual experience, for which sensory perception is only the necessary basis, but in its essence it is radically different from the normal physiological reactions of the nervous system. There are shades of color and color relationships, there are sound timbrees and soundtracks that, as is usually said in life, they "enjoy" the eye, "stroke" the ear or "irritate" them; people are often inclined to accept this simplest reaction of the visual and auditory nerve for aesthetic sensation without taking into account the distance that separates the bio-physiological pleasure or dissatisfaction with spiritual, nervous comfort or excitement - from spiritual joy or resentment. The same distance can be found if we compare comics with funny or tragic with the terrible; it is no wonder that the ability to terrify and even laugh is inherent not only for man but also for the higher animals, whereas the ability to tragically live and humor is undoubtedly the specific qualities of the public.

The second sign of an aesthetic situation is the specific position (or orientation) of the subject involved. Kant called this position "disinterested" in aesthetic attitude, but it should be defined more precisely with the notion of "selflessness" because there is no doubt that the aesthetic attitude of man to the world is one of the manifestations of his public interests. Aesthetic interest is free from such a person's inclination towards the subject that has a self-contained, selfish, consumer character and expresses the desire to possess an object, to use it for one or other purposes - to satisfy biological necessity, desire, some benefit, to increase your prestige, and so on. Therefore, the psychological orientation of the subject into an aesthetic situation consists in the fact that external objects are excluded from the process of perception of the object. Purpose of perception is itself, the very act of contemplation. Since the enjoyment of the beauty of the subject is not caused by the desire to be possessed, appropriated and used in one way or another, and because, on the other hand, the value of aesthetic knowledge, unlike scientific theoretical knowledge, is not the result, but the very process of loving beauty, it has no goals outside of itself.

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Beautifully expressed@goldflesh.
The mind first has to examine the object before we put it into practice.
Linking cognition to the mind.
I spoke to a friend some time ago and I opinionated that there should be a study PSYCHOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY

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