• Objects into Persons: The Way to Social Aesthetics

    Author(s):
    Arnold Berleant (see profile)
    Date:
    2017
    Subject(s):
    Aesthetics, Aesthetics--Philosophy
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    aesthetic engagement, social aesthetics, sense perception, aesthetic appreciation, Aesthetic theory
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6MC6S
    Abstract:
    This essay traces the steps to a social aesthetics. I begin by affirming the central place of sense experience for aesthetics and its refinement in the perceptual acuity of a developed sensibility. This leads to associating aesthetic appreciation with such perceptual experience. Rejecting the identification of disinterestedness with such appreciation, I propose the full participatory involvement in the experience of appreciation as expressed by the concept of aesthetic engagement. This describes the appreciative situation as an aesthetic field in which the perceptual, creative, focusing, and activating factors are in reciprocal interaction. It characterizes not only appreciation in the arts but occurs as well in appreciating natural, built, and social environments. Aesthetic engagement in social aesthetics is exemplified by the gaze in the experience of four well-known paintings I shall consider. Following these I shall develop a series of related ideas that lead to the concept of a social aesthetics. Finally, I shall return to the paintings for an enhanced understanding of social aesthetics.
    Notes:
    in Aesthetics Between Art and Society: Perspectives of Arnold Berleant’s Postkantian Aesthetics of Engagement, Espes Vol 6, No 2 (2017), 9-18. http://www.casopisespes.sk or https://espes.ff.unipo.sk/.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial
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