Aesthetics and Taste Lecture Notes

Knowledge of the World

• A knowing
• Something to know

Dualism - Material and Immaterial - body and mind.

Body = vehicle of the mind (dualism)

Sensations and Objects

Beauty means 'good' (moral, ethical spiritual...) in Greek.

Plato - truth - abstract ideal.

Reality = imperfect copy of forms (truths)

Art therefore = much less perfect copy of a copy.

Aristotle

Art - Mimetic. Could purge the soul.

phenomenon of beauty, not merely an ideal.

Immanuel Kant

What does it mean to know and result of knowing.

good, agreeable, beautiful.

The mind contributes to the experience of objects

Kant attempted to combine rationalism and empiricism

Noumenon - a thing in itself.

Phenomenon - a thing as it appears through senses.

Imagination - a thing in itself.

Judgements of taste therefore are the result of a relationship between an object and subject. Both subjective and universal - a response of individuality.

Disinterest = having no interest, not to be confused with uninterested

Hegel

Art = evidence of revelation of spirit. When not needed, art will end.