Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy treating the level of syncretic spirituality represented by art. This means that aesthetics should not be mistaken for art or science, and aesthetic categories and principles are neither regulations for artists, nor scientific laws. Rather, aesthetics shows where these rules come from, and how they organize the aesthetic side of any human activity.
This does not imply that there cannot be any science about the arts, or an artistic rendition of their development. Thus, one could study the different forms of art, the specific techniques, the means of expression, or the history of aesthetic schools --- under definite social conditions all such studies may become separate branches of science, with very distant connection to aesthetics proper.
The realm of the aesthetic
Though most people associate aesthetics with arts, it can never
be that narrow, since it is a philosophical discipline
and therefore concerns the universal. Well, the arts
manifest the aesthetic side of activity in a most clear way,
bringing it to the top of the hierarchy. Still, as a kind
of activity, the arts would always retain many other aspects,
and aesthetics would never be the only (and even the major)
cause of artistic creativity. On the other side, the traces
of the aesthetic may be found in people's economical and social
activity, in their everyday experiences, and the very possibility
of the aesthetic ascends to the interplay of matter and reflexion
characteristic of the world as a whole. And eventually the
artistic activity, along with all the others, contributes in
the integrity of the world, the unity of all its manifestations
at all the levels.
The formation of the arts as a special activity relatively
independent of the other forms of material production and
creativity should be attributed to a definite level of economical
and social development, marked with a high degree of social
division of labor. In other historical circumstances, when
division of labor will be replaced with a more efficient
organization, there won't be that ubiquitous specialization,
and the aesthetic will be dissolved in diverse forms of more
universal activities.
The criteria of the aesthetic
Over the centuries, there has been much argument on what can
be called art, and what cannot. Many people proclaimed all
kinds of principles, but they were never comprehensive enough,
to be universally applicable. This lead to aesthetic
relativism, denial of the very possibility of distinguishing
art from non-art; some people believe that art is entirely
a matter of opinion, and no objective criteria of art can
be established at all.
Aesthetic views strongly depend on the economical and social
position of the person and are subject to historical development.
Nevertheless, there is a common core in all the diversity of possible
attitudes, which makes them all aesthetic; however this
"something" cannot be comprehended within aesthetics --- and even
on the basis of human reflexion in general; it must be discovered
in praxis, creative re-production of the world, including
both its material and ideal aspects.
In aesthetics, the aesthetic side of praxis becomes reflected
in the aesthetic categories: beauty, mimesis, the sublime,
the tragical, etc. However, neither of them is enough to distinguish
art from non-art, and it is only the unity of all aesthetic categories
that adequately reflects the specificity of syncretic creativity
as a necessary level of the hierarchy
of spirituality in general.
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