Projects / Programmes
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Culture”
January 1, 1999
- December 31, 2003
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.10.00 |
Humanities |
Philosophy |
|
| 6.09.00 |
Humanities |
Art history |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H120 |
Humanities |
Systematic philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, ideology |
| H310 |
Humanities |
Art history |
| H315 |
Humanities |
Aesthetics |
Researchers (3)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The aim of the research program is to develop the realms of aesthetics (understood as philosophy of art) and philosophy of culture. In the last decade aesthetics became one of the central realms of philosophy. This occured because via aesthetics a series of topics and themes (the subject, ideology, postmodern society, the end of history and the end of history of art, the relationship between the imaginary and the symbolic, symbolization, the interpretation of culture as a sphere of symbolic forms, etc.) has once again become subjected to philosophical scrutiny, with these topics and themes reaching far beyond the narrow borders of art and of aesthetics conceived in a disciplinary way. Parallel to the processes of rephilosophication of aesthetics and the transgression of its traditional borders emerged new interpretations of aesthetics. Among these we mention but two: transcultural aesthetics (W. Welsch) and aesthetics as a philosophy of culture interpreted in Cassirer's tradition of philosophy of symbolic forms (H. Paetzold). The more recent development of aesthetics thus intrinsically led to a different definition of the subject of aesthetics: aesthetics was no longer (primarily) a theory of art and a philosophy of beauty, but started to be transformed into a philosophy of culture, also because especially in the postmodern epoch the relationship between art and culture essentially changed: art is no longer elite art only, and culture is no longer consumer and mass culture only. In contemporary circumstances this relationship must be understood and interpreted more broadly, with the tradition of critical theory and phenomenology serving as two key fields of reference. With their help we can understand the current and recent transformations in art and culture and can attempt to reevaluate the recent aesthetic and critical tradition which consciously or spontaneously relied upon the tradition of the institutional theory of art (A. Danto, G. Dickie). The latter was legitimate in the age of the neoavant-gardes but became insufficient in contemporary postmodern circumstances. In the research program a special attention is being paid to visual art and culture, for in the age of ocularcentrism these two represent a key phenomenon which today essentially differs from the recent modernist past. Within this framework the importance of analyses of art and culture related to the emergence of new technologies has to be mentioned, as well as the increased importance of visualisation which coincides with an all-pervading aestheticization of our environment, the latter often leading to anaesthaticization. The research program is internationally oriented, although at the same time the relevance of the researched themes for Slovenian envoronment is taken into consideration. Slovenia is not only an increasingly integral part of the European and global societies, but also a specific space which is under the influence of various cultural traditions, artistic trends and theoretical orientations. It is precisely this variety that places the Slovenian cultural and theoretical activities in a specific position and allows us a more plural theoretical view when compared with some other environments. The observations mentioned above will serve as starting points for the research program in which special disciplinary knowledge of aesthetics and philosophy of culture will be continuously integrated into the broader humanist consciousness of society.
Most important scientific results
Final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Final report
