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Welsch: Aestheticization Processes
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EPISTEMOLOGICAL
AESTHETICIZATION
WELSCH
BY
OONA
WOLFGANG WELSCH
1996
AESTHETICIZATION PROCESSES
Phenomena, Distinctions and Prospects
1
* The word aesthetic has historically many different meanings, which still make sense along the idea of family resemblance
* Sensible (literal meaning for “aesthetic”)
* cognitive (perception: registering sensuous qualities)
* emotional (sensation: evaluating sensuous data: desire-aversion)
* Although ambiguous, the variability of the concept is serviceable and necessary: vast & complex field, when taking in account whole aesthetic world, not only art
* Aestheticization: unaesthetic is made (or understood as) aesthetic
* Virtuality and modelability
* Aestheticization of consciousness: we no longer see first or last fundaments, but that for us reality assumes a constitution of having been produced
Definitions
of
Aesthetic
2
CONTEMPORARY
AESTHETICIZATION
PROCESSES
SURFACE
AESTHETICIZATION
DEEP-SEATED
AESTHETICIZATION
1.Surface Aestheticization
1.Surface Aestheticization
“universalization”
= furnishing of reality with aesthetic elements
* embellishment of urban (& rural) areas: sign of progress
* whole world as a domain of experience
* should not be understood similar to the avant-garde idea of
expanding the definition of art > instead the daily life is
pumped full of "artistic character” > kitsch
* economical viewpoint: aesthetics as the essence of
merchandise, not only vehicle.
Superficial aesthetic value: desire, amusement, enjoyment
2.Deep-Seated Aestheticization
2.Deep-Seated Aestheticization
"fundamentalization”
= affecting basic structures of reality
* material aestheticization: new material technologies
> Matter transforming to aesthetic product.
Simulation is not imitation any more, but productive way of working.
* immaterial aestheticization: media shapes the reality
* homo aestheticus: aesthetic shaping of body and mind
* aestheticization of the categories of knowledge and reality
3.Epistemological Aestheticization
* Kant: aesthetics as epistemological discipline (a priori knowledge is aesthetic)
* Nietzsche: reality is a construct generated by us
* Aesthetic constitution of reality is a view of all contemporary theorists
reflecting on reality and science
* Rorty: poeticized culture: a culture which knows that our “fundaments”
are all aesthetically constituted, “cultural artefacts” which can only ever be
scrutinized against other cultural artefacts but never against reality itself
* Aesthetic factors in science: the elegance of DNA
* Legacy of modernity
3.Epistemological Aestheticization
changing the way we think
AESTHETIC TURN
AESTHETIC TURN
1. Aesthetics’ participation is fundamental in our knowledge and our reality (Kant)
2. Cognition and reality are aesthetic in the nature of their being (Nietzsche). Reality is not independent of cognition, but object of construction.
>>>> appearance, manoeuvrability, diversity, fathomlessness and fluctuation have become fundamental categories of reality
>>>> supposed “fundaments” are aesthetically constituted
3
4
EVALUATING
AESTHETICIZATION
PROCESSES
How to separate positive and negative forms of aestheticization?
* Three possible ways of judgement: science (truth), ethics (morality), aesthetics (aesthetic criteria)
* Welsch starts with scientific ideas, later turns to aesthetic criteria, because
1) truth is aesthetic and
2) aesthetic criteria are about evaluation (Adorno: aesthetics & self-criticism).
Welsch states that ethics is a subcategory of aesthetic, and because of that it does not offer possible tools here.
* Critique to surface aestheticization: if everything is aesthetic, nothing is (also blanks needed)
* On the other hand: Blind-spot culture: there is no vision without a blind spot > genuinely aesthetic culture would be sensitive to differences and exclusion in daily life.
"Relationships between ways of life are structurally the same as the relationships between aesthetic complexes.(...) Aesthetically reflective awareness is able to illuminate, clarify and assist in day-to-day questions.(...) Through its sensitization effects aestheticization can interpose in societal processes."
>>> there are much more possibilities in aestheticization
than mere embellishment
Questions
What do you think about the idea of epistemological aestheticization or aesthetic turn? Using the word "aesthetic" to mean "constructed"?
1
What is your opinion of the implications of aestheticization?
In what ways it is positive, in what ways negative?
2
?
What kind of possibilities do you see in using aesthetics
for solving societal problems?
3