GADAMER AND AESTHETICS: A COMPREHENSIVE CRITIQUE

Date

2024-9-24

Author

Gönültaş, Gizem

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This thesis presents Gadamer's criticism of the abstract and subjective aspects of traditional aesthetics and the resulting concepts of aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic differentiation. The final chapters of this thesis focus on analyzing the status of aesthetics and the experience of art within Gadamer's own philosophical hermeneutics. The first part of Truth and Method deals with Gadamer's critique of traditional aesthetics, which is crucial for understanding the ontological status of works of art. Furthermore, to make sense of Gadamer's writings on specific works of art or art genres after this work, familiarity with Gadamer's traditional aesthetic criticism is helpful. Therefore, this thesis applies not only to Truth and Method but to various other sources written by Gadamer to provide a comprehensive presentation of why and how Gadamer finds aesthetics and the experience of art crucial. The chapter on transcending traditional aesthetics in Truth and Method is concerned with recovering the truth claim of human sciences and art. According to Gadamer, the subjective and autonomous understanding of aesthetics opened up by Kantian aesthetics, which shaped the modern understanding of art, weakened the connection of art with truth. Together with art, this understanding also weakened the relation of the human sciences, which cannot be constrained by any particular method, to truth. This thesis aims to demonstrate that Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics encompasses the experience of art by drawing attention to the problematic aspects of traditional aesthetics.

Subject Keywords

Traditional Aesthetics, Gadamer, Aesthetic Consciousness, Artwork

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111297

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis