The Aesthetic Object and the Work of Art: Reflections on Ingardens Theory of Aesthetic Judgment

Abstract

Ingarden’s philosophical aesthetics rests on two basic distinctions. The one is that between the work of art and its physical foundation; the other is that between the work of art and the aesthetic object. It is not enough, according to Ingarden, to distinguish the work of art from the material thing in which it is embodied; it is also necessary to differentiate it from the aesthetic objects which may be constituted on its basis. It is only the latter differentiation that I am going to discuss in this paper, although I am aware that many recent philosophers, hostile to any form of the pluralist ontology, are apt to question the former as well. Let me first sketch the outlines of Ingarden’s doctrine.