The politics of aesthetics in German Idealism

Abstract

The subject of the study is the aesthetic aspects of the German philosophy of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. Modern culture, with its anti-traditionalist impulse for autonomy, freedom from external authority, the use of critical reason, universal principles, in terms of which is questioned religion, history, customs, by this time found its internal contradictions. Post-religious and postconventional Enlightenment values - secularism, humanism, the primacy of reason and science - poorly suited to maintaining the moral and social relations, in the course of everyday life, and led to their progressive deterioration. German idealists turned to the area of aesthetic in searh of means of reconciliation between science and morality, the nature and the subject. The article taken hermeneutical analysis of texts submitted in the tradition of German romanticism and idealism in order to identify the aesthetic basis of searches and solutions in the philosophy of this period. Project of aesthetics which emerged in the XVIII century is seen as key to European philosophy and culture "after the Enlightenment," and as having not only theoretical but also of political importance, because it is in aesthesis - subjective field of experiences, feelings, affects, modern man could seek reconciliation with the world after the loss of traditional meanings and authority