- Title Pages
- Hans Blumenberg: An Introduction
-
1 The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy -
2 World Pictures and World Models -
3 “Secularization” -
4 The Concept of Reality and the Theory of the State -
5 Preliminary Remarks on the Concept of Reality -
6 Light as a Metaphor for Truth -
7 Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology -
8 An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Significance of Rhetoric -
9 Observations Drawn from Metaphors -
10 Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality -
11 Theory of Nonconceptuality -
12 The Relationship between Nature and Technology as a Philosophical Problem -
13 “Imitation of Nature” -
14 Phenomenological Aspects on Life-World and Technization -
15 Socrates and the objet ambigu -
16 The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object -
17 Speech Situation and Immanent Poetics -
18 The Absolute Father -
19 The Mythos and Ethos of America in the Work of William Faulkner -
20 The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel -
21 Pensiveness -
22 Moments of Goethe -
23 Beyond the Edge of Reality -
24 Of Nonunderstanding -
25 Unknown Aesopica -
26 Advancing into Eternal Silence - Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object
The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object
(1966)
- Chapter:
- (p.441) 16 The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object
- Source:
- History, Metaphors, Fables
- Author(s):
Hans Blumenberg
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter evaluates Hans Blumenberg's “The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object” (1966). The predicament of any theory of art is captured in the truism that there is no accounting for taste. But why not? Because it is always assumed that a dispute over definite — that is, definable — objects can only be meaningful when its outcome can take the form of that object's univocal determination. Aesthetics, therefore, always seeks to escape its dilemma by setting theoretical objectivation as a model — a model that, even if unreachable, may still be approximated. This is what Kant did when he saw the subjective universality of aesthetic judgment as the only way to save the reference to the aesthetic object from becoming a completely nonbinding relation of absolute individuality. Every philosophy of art must share this basic intention; the question is only whether Kant's is the only possible way.
Keywords: Hans Blumenberg, aesthetic object, art, aesthetics, theoretical objectivation, Immanuel Kant, aesthetic judgment, absolute individuality, philosophy of art, philosophy
Cornell Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Title Pages
- Hans Blumenberg: An Introduction
-
1 The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy -
2 World Pictures and World Models -
3 “Secularization” -
4 The Concept of Reality and the Theory of the State -
5 Preliminary Remarks on the Concept of Reality -
6 Light as a Metaphor for Truth -
7 Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology -
8 An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Significance of Rhetoric -
9 Observations Drawn from Metaphors -
10 Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality -
11 Theory of Nonconceptuality -
12 The Relationship between Nature and Technology as a Philosophical Problem -
13 “Imitation of Nature” -
14 Phenomenological Aspects on Life-World and Technization -
15 Socrates and the objet ambigu -
16 The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object -
17 Speech Situation and Immanent Poetics -
18 The Absolute Father -
19 The Mythos and Ethos of America in the Work of William Faulkner -
20 The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel -
21 Pensiveness -
22 Moments of Goethe -
23 Beyond the Edge of Reality -
24 Of Nonunderstanding -
25 Unknown Aesopica -
26 Advancing into Eternal Silence - Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index