Schopenhauer on the values of aesthetic experience

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that Schopenhauer's view of the aesthetic feelings of the beautiful and the sublime shows how a "dialectical" interpretation that homogenizes both aesthetic concepts and reduces the discrepancy between both to merely quantitative differences is flawed. My critical analysis reveals a number of important tensions in both Schopenhauer's own aesthetic theory - which does not ultimately succeed in "merging" Plato's and Kant's approaches - and the interpretation that unjustly reduces the value of aesthetic experience to a merely preliminary stage of ethical will-less salvation.