Specular Phenomenology: Art and Art Criticism

This paper explores the dialogue between Collingwood and Guido de Ruggiero on art and art criticism. The sense of identity of these two activities, it will be argued, can be understood only if one considers the criticism of living art: The art of one who also creates, who through a critical process transforms an outline into a work of art. Thus understood a work of art belongs to the life of the spirit, if considered from the dimension of becoming. Only by reliving the past can it be transformed, yet this requires an understanding of the map of human experience. This is what constitutes specular phenomenology, a phenomenology reflected in the mirror of art and scientific analysis