Aesthetics and its Future. Problems and Perspectives

This presentation argues that the question about “future” presupposes an analysis of the current state of the discipline, which again in turn must be seen in the light of its history. The presentation then unfolds a rough reconstruction of that history from Baumgarten and Kant, over Romanticism’s establishing of the partnership with Art and Truth in the continental tradition and up to 20th century’s settling with especially that tradition, led by endeavours both within art itself, in the art sciences, and in different branches of philosophical aesthetics. On the basis of this, it finally discusses the future of aesthetics: its status as a scholarly discipline, the need for it in our world, and proposes some issues to be at aesthetics’ future agenda of research