Abstract
I offer a theory of art that is based on science. I maintain that, as any other human activity, art can be studied with the tools of science. This does not mean that art is scientific, but aesthetics, the theory of art, can be formulated in accord with our scientific knowledge. I present elucidations of the concepts of aesthetic experience, art, work of art, artistic movement, and I discuss the ontological status of artworks from the point of view of scientific philosophy.
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Notes
From: The Soul of Man under Socialism, Fortnightly Review, London, February 1891, p. 292.
I focus on theoretical aspects of scientific aesthetics. Experimental aesthetics deals with psychological research of artistic appreciation and it is not discussed here. The results of experimental research, however, are essential to test the theoretical concepts I introduce. See, for instance, Berlyne (1971) and Funch (1999).
Examples include Alexandrian sculpture, French realist, naturalist, and decadentist literature, anti-war novels written in the 1920s by some outstanding French, German, and Austrian writers, whose main aim was to provoke revulsion, not pleasure, and much of contemporary plastic arts, among many other examples.
The main character of the story is a playwright named Jaromir Hladík, who is living in Prague when the city is occupied by the Nazis during World War II. Hladík is arrested and charged with being Jewish as well as opposing the Anschluss, and sentenced to die by firing squad. During his execution God allows him a whole year of subjective time while everything else, including his body, remains motionless. Working from memory, Hladík mentally writes, expands, and edits a play, the artwork of his life, shaping every detail to his full satisfaction. Finally, after a year of labor, he completes the piece; only a single epithet is left to be written, which he chooses: time begins again and the fire from the rifles of the squad kills him. No one else will ever know that he finished his work and created the play.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Federico Langer for constructive conversations and Daniela Pérez for reading the manuscript. My work is in part supported by Grant PIP 0338 (CONICET).
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Romero, G.E. Outline of a Theory of Scientific Aesthetics. Found Sci 23, 795–807 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-018-9551-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-018-9551-5