In this paper I argue the relationship between epistemology and aesthetics, both of which are concerning the sensory (aesthetic) and the conceptual (logical). And I place the position of aesthetics transcendentally between the psychic and the logical, corresponding to the position of epistemology, but in the reverse direction.
My study is divided into the following three parts. In the first part, Empirical Philosophy and Association, I introduce the empirical theory of ideas by John Locke and David Hume, especially about the genesis of ideas and their association. In the second part, Transcendental Philosophy and Empathy, I compare the cognitive judgment depending on the transcendental apperception by Immanuel Kant with the theory of general apperceptive empathy by Theodor Lipps. In the third part, Phenomenology and the Logic of Reversal, I compare the genetic phenomenology by the late Edmund Husserl with the dialectic logic by G.W.F. Hegel. Then I examine the correlative and reverse relationship between image and meaning in the dynamic process of the intentionality of consciousness.
On the basis of these examinations, I conclude that aesthetics should include the following three kinds of interpretations of aesthetic objects: the inner impression of the outer object, the representation of the understood through a performance, and the symbol which synthesizes the sensory image and the conceptual meaning.
|
