The Artistic Experience As Knowledge

At the beginning of the development of the Western culture, the focus of attention has been on the domain of "nature" in which the accumulated scientific experience has formed knowledge to resolve the variety of problems which confront "human beings". In contrast to this, there are still plenty of skeptics on the meaning of the researches on humanities for the obtaining of knowledge. Through ceaseless communicating and impacting, the study on the theory of knowledge has long been trying to act on the premise of the confrontation between the artistic experience and scientific experience. This kind of study tends to be in terms of absolute so that it cannot disclose the essence of knowledge completely. It is no doubt that the study of the domain of nature constructs empirical knowledge of synthesis. While the study of humanities focus on the mental activities of human beings, which generates the artistic experience that is as true as the scientific experience and owns universality and inevitability. Immanuel Kant, as the precursor of Western philosophy, takes art to be a medium to establish a bridge between the pure reason and practical reason through judgment and illustrates the relationship between aesthetics and the generation of knowledge under the frame of his transcendental philosophy, which identifies the transcendental nature of the aesthetic activities and the universal validity. However, Kant’s theory tends to be subjective. With the beginning of discussion on the aesthetics and Kant in his philosophical hermeneutics, Hans Gerog Gadamer takes his critique on the subjective aesthetics of Kant to expose the understanding of the problems of knowledge and truth and establishes the view of knowledge which has transcended the scientific methodology eventually so that the meaning and historical position of the artistic experience as knowledge has been evaluated.The study on Kant’s aesthetic consciousness theory of subjectivization is mainly with the perspective of Gadamer’s theory of philosophical hermeneutics. The thesis probes into Gadamer’s criticism on Kantian doctrine to establish the high value of the artistic experience and art. Firstly, the thesis explores the main concepts of Bildung, judgment, common sense and taste in humanistic tradition, which is emphasized by Gadamer to find the contradictoriness of Kant’s aesthetics and the reason that leads Kant’s negation of knowledge in humanistic science. Then, the critical framework is formed with transcending aesthetic dimension through the distinction between Kant’s the beauty of nature and the beauty of art and the analysis of the theory of genius. In the first part of Kant’s The Critique of the Power of Judgment, the conception of Quality, Quantity, Relation and Modality are put forward. The thesis endeavors to analyze and particularize the theory of Kant’s Moments to illustrate the aesthetical is apart from concepts and depended on the common sense. Then, the characteristics of subversion, rebellion and truth of the artistic experience are reinforced. With this new frame, the thesis emphasizes the confrontation between the artistic experience and scientific experience. This thesis tries to elaborate that under the horizon of the Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, literature and art contain the truth and knowledge. In other words, artistic experience can be regarded as the knowledge and aesthetical understanding is a kind of truthful understanding which is endued with an integrity and unity.The thesis includes three chapters:The first chapter tries to analyze the development of the western aesthetic tradition with a main timeline to conclude the leading idea in Western aesthetic tradition:the artistic experience is apart from the knowledge or truth. The key concepts of judgment, common sense and taste imply the humanistic tradition of the inherent source of knowledge. However, Kant’s elucidation of the distinction between the beautiful of nature and the beautiful of art and the theory of genius has shown the deviation of this humanistic tradition. In the opening page of Truth and Method, Gadamer has examined the humanistic tradition of the concepts of Bildung, judgment, common sense and taste to imply the subjective contradiction of his aesthetics and the clue of Kant’s transcendence of the narrowness of aesthetic consciousness. With the analysis above, the critical framework is settled with the transcending the aesthetic dimensionIn the second chapter, the critique of four Moments in Kant’s artistic judgment is established with the basis of the perspective of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and the analysis of the third critique, The Critique of the Power of Judgment. With that, the contradictoriness of Kant’s aesthetics is explored further to find the approach to knowledge of humanistic science. In the fist moment and the third moment, the purposiveness which is apart from concepts is revealed. Moreover, the second and the fourth moment define the universal and inevitable characteristics of the aesthetics. Thus, the theory of Kant’s aesthetic consciousness has established the non-interest, non-utility, non-knowledge and non-truth of the aesthetic judgment. But, under the framework of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, the artistic is an open world of meanings and truth in which the knowledge can be conveyed.Based on the former two chapters, the last chapter emphasizes the function of the artistic experience as knowledge to establish the system of the theory of knowledge based on the hermeneutics. Take literary works for example, the thesis tries to elucidate that artistic work is one of the ways to express truth. Being different from the scientific knowledge, the artistic experience embodies the subversive and rebellious characteristics. Same to the scientific experience, artistic experience is also a way to know the world.