One Step Away From Wholeness. The Relation Between the Notion of “Almost” and Traditional Aesthetics in the Heidelberg Aesthetics

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54310/Elpis.2023.1.3

Keywords:

Georg Lukács, aesthetic education, aesthetic subject, eschatology, reception

Abstract

In my study, I examine the Heidelberg Aesthetics by György Lukács, specifically from the point of view of how he describes the specific subject of the aesthetic experience in his “reception theory”. I argue that the young Lukács constructs the position of the subject of an aesthetic experience in a similar way to classical aesthetic education theories but in an eschatological model that anticipates the aesthetics of Western Marxism at the same time. I claim that the aesthetic subject that forms itself at the gate of salvation, but always only at its gate, that yearns for salvation and creates itself as a multitude of infinite problems, leads to the theory closer to the (Marxist) critical thinking of the second half of the 20th century than Lukács’s own later (Marxist) work: The Specificity of the Aesthetic.

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Published

2023-10-12

How to Cite

Fekete, K. (2023). One Step Away From Wholeness. The Relation Between the Notion of “Almost” and Traditional Aesthetics in the Heidelberg Aesthetics. Elpis Filozófiatudományi Folyóirat, 16(1.), 29–43. https://doi.org/10.54310/Elpis.2023.1.3