The range of the aesthetical: from discourse to texture

Abstract

The present paper touches upon the problem of defining and redefining the limits of the realm of the aesthetic, which has acquired particular importance over the last two or three decades due to the widening of the subject field of aesthetics and aesthetic discourse. The author insists that such expansion of “aesthetics beyond aesthetics” is inherent in the logic of the development of the original project of aesthetic theory right from the beginning. The field of the aesthetic as first configured by its basic notions already implies a logic of emancipating that field from the categorial framework conditioning it. Under the influence of he factors of modern society this logic eventually led to changing the very “topology” of the aesthetic: from the sphere of subjective appraisal and expression, the aesthetic drifted towards the sphere of material surfaces involved in social interaction and the corresponding ways of perception. The final part of the article examines theoretical, political and anthropological implications of the said transformations.