Critique of pure feeling (and its critique)

Abstract

The review analyzes Steven Shaviro’s book “Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics”, dealing with the so-called critical aestheticism – a philosophical approach focused on the affect and singularity, which are seen as a means of developing a non-dialectical aesthetic way of criticism, based on unorthodox reading of Kant carried out by Deleuze and Whitehead. The basic thesis of the American researcher is that the aesthetic judgment is not conceptual but affective, so it cannot be subordinated to pre-existing criteria. By implementing cross-reading of the texts of Kant, Whitehead and Deleuze, Shaviro concentrates on several problems, among which the important place is occupied by questions concerning the appearance of novelty and the formation of subjectivity. The review pays a special attention to the critique of representation and the question of the reinterpretation of philosophical practice in the light of Deleuzian ideas developed in Shaviro’s work. The review problematizes the very critical potential of critical aestheticism and points out the dangerous proximity of the ideas developed by the American researcher to the logic of late capitalism. In this view, some of the provisions of Shaviro’s aesthetic theory can be interpreted as a call for adaptability and mobility, which significantly reduces its critical potential. In conclusion, an outline of an alternative critical position is given.