On Artistic Truth
October 19, 2023 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197682043.003.0002 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that art provides a distinctive form of cognition about “subjective reality”—the reality of consciousness and lived experience—rejecting both the Kantian view that aesthetic experience is non-cognitive and the German idealist view that art cognizes the absolute. Claims this cognition is unavailable through psychology or phenomenology. |
Abstract
Abstract In this essay, Landmann-Kalischer defends a cognitivist account of our experience of art, according to which art conveys a distinctive truth to us about “subjective reality,” that is, the reality of consciousness, mental phenomena, and lived experience. In defending this position, she rejects a Kantian view according to which our experience of art is not cognitive. However, she also rejects a cognitivist view prevalent in German idealism, according to which our experience of art gives us cognition of the absolute. Against both precedents, she argues that art gives us cognition about the reality of our lived experience. She, moreover, claims that art gives us a distinctive kind of cognition of this subjective reality that not even psychology or phenomenology can give us.