Feeling the Aesthetic: A Pluralist Sentimentalist Theory of Aesthetic Experience

Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen; David Sackris

doi:10.33134/eeja.212

Feeling the Aesthetic: A Pluralist Sentimentalist Theory of Aesthetic Experience

Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics

Volume 57 (2020): Issue 2

By: Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen and David Sackris

Open Access

|Sep 2020

Abstract

Sentimentalist aesthetic theories, broadly construed, posit that emotions play a fundamental role in aesthetic experiences. Jesse Prinz has recently proposed a reductionistic version of sentimentalist aesthetics, suggesting that it is the discrete feeling of wonder that makes an experience aesthetic. In this contribution, we draw on Prinz’s proposal in order to outline a novel version of a sentimentalist theory. Contrasting Prinz’s focus on a single emotion, we argue that an aesthetic experience is rudimentarily composed of a plurality of emotions. We acknowledge and discuss significant problems that follow from such a theory, arguing that a pluralist version of sentimentalism is nonetheless the soundest position within sentimentalist aesthetics.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/eeja.212 | Journal eISSN: 2571-0915

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Language: English

Page range: 116 - 134

Submitted on: Nov 10, 2018

Accepted on: Jun 10, 2020

Published on: Sep 15, 2020

Published by: Helsinki University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

sentimentalist aesthetics,

pluralist sentimentalism,

aesthetic feeling,

aesthetic emotion,

wonder

© 2020 Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen, David Sackris, published by Helsinki University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 57 (2020): Issue 2