Aesthetic Disinterestedness : Art, Experience, and the Self

In this monograph, Thomas Hilgers introduces and defends a new and sophisticated account of aesthetic disinterestedness.  Elaborating upon the work of Kant, Schopenhauer, Bullough and others, Hilgers claims that artworks have an aesthetic function, because they typically address our senses as well as our imagination, and require us to adopt a disinterested attitude towards what they show or present. While the book is primarily a work in aesthetics, the history of aesthetics, philosophy of film, and philosophy of theater, the author’s notion of aesthetic disinterestedness also contributes to work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, and ethics.

The notion of disinterestedness is often conceived of as antiquated or ideological. In spite of this, Hilgers argues that one cannot reject it if one wishes to understand the nature of art. He claims that an artwork typically asks a person to adopt a disinterested attitude towards what it shows, and that the effect of such an adoption is that it makes the person temporarily lose the sense of herself, while enabling her to gain a sense of the other. Due to an artwork’s particular wealth, multiperspectivity, and dialecticity, the engagement with it cannot culminate in the construction of world-views, but must initiate a process of self-critical thinking, which is a precondition of real self-determination. Ultimately, then, the aesthetic experience of art consists of a dynamic process of losing the sense of oneself, while gaining a sense of the other, and of achieving selfhood. In his book, Hilgers spells out the nature of this process by means of rethinking Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theories in light of more recent developments in philosophy–specifically in hermeneutics, critical theory, and analytic philosophy–and within the arts themselves–specifically within film and performance art.