Aesthetics

Gerhard Schweppenhäuser

Chapter 2 in Research Handbook on Critical Theory, 2026, pp 3-14 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Critical theory within the conceptual framework of the Frankfurt School analyses the social conditions of the possibility of aesthetic experience. Interest is focused on the limitation and manipulation of aesthetic experience, and on the chances of anticipating a liberated society in unabridged aesthetic experience. Adorno, Marcuse, and Benjamin follow Marx, who defined art as a “particular way of production”, and defined alienation as the expropriation of productive labor. Simultaneously, they follow a Nietzscheanian concept of an aesthetic “guided by the body”. The most important aspects are: aesthetics of negativity (critique of meaning), of nature, of literature, of music, of the visual media and of popular culture, and, last but not least, of realism. In contrast to the sensual-aesthetic mediality of everyday culture, aesthetic experience, aesthetic imagination, and the critical consciousness of aesthetic procedures are sources of power for the imagination of a society liberated from class domination.

Keywords: Aesthetic Experience; Imagination; Negativity; Nature; Media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781800373754
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