2022, Vol.65, No.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.81

pISSN : 1229-0246
https://journal.kci.go.kr/ksasa

Hegel asserted that art conveys truth. The cognitive value of art is consistent with the artistic value. Art always seeks to reach absolute truth. But art develops in history, and in this respect it always expresses only epistemological truths. Modern art is based on the infinity of the mind. According to the infinity of the mind, the content of the mind cannot be fully expressed in its sensuous form, but neither can it not be expressed in it. The mind can express itself through sensuous forms, but it also knows that this expression must be incomplete. The self-reflection of modern art is derived from this infinity of spirit. The artist or spectator must be conscious of the infinity of the mind. To be conscious of infinity is to know that the content that art is trying to express is fundamentally different from its form. This difference is expressed in the form of conscious symbols. Modern art, which has become self-reflecting according to the infinity of the mind, is fundamentally sublime.

This paper deals with the problem of aesthetic truth, which plays a key role in the aesthetics of Theodor W. Adorno. He accepted Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s point of view that the purpose of art is not enjoyment or usefulness, but aesthetic truth. Adorno also received the aesthetics of Friedrich Schiller and Hegel, who explain art as aesthetic semblance, and sees art as an autonomous being as well as the appearance of the idea. However, unlike Hegel, who regarded the Idea as the unity of concept and reality, for Adorno, the idea is a reconciliation between spirit and nature, and such reconciliation is symbolically achieved in works of art in which irrational moments such as emotions and impulses are coherently composed. The truth contents of works of art are social and historical, and they are inherent in the non-conceptual language of art. This paper exemplifies the truth contents of art in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata and Paul Celan’s lyrics. Since the truth contents inherent in the works of art are not explicitly revealed, the works of art have a riddle-character. Thus, works of art need criticism, a philosophical reflection that will solve their riddles.

A unique form of “dialectic” or “dialectical thought” penetrates the philosophy and writings of Walter Benjamin. For him, dialectical thought was the only path and method leading to philosophical truth or the truth of the philosophy of art. In this paper, I elucidate the characteristic aspects of the dialectic practiced by Benjamin in his philosophical thinking and writing, and analyze how it is related to his concept of “philosophical truth.” First, how Benjamin’s dialectical thought was formed is immanently reconstructed through two early articles, “Language in General and Human Language” and “The Translator’s Task,” the central texts of his philosophy of language. The goal of the reconstruction is to clearly show the main characteristics of dialectical thinking explained in the two texts and the thought movement that develops in these characteristics. Second, I clarify the meaning of Benjamin’s philosophy of art and its theoretical intention, focusing on the “Cognition-critical Introduction,” which can be read as a “theory of philosophical truth” in The Origin of German Tragedy. In this process, it will be revealed that his dialectical thinking and the theory of truth are intimately combined. Third, in connection with the discussion of the previous two parts, the characteristics of dialectical thinking and truth of philosophy of art in “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility” are discussed. The goal of this thesis is to understand Benjamin more deeply as an original philosopher, not as a media theorist.