Aesthetics and the Individual

7th July, 2010.
MA Previous

The concept of aesthetic was talked about because of the existence of the individual that is to say, one would talk of it only because there is an individual who has been sanctioned since everybody cannot do everything.Precisely,an individual can make, has genius, can create and simultaneously can plan his destiny as well as other's.In the meantime he gets what is basically identified as life source that is monetary gains.

The idea of the individual is only six hundred years old. For an understanding of the concepts refer:
Dogma of Christ by Erich Fromm.
Myth of the Individual by Ian Watt
Idea of the Individual as in the Norton Critical Edition of Robinson Crusoe.

However, it is very interesting to look at what Freud's stand is on this concept. Freud interestingly denied the entire idea of the individual and thought of them as subjects- acted upon and manipulated. Edmund Husserl's argument that we are all products of subjective apparatus was coupled by his coinage of the word 'inter subjective' in 1917.Meaning to say, whatever one feels- pain or pleasure (not just one's own but also of others that an individual is capable of evoking) becomes inter subjective.There is also this lack of choice and the choices we talk about are not really choices in the first place. For instance, you can only choose to be in the class or outside. There essentially is no third option which proves the fact that we are constantly being subjected with even temporal realities working on it all at the same time.

Also, not to forget is the idea of pleasure principle versus the reality principle.

In short all what we have discussed till now are:
a) Notion of the aesthetic and the idea of the individual.
b) Intellectual pre history of modern day notion of art and aesthetics.
c) Colonial legacy of geographical/cultural aesthetic categories.

Pinto, Anil. Class lecture.Aesthetic and the Individual.Christ University. Bangalore, India. 07 July 2010. Lecture.