The Aesthetic in the Optics of Diverse Approaches

At the center of the article is the main macro-object of aesthetics – the “aesthetic” as a specific type of socio-cultural reality, a mode of spiritual, appropriating attitude to the world, and a special semantic quality of all components of this attitude. The discussion in this piece is the possibility and scientific relevance of a multifocal perspective or a polyparadigmatic analysis of the aesthetic (AEST). Consideration is given to the theoretical and methodological prerequisites of such an analysis: the recognition of the particular specificity of aesthetic phenomena, the comprehension of the sociocultural nature of AEST and its belonging to spiritual culture, the genetic, causal, and contextual connections of AEST with the cultural system, and simultaneously, the autonomy of AEST and its irreducibility to its sociocultural foundations. Drawing upon these premises, a number of approaches to AEST are explored: the phenomenological, the systemic-cultural, the relational, the axiological, the “metamorphosis” approach, the “experiential” approach, and the “field” approach. Each offers a way to represent and theoretically understand crucial facets of AEST’s essence, existence, and distinctiveness.