Estetyka jako nauka filozoficzna. Uwagi o obecnym stanie dyskusji

Among the issues discussed in the debate concerning the theoretical status of aesthetics is, for example, the ambiguity of the concepts fundamental to the discipline. This is especially true in the case of the essence of beauty, ontological status of art, the nature of aesthetic and artistic experience, social and individual impact of art, the rules for verification of aesthetic propositions, etc. A multitude of divergent, often mutually exclusive understanding of these concepts makes very difficult to determine the status of the discipline itself. Aesthetics has also been accused of the lack of terminological precision of its concepts, incoherence of its theoretical assumptions, and bad methodology. Another objection is that aesthetics it is rather a cluster of reflections coming from ontology, epistemology, semiotics, theory of culture, anthropology, sociology, psychology or linguistics, rather than an independent discipline on its own. The fact that art has now entered virtual worlds has further diminished the aestheticians' desire to form normative propositions concerning the art. With the above in view, I sketch a possible definition of subject of aesthetic reflection as an independent philosophical discipline.