Acutum ingenium. Asteiologiczny motyw w estetyce i sztuce

How to read out the work of A.G. Baumgarten after Duchamp’s anesthesia? The author of this interpretation of aesthetics as asteiology (Greek: asteidzomai – to be witty) seeks to reconstruct the foundations of aesthetic thinking as the art, science and paideia of wit, and he proves that the category of acutum ingenium occupies the central role in Baumgarten’s aesthetics. From Quintilianus to Kant wit (ingenium) was comprehended as a form of invention, cognition, expression and a talent for social communication, and in Baumgarten’s asteiology as the ideal (habitus) of arts and sciences. Raising the issue of asteism (Greek: asteísmos) as a mental process in the Polish art, starting with – nomen omen – the wit of Witkacy, we have to make use of a normative model of asteic intelligence. This is the author’s answer to the wit – often without asteism – of the contemporary post-art, post-aesthetics or post-philosophy.