Gadamer and Schopenhauer : a comparative account of their aesthetic theories

Abstract

Both Schopenhauer and Gadamer are in their own ways reactions to Kant. It is therefore useful to open this paper by contextualizing them vis-a-vis their relationship to him, pointing out briefly what they inherit and how they respond to the Kantian legacy. Kant's two critiques had explored the nature of theoretical and practical reason, but the end result was a seemingly unbridgeable gap between the two realms. On the one hand, the CritiqUB 0/ Pure Reason dealt with the limits of our understanding of the world of nature, whilst the Critique o/Practical Reason dealt with the moral domain. The former domain of unfree, determined objects was antithetical to the latter where freedom was a prequisite for moral behaviour. The irreconcilable world of subject and object - itself a major concern to subsequent German Idealists - was mediated by an aesthetic realm. Thus with the Critique 0/ Judgement Kant can also be considered as proposing a system-building philosophy within which aesthetics played an important role. And although Kant denied adding a third autonomous, aesthetic realm I this was how he was subsequently read.