The Metaphysical Line of Beauty: Aesthetics and Anthropology in K. P. Moritz

Author(s)

Mario Spezzapria

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2017-05-09

Examining board members

Marcio Suzuki; Philippe Buttgen; Danièle Cohn; Martin Disselkamp; Luis Fernandes dos Santos Nascimento; Oliver Tolle

• Advisor: Marcio Suzuki

Abstract

In this work I propose to find out in the thought of Karl Philipp Moritz (1756- 1793) a homogeneous and coherent philosophical position, whose theoretical structures are paradigmatically exemplified in his aesthetical theory, which at least in part constitutes their seminal place. In short, Moritz\'s aesthetics presents itself both as an ample reflexion on totality, and as a theory of the intrinsic value of any individuality, themes that he transposed to the reflexion on man. At the heart of his aesthetical and anthropological thought lies the question: how an \"object\" (a work of art, or the character or taste of a people, or of a singular individual) can be thought in its autonomous value? Question that presupposes the experience of a lack, a lost of sense, and at the same time the man\'s constant effort to reproduce this \"objective\" value (a tension for the ideal of a whole completed totality), while human life remains essentially dominated by limitation, destruction, grief and failure. By learning to deal with a whole and complete totality (the artistic object), aesthetics becomes a paradigm for the comprehension of further domains (humanity, nature, history), and an instrument of appreciation of life as a \"work of art\". (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/16361-5 - The Roman aesthetics: Goethe and Moritz in Italy
• Grantee: Mario Spezzapria
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)