The Aesthetic Versus Aesthetics: Emmanuel Levinas' Critique of Mediation

Emmanuel Levinas’ corpus occupies itself with the critique of representations mediating the experience of an individual with the world and the Other person. For Levinas, any attempt of an individual to mediate their experience of the Other is inherently inauthentic, and he argues that the mediating term between the self and Other has the quality of the plastic image. This plastic image d’art is the object with which aesthetics concerns itself. Therefore, Levinas’ critique of mediation is a critique of aesthetics. The Phenomenological tradition in philosophy has the solution to the problem of aesthetics. The solution lies in Phenomenology’s basis in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason [First Critique] outlines the proper use of the term ‘aesthetic’ as based in the Greek aisthesis, meaning ‘sensation.’ Thus, Kant opens his First Critique with ‘The Transcendental Aesthetic’ of space and time as the conditions for all sensation. Phenomenology’s thesis that all consciousness is consciousness of something is indebted to this fundamental analytic of sensation. I term the fundamental analytic of sensation as ‘the aesthetic,’ as opposed to the more popular notion of ‘aesthetics’ as a concern with art and the beautiful. Ultimately, representation is a necessary element to experience, requiring that an individual re-present their experience to themself. I call The need for an individual to represent the Other to themselves ‘epistemological original sin.’ For Levinas’ Jewish context, representing the divine Other is akin to idolatry. Only the ethical revelation of the Other to the self is the solution to this fundamental problem of Phenomenology.Ph.D