Abstract

This article explores the features of the human aesthetic attitude toward the world. These features are understood as forms, hypostases, or modalities of worldview. A change in any one modality logically entails changes in the others. Although human beings are both the source and the agents of these modalities, they differ qualitatively from one another in their mode of existence as well as in their structural components. These differences are examined in the article. It is argued that the aesthetic attitude toward the world is closer to the cognitive than to the ethical attitude. The cognitive attitude is institutionalized in science, the aesthetic in art, while the ethical attitude is divided into morality and ethics. The cognitive attitude of a person toward the world originates in socio-cultural perception (as do the ethical and aesthetic attitudes), but it also has universal ontological foundations.
The cognitive and the aesthetic are presented as a unity of activity and contemplation, with contemplation playing a dominant role. The article analyzes the categories of “concept,” “image,” “imagination,” “artistic form,” and “contemplation” in order to clarify the nature of the human aesthetic attitude toward the world. It also demonstrates that aesthetic, cognitive, and ethical attitudes toward reality differ fundamentally. While the cognitive and ethical attitudes are negative for different reasons, the aesthetic attitude is characterized as positive and affirmative.