Summary and Conclusion

Abstract

The philosophical function of aesthetics is to bring together into a unity coherent with sound philosophical principles the findings of more specific studies which bear upon the experience of beauty and by this effort to render ever greater areas of human experience transparent to the intellect. The ideal guiding the present essay has been on one hand to neglect no kind of experience which could reasonably and in terms of definitions formulated with both eyes on the given data be called aesthetic, and on the other hand to make use of no greater number of organizing principles than appeared necessary to introduce a defensible order into this experience. Probably the use of these two guiding ideals of inclusiveness and simplicity is itself defensible on aesthetic grounds, for these principles may direct one to the forming of a product which is apt to elicit the aesthetic experience. A writer on aesthetics, then must regard himself in the position of attempting to make aesthetics more aesthetic. A large number of authors have expected to meet this requirement either by the beauty of their style in writing or by the plentitude of aesthetic illustrations. Whatever aesthetic claims can be made for the present essay must rest upon the breadth of subject matter included — viz, perceptual, imaginative, emotive and conceptual, — and to the few but, presumably, adequate principles which were employed.