aesthetic perception

is a special state of perceptual consciousness where we lose ourselves in the object, forget about our individuality, and become the clear mirror of the platonic idea we perceive.

One way to achieve a more tranquil state of consciousness is through aesthetic perception. This is a special state of perceptual consciousness where we apprehend some spatio-temporal object and discern through this object, the Platonic Idea that corresponds to the type of object in question. In this form of perception, we lose ourselves in the object, forget about our individuality, and become the clear mirror of the object. For example, during the aesthetic perception of an individual apple tree, we would perceive shining through the tree, the archetype of all apple trees (i.e., the Ur-phenomenon, as Goethe would describe it) in an appreciation of every apple tree that was, is, or will be.

is the act of perceiving an individuated object not as an object, but as a platonic universal, and thus to raise the seer into a pure will-less, painless, and timeless subject of knowledge.

Since Schopenhauer assumes that the quality of the subject of experience must correspond to the quality of the object of experience, he infers that in the state of aesthetic perception, where the objects are universal, the subject of experience must likewise assume a universal quality (WWR, Section 33). Aesthetic perception thus raises a person into a pure will-less, painless, and timeless subject of knowledge (WWR, Section 34).

aesthetic perception, n.All

aesthetic perception