Ética y estética (Novenas Conferencias Aranguren, 2000)

Abstract

Wittgenstein's Tractatus contains a mysterious aphorism to the effect that «ethics and aesthetics are the same». The existence of an underlying connivance between ethics and aesthetics has been acknowledged ever since ancient times. Here we try to look into this hard and interesting issue from the open horizon of boundary-philosophy, as put forward in my latest publications. The task will be carried out at three stages. The first one is given over to an elucidation of one core concept of ethics, freedom, in an interactive connection with our fore-understanding of our human condition. Then we raise the (Kantian) question about how the ethical «symbolically resounds» through art. The third and last stage brings up the subject of the link between ethics and aesthetics on the ground of several examples, both ancient and modern (from the great tragedies and some artistic manifestations of our modernity).