Ecological natural aesthetics

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An ecological natural aesthetic is a continuation of the classic natural aesthetic based on a new, body-related understanding of nature. The term was mainly coined by Gernot Böhme .

Aspects of an ecological natural aesthetic

Ecological natural aesthetics rejects the modern image of nature as an object of scientific knowledge or "disinterested pleasure" (Kant) in aesthetic considerations. At this point she uses a concept of nature as the “inorganic body” (Marx) of man, with which nature is no longer what is opposite to man, but man appears as part of nature due to his corporeality .

Starting from this, the ecological aesthetic of nature develops its criticism of the destruction of the environment and demands an orientation towards humane and ecological standards.

Demarcation

The classic natural aesthetic already arises from an alienated relationship to nature, as it is characteristic of bourgeois urban culture. Nature is no longer the subject of work , as in rural conditions, but that which is outside , behind the city walls. The concept of nature in bourgeois culture was thus shaped by the townspeople . This view persists even in Adorno's aesthetic theory , for whom nature is also the other in society. Adorno's turn to nature stems from a rejection of social conditions; she finds the utopian in nature, when nature promises that there is something else besides existing (urban) life.

The ecological aesthetic of nature is motivated by overcoming this alienated conception of nature, but is not based on it. Instead, it tries to see humans as natural beings from the outset. In contrast to Adorno, it owes its topicality not to the suffering of society, but to the suffering of nature, namely when the destruction of nature by human hands now strikes back on people. Only when the ecological catastrophe occurs does the human being come back to the fore as a physical being.

While all classical aesthetics previously reduced the sensuality of people to their cognitive abilities, ecological natural aesthetics also take into account the destructibility of the body by external influences. The contact between humans and their environment no longer consists solely in the fact that they take in data from the “outside world” through their senses , which they then use for aesthetic judgment and which they can use to prove their “good taste”. Instead of “good taste” and the assessment of an (artistic) object, there is an atmosphere in which the human environment appears. However, this aesthetic category of this atmosphere is no longer beauty , but - after the merging of man and nature - the well-being of man and nature.

approaches

English landscaping

The study of English landscape gardening serves as a model for developing an ecological natural aesthetic . It shows how a connection between man and nature is possible, in which a form is not imposed on nature, but is given space by allowing it to act, its self-activity is part of the total work of art. With that, the sharp distinction between man-made art versus self-existent nature also falls .

More suggestions

The ecological aesthetic of nature owes further impulses to Adorno's definition of mimesis , as a behavior that recognizes the other in its peculiarity. Marcuse's concept of the subject of nature turns against a conception of nature as an object and emphasizes the independence and autonomy of nature. Ernst Bloch created the concept of alliance technology as a counter-term to a technical approach to nature, in which the technology stands like an "occupying army in enemy territory".

Widening

The subject of ecological natural aesthetics does not have to be nature alone, however, as Peter Cornelius Mayer-Tasch has also applied its aspects to works of art in which the ecological crisis is treated or the modern growth and profit paradigm is questioned.

literature

  • Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989
  • PC Mayer-Tasch: A network for Icarus. About the connection between ecology, politics and aesthetics . Munich 1987
  • M. Seel: An aesthetic of nature . Frankfurt am Main 1990
  • Elmar Treptow : The sublime nature: Design of an ecological aesthetic . Königshausen & Neumann, 2001, ISBN 3826019385 on Google Books (restricted view)
  • Contradiction - Munich Journal of Philosophy , No. 38, 2002: Ecological Aesthetics

Individual evidence

  1. Wolfhart Henckmann, Konrad Lotter: Encyclopedia of Aesthetics . Munich 1992, article Ecological natural aesthetics .
  2. Cf. Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 7f.
  3. Cf. Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 19.
  4. Cf. Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 24.
  5. Cf. Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 11.
  6. Cf. Gernot Böhme: For an ecological natural aesthetic . Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 79ff.
  7. Ernst Boch: The principle of hope . Cape. 37, Complete Edition Volume 5, Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 814.
  8. See PC Mayer-Tasch: A network for Ikarus. About the connection between ecology, politics and aesthetics . Munich 1987.