A PHILOSOPHICAL-AESTHETIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE MUSIC ACT

Abstract

The article rivets our eyes on the conceptual instruments meant to set the status of the artistic creation in the context of the other cultural manifestations, evaluation and comprehension parameters, particularly the broad definition of the artistic phenomenon, namely the particular act of musical creation. Starting from Cassirer – who prefigures the aesthetic conception of the presentational symbol by defining it as a preceding stage which at the same time educates thought - we thus discover that the interaction between the receiving subject and the artistic act is possible through a special perceptional channel that Susanne K. Langer calls “presentational perception”. This channel can seize the form of the artistic act beyond the material and physical features of the “aesthetic object” itself (without neglecting all the other perceptible characteristics). The course of the aesthetician in the prefiguration of this main thesis is articulated as follows: in Feeling and Form, Susanne K. Langer develops a theory, already anticipated in the volume Philosophy in a new key, which states that apart from the language symbolism that is characterized by discursiveness, there is another type of symbol denominated as “presentational”, specific to the arts.