Aesthetics in an expanded field towards a performative model of art, experience and knowledge /

by Linker, James A.

Professor Yvonne M. Gaudelius, Thesis Advisor This dissertation is a recasting of the concept of the aesthetic which seeks to reinstate “the full etymological range of the Greek ?????????– to perceive, sense, feel,” which “is analogous with ‘sensibility,’ the immediate physiological contact with the world through intuition (Anschauung)” (Scherer, 1995). This is achieved by recasting the aesthetic as a second order performative phenomenon – that which is illocutionary in any sensory experience, social interaction or utterance (Austin,1962, Deleuze and Guattari,1987). With the aesthetic understood as such, art becomes a way of knowing and doing which may function analogically relative to all other facets of human experience and endeavor. The aesthetic – the illocutionary – may be understood as the motive force infusing all socio-cultural relations and productions.