Das Schöne und der Schatten. Dunkle Vorstellungen und ästhetische Erfahrung zwischen Baumgarten und Kant

The aim of the essay is to focus on the role of the concept of “obscure representation” as part of the more general notion of aesthetic ugliness in A. G. Baumgarten’s and in Kant’s philosophy. 1) Despite of its origin in the context of a theory of knowledge and of its negative significance as opposite to clearness, the notion of obscurity gains a positive role in the aesthetic experience by Baumgarten. In the first part the paper shows that Baumgarten’s view of the obscurity of representations leads to the acknowledgement that obscuritas is an essential internal component of clear (not distinct) representations. Oscurity has not, as by Ch. Wolff, a mainly negative meaning, and so the idea of a positive conceived unconscious “ground of the soul” (fundus animae) becomes important. 2) The second part analyses Baumgarten’s idea of “extensive clearness”, which distinguish his position from that of Leibniz and Wolff, since from it follows that sensibility acquires its own cognitive significance and realizes a particular cognitive improvement in the field of aesthetic experience. 3) The third part of the essay distinguishes the different forms of “lack of light” or obscuritas by Baumgarten, their complex relations and their connection to the concept of ugliness. The artist can use the obscurity in some regards as a vehicle to reach a particular aesthetic effect; nevertheless it is conceived as defectus and by consequence in principle as a part of the ugliness of an art work. 4) In the fourth part the connection between the obscure representations and the unconscious dimension of subjectivity is discussed in detail, showing the presence of first steps for a positive conception of unconscious activity by Wolff and more important premises in direction of this development in Baumgarten’s idea of a fundus animae or campus obscuritatis. This idea finds a first positive application in the aesthetic field by Baumgarten in the concept of the “impetus aestheticus”, in which the obscurity seems to be internally linked with the “pregnantia” of the representations and the enthusiasm of the soul. 5) Finally, in the fifth part the essay reconstructs and discusses the development of the role of obscure representations in Kant’s aesthetics, in relation mainly to the notions of genius and of imagination, showing which broad and important use in the aesthetic reflection concept now assumes, which were originally considered as part of the realm of ugliness.