The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy: Working with Husserl

This is the first book dedicated to Husserls aesthetics. Paul Crowther pieces together Husserls ideas of phantasy and image and presents them as a unified and innovative account of aesthetic consciousness. He also shows how Husserls ideas can be developed to solve problems in aesthetics, especially those related to visual art, literature, theatre, and nature.

After outlining the major components of Husserls phenomenological method, Crowther addresses the scope and structure of Husserls notion of aesthetic consciousness. For Husserl, aesthetic consciousness in all its forms involves phantasy--where items or states of affairs are represented as if actually perceived or experienced, even though they are not, in fact, given in the present perceptual field. Husserl also makes some extraordinarily interesting links between aesthetic consciousness and nature, showing how natural things and environments become instigators of such consciousness when apprehended in the appropriate terms. This "unreality" of the object of aesthetic consciousness anticipates contemporary debates about pictorial representation and is also relevant to Husserls accounts of literature and theatre.

The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in aesthetics, philosophy of art, phenomenological aesthetics, and Husserls philosophy.