On artistic shaping of citizens’ political gatherings

pages: 23-33

Abstract

Following the new reading of Kant’s third critique, which was proposed by Hannah Arendt in her Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, in this paper, the author deals with the function of art in the establishment, organization and profiling of political communities. The focus is primarily on the field of music. The analysis begins with ancient philosophers (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle) and continues with the problems which relate to artistic shaping of citizens’ lives in modern epoch (Rousseau, Kant, Schiller). The goal of the paper is to show that the philosophy of art and the philosophy of music, could be taken as a political philosophy, precisely because the analysis of these phenomena constantly convinces a close intertwining of politics and aesthetics, i.e. art and power, music and power. As a conclusion, we might say that a general aesthetic sense can be seen as a kind of human organ for public aesthetic gathering of citizens. Music, poetry, visual arts, etc., have become tools for the political shaping of citizens, i.e. the tools of their political life. Keywords: aesthetics, judging, politics, sensus communis, art, music, gathering of citizens