The centrality of aesthetics for psychology

sciences and arts united through poetic instants

Olga V. Lehmann

pp. 51-66

in: Jaan Valsiner, Giuseppina Marsico, Nandita Chaudhary, Virginia Dazzani (eds), Psychology as the science of human being, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

Historically, aesthetics deal with two main issues related to human experience: order and sensation. These key concepts open the scenario for almost all the dilemmas of science in general and psychology in particular. The intuition of order relates to the notion of form from gestalt psychology, which at the same time speaks of sensation. From the perspective of Octavio Paz and Gaston Bachelard, this chapter suggests the notion of the poetic instants as a possibility to extend the understanding that psychology has of higher and lower mental functions in an attempt to penetrate deeper into the foundations of human culture and creativity. Furthermore, we highlight the role of sensations in connection with the notion of the aestheticological leaded by Alexander G. Baumgartner, bridging psychology with modern aesthetics at the core of contemporary challengers for theories and methodologies in cultural psychology.

Cited authors

Bachelard Gaston