ABSTRACT
Cassirer's general philosophy is of enduring worth, and his idea of the basic symbolic function offers a structure that is flexible to unify the conceptual framework and accommodate the diversity of its components. Crowther also offers a distinctive interpretation of the self as an aesthetic narrative structure. Aesthetic cognition can establish the definition of art on a genuinely universal basis instead, of defining it in a way that primarily reflects western interests and issues in the visual arts. Cassirer-Crowther aesthetic cognitivism, establishes that the aesthetic and artistic are not luxurious commodities, but express and develop features basic to the humanity. This creates the possibility of a genuine Copernican turn in aesthetics where the emphasis would switch from the conditions under which artworks are engaged with from an audience viewpoint, to the ontology of how such works, through their intrinsic features and relation to other works in the same medium, transform the appearance of reality.
