ABSTRACT
Aesthetics by its very nature is applied psychology and has to do not only with the aesthetic qualities of things but also —and perhaps even more—with the psychological question of the aesthetic attitude. Aside from the numerous individual peculiarities of attitude, some of them more or less unique, there are two basic antithetical forms which Worringer has described as abstraction and empathy. Empathy presupposes that the object is, as it were, empty, and seeks to imbue it with life. Abstraction presupposes that the object is alive and active, and seeks to withdraw from its influence. The unconscious depotentiation that precedes the act of empathy gives the object a permanently lower value, as in the case of abstraction. Since the unconscious contents of the empathetic type are identical with the object and make it appear inanimate, empathy is needed in order to cognize the nature of the object. Abstraction and empathy, introversion and extraversion, are mechanisms of adaptation and defence.
