ABSTRACT

Chapter 4, integrates elements of Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics and the work of a number of contemporary aesthetic theorists and suggests basic definitions of aesthetic discourse and aesthetic experience. Further, conceptualising modern society as a discursively differentiated entity characterised by conflictual interplay of discourses, it theoretically elaborates differences and compatibilities between aesthetic and political discourse. It introduces the concept political judgement as a composed entity and discusses the potentials and limitations of aesthetic experience in relation to the democratic political process.