ABSTRACT
Husserl’s observations on drama and the experience of theatrical representation lend themselves to be compared with some of Kant’s insights into the nature of aesthetic experience. The second maxim of Kant’s power of judgment calls for a broad-minded way of thinking, based on the idea that, when a subject judges, s/he has to put him/herself in the shoes of other possible subjects. This is possible because aesthetic judgment is grounded on the analogy, on the “as-if”: we have to consider the nature as if it were ordered for us, we have to consider the beauty of a work of art as if it had a universal validity, as if any other subject experiencing it would feel exactly what I feel when I experience it. This latter example is drawn from the Deduction of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment, and it refers to the role that the other has in fictional dimensions, like those shaped by art. Kant’s argument concerning the “as if” of fictional experience can be fruitfully compared with Husserl’s description of the “as-if” in aesthetic experience. The main questions addressed in this chapter are the following: which role does imagination play in the experience of a work of art? How can we share representations about fictional objects? Can we speak about a truth-value of art in terms of a quasi-truth? And, if yes, does this quasi-truth constitute a form of knowledge? The comparison between Kant’s and Husserl’s texts on aesthetic experience allows us not only to show how both authors contribute to the answering of these questions, but also to discuss how their answer may complement each other.
