Modes of Affective and Aesthetic Experience

Abstract

In this chapter I separate our experience into our different mental states to look at the constituent mental processes of aesthetic experiences where meaning-making can occur. Experience through language is very important in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and he has been quoted as saying, “Being that can be understood is language” (Truth and Method. London and New York: Continuum, 2004, 470). In support of this, conscious emotional experiences are greatly impacted by the ways that an individual uses vocabulary, concepts, and categories. Diverging from this, aesthetic experiences that have a focus on nonconscious processing are constructed through how our affective survival circuits act in response to challenges or opportunities that we face. Contrasting from this, prereflective aesthetic practices result from a synthesis between behavioural responses and autonomic bodily responses, and can be experienced as non-verbalized feelings.