Irrationalism and Aestheticism

Irrationalism and aestheticism were philosophical movementswhich formed as a cultural reaction against positivismin the early 20th century. These perspectives opposed or de-emphasized the importance of the rationalityof human beings. Instead, they concentrated on Kant's "noumenal realm", or the experience of one's own existence.

Part of the movements involved claims that sciencewas inferior to intuition. In this project, artwas given an especially high place, as it was considered the gateway to the noumenon. Unfortunately, not all of the public at the time were involved in this movement and only the elitehad access to the art(ie. a "Mandarin elitism").

Some of the followers of this idea are Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Bergson, and Sorel. Symbolismand existentialismgrew out of these schools of thought.

See also

• Rationalism

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrationalism+and+Aestheticism Wikipedia article Irrationalism and Aestheticism.