Strugova, E. (2025) From Aesthetic Theory to Practical Aesthetics in Foreign Studies of the XX–XXI Century: a Comparative Analysis – МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ

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Ekaterina A. STRUGOVA
Saint Petersburg State University
5, Mendeleevskaya line, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
Postgraduate Student
e-mail: ekaterina.strugova1997@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0002-7688-0679

Strugova, E. (2025) From Aesthetic Theory to Practical Aesthetics in Foreign Studies of the XX–XXI Century: a Comparative Analysis

Abstract: The historical and philosophical moments of practical aesthetics scrutinized in this article deliver practice as a problem from a special field – the Anglo-American philosophy of art and aesthetics – into the broad context of contemporary philosophy. At the historical and philosophical level, practice as a concept has demonstrated great potential for expanding the set of concepts and categories of the philosophy of art and sensuality. Practical philosophy has become an approach for the study of various aesthetic practices, aesthetics of smell, touch and taste, and the development of experimental and empirical aesthetics. The pragmatic moment of the development of various concepts and statements of foreign practical aesthetics is related to its functions: adaptive and the function of maintaining continuity of subjective aesthetic experience. The value moment of practical aesthetics has contributed to its evolution from functionality to its autonomy as a scientific field. The functional aspect and, in particular, functionalism in the philosophy of art is manifested in theories focused on aesthetic taste, sensuality, sensitivity and “secondary” senses. These objects of research evoke associations, first of all, with aesthetic naturalism in the aesthetics of the XX-XXI centuries, and secondly, with applied aesthetics, which studies certain types of art and art practices. As a result, it is concluded that in most of these practice contexts aesthetic problems are raised (the status of art, content, secondary feelings, perception, and others), the solution of which involves the search for prerequisites for foregrounding the pragmatic, value, and functional aspects in the history of aesthetics.

Key words: practical aesthetics, empirical aesthetics, naturalism, sensuality, aesthetic experience, functionalism, pragmatism, aesthetic effect, content analysis, J. Moore, S. Pepper, M. Diaconu.

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For Citation:

Strugova, E. (2025) From Aesthetic Theory to Practical Aesthetics in Foreign Studies of the XX–XXI Century: a Comparative Analysis. International Journal of Cultural Research, 2 (59). 57–72. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2025_2_57

DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2025_2_57