Arte como desrealización

The paper recognizes the failure of con- temporary non-aesthetic theories of art and aims at recovering the phenomenological notion of derea- lization – which re-emerges in A. Dantoʼs idea of the ʻbracketting effectʼ of art –, in order to explain art and art-experience. The main point is that art makes us free from the ʻreal worldʼ through an act of derealization that leads to the establishment of possible or fictional worlds different from the one we live in. Artworks are primarly imaginary, unreal objects, due to the fact that they interest us only for its appearance and as appearance. Therefore, art cannot be understood without the frame of a particular kind of experience that we can understand in terms of Kantʼs notion of dis- interestedness. This notion is still productive to understand why art has a certain power to free us from the needs of reality, although through art we do have profound views of certain aspects of rea- lity and our life. Some objections against Kantʼs theory of aesthetic disinterestedness are discussed and refused, in order to understand the transcen- dental significance of the aesthetic theory of art.