Aesthetic Intentionality: Does Aesthetic Experience Constitute a Distinct Form of Intentionality?

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

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Assistant professor of IRIB University

Abstract

This paper argues that aesthetic experience embodies a genuine, sui generis form of intentionality—suspensive-interpretive aesthetic intentionality—that cannot be reduced to perception, judgment, imagination, emotion, or any combination thereof. Drawing on phenomenology, predictive-processing accounts, and contemporary neuroaesthetics, the paper shows that aesthetic consciousness is defined by the spontaneous suspension of practical and propositional attitudes; the opening of attention toward form, meaning, and intrinsic value; the phenomenal unity of sensory, symbolic, and axiological strata; the constitutive involvement of the lived body and environment; and the active cultivation of rewarding high-level prediction error. A threefold argument—conceptual, experiential, and functional—demonstrates that no existing category of intentionality can accommodate this structure without remainder. Replies to major reductionist objections (perceptual, interpretive, and normative-sceptical) further consolidate the case. The recognition of aesthetic intentionality as irreducible reconfigures central debates in the philosophy of art, expands the taxonomy of the philosophy of mind, foregrounds non-propositional modes of knowledge, and illuminates the ethical and political significance of aesthetic attention. The result is a revised map of mental directedness in which aesthetic experience occupies its rightful place as one of the fundamental ways a minded being can be oriented toward the world.

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 29 June 2026

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