Development of the Aesthetic Experience and the Freedom

The aim of this contribution is to provide an analysis of the aesthetic experience from the point-of-view of its dynamics and its development in their relantionship to freedom. The author outlines the possibility of a freer approach to one's own aesthetic experience. In addition to cognitive-scientific investigations it also makes use of complementary glimpses arising from spirituality. When a person can manage to become aware of the automatic propensities of the processes connected with the perception of beauty, he or she can begin to actively influence them. Owing to this freedom we can, in part, form our aesthetic experience over the long term; on the other hand, the perception of beauty can, in turn, have an impact on us in an existential sense and shift our understanding of the whole of reality, our values and goals such that we shall see the ideal of the formation of our own aesthetic experience in a new light.