關於美學(補充)

關於藝術批評與美學的關係，梁寶的引文已說得差不多：

“Aesthetics, a term used to describe thinking about the nature of art, particularly that which treats it as a singular and independent field of human experience. Generalizations about art may be traced back through European culture to Plato and Aristotle, and engaged many writers from the 15th century onwards…but the idea that art should be treated as a distinct area of philosophical enquiry stems from the writing of Alexander Baumgarten, who in 1735 proposed a term from the Greek aisthetika (matters of perception) to distinguish thought about our sensuous responses from thought on alternative themes such as logic or ethics Kant, who took up the growing fashion for the term in 1790, set responses to nature over those to art; but from the writings (1802–3) of Friedrich Schelling onwards, the tradition of writing on aesthetics has chiefly revolved around the visual arts, literature, and music. Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics (1828) added weight to this tradition, ensuring it a firm place in subsequent philosophic systems.”

不過，值得注意的是，儘管康德(Kant)的名著 《判斷力批判》(又稱"第三批判")也涉及藝術的美感問題，但"美學"於他而言，是"the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception." ；換言之，直至康德，西方"美學"(但英語Aesthetics一詞，直至19世紀才廣泛地被使用)主要處理的是人類感性認識的條件，而美感只是人類的感 性認識之一種；直至浪漫主義(e.g. Schelling、Hegel)，藝術才被視為美學的唯一合法研究領域(Hegel甚至乾脆稱美學為"藝術哲學")，而美學亦成為了哲學旗下一門有別於 倫理學、形而上學、知識論等等的獨立領域。

可以這麼說，美學探討的是人類感性認識的條件及一般原則，是一個由具像(人類感性認識、藝術作 品)到抽象(美學原則)的過程；而藝術批評則主要依照適切的方法與美學原則，就具體的藝術作品、現象，作出分析與評鑑。所以，美學與藝術批評是兩個既相對地互相獨立但又關係緊密的領域。

至於 "Aesthetics"一詞，中譯一般譯為"美學"，這在19世紀之前，問題不大，因為美學在傳統古典藝術的概念中通常被定義為研究「美」 (Schönheit)的學說；但現代藝術的發展，似乎不再能夠單單以"美感"來概括，所以現在若果把"Aesthetics"中譯為"藝術哲學"，亦未 嘗不可。