Reflections on Art and the Tasks of Aesthetics in the Age of Technology

Abstract

It is frequently said that we are existing in 'the age of crisis'. However, it is equally just to say that there have been no ages without some crises. And therefore, the word crisis used as an epithet of our times implies a certain critically important character of our age which is different from that of any other age of the past. As Herakleitos once said, we cannot step twice in the same river. Though the river is same, the water that flows in it is continualIy new. Similarly, the 'present' in our times is same as the 'present' of the past only in name, but actually it is a section of a historical development quite different from any 'present' of the past. In other words, the crisis or the critically important nature of our times is quite different from that of any other age in the past. It has been

brought about by the development of natural science and machinery, the invention of which proves that man is not only 'homo sapiens' but also 'homo faber'.