On Benedetto Croce’s Aesthetics

Abstract

The purpose of this article consists in drafting the peculiar characteristics of Benedetto Croce’s philosophical aesthetics and showing how the word “aesthetics” does not indicate a specific field of artistic objects. It makes reference, rather, to Philosophy itself as critical thinking. In this direction and according to Kant’s Critique of judgment, we will link Croce’s aesthetics to a reflection on the originality of sensibility and sense as the condition of possibility of knowledge. At same time we will highlight the fact that Giambattista Vico’s influence is central so Croce can define poetry as humanity’s mother tongue and characterize it as the production that shows the originality of sense in relation to reason.