Abstract

Stemming from the term aisthesis, Aesthetics is born. As Heidegger notes at the beginning of Being and Time aisthesis, for the pre-Socratic Greeks was related to the process of revealing and concealing. Physical sensory perception was trusted as knowledge. However, the history of Aesthetics has covered over this sense of the term. From Antiquity on, a history of philosophy and Aesthetic Theory alike begin a grand metaphysical project to separate sense perception from reason and logos. This project culminates in the Age of Reason, with the final subordination of all aesthetics to the categories of representation. Post-Kantian philosophy and Aesthetic Theory has attempted to invert this hierarchy, forcing representation into a subset of aesthetics. These efforts take the form of re-partition, re-integration, and re-turn. In this article I will trace these two trajectories and then conclude by arguing that Deleuze’s aesthetic theory ultimately undermines both of these projects, rejecting the “re” as the re- investment in abstract thought. By overturning metaphysical binaries, Deleuze presents us with a practice of art and philosophy that is grounded in radical difference, not the re-production of the same.