9 3 The symbolic and imaginative nature of the aesthetic

Aesthetics is one of the most complex and multifaceted areas of philosophy, including many different elements and approaches. One of the key characteristics of aesthetics is its symbolic and figurative nature. This means that aesthetic perception and appreciation of art, nature, and culture are often based on symbols and images that carry deep meaning and emotional load.

1. Symbols and Images in Art
In art, symbols and images play a central role. Artists, sculptors, writers, and musicians use symbols to convey their ideas, emotions, and philosophical reflections. Symbols can be culturally specific or universal, reflecting human emotions and experiences. For example, a dove can symbolize peace, and the color red can symbolize passion or danger.

2. Aesthetic Perception and Symbolism
Aesthetic perception is often associated with symbolism, as symbols help create a deep understanding of a work of art. Symbols allow the viewer to interpret and comprehend a work of art on several levels, including emotional, intellectual and spiritual. This makes art more multi-layered and meaningful.

3. The Role of Archetypes
Archetypes, as universal symbols, play an important role in aesthetic perception. These images, such as the hero, shadow, mother, were studied by Carl Gustav Jung. Archetypes are present in myths, fairy tales and religious texts of different cultures and carry the collective unconscious experience of humanity. They help to create deep connections between the work of art and the viewer.

4. Cultural Context
The symbolic and figurative nature of the aesthetic also depends on the cultural context. Symbols and images can have different meanings in different cultures. For example, the lotus in Indian culture symbolizes spiritual enlightenment, and in Chinese culture - purity and beauty. Understanding the cultural context helps to better interpret and appreciate works of art.

5. Emotional and spiritual depth
Symbols and images carry emotional and spiritual depth, which makes aesthetic perception more intense. They allow the viewer not only to see the external beauty of the work, but also to penetrate its inner meaning, causing an emotional response and spiritual experience.

Activity - its types (material and practical, cognitive, artistic, etc.) - has a symbolic and figurative nature. The concepts of "symbol" and "image" have developed in culture and have been defined in aesthetic theory as ways of displaying and consolidating the wealth of meaningful layers of spiritual experience. Interest in the symbol as a way of providing universal content (idea) in an image can be traced throughout the history of the formation of aesthetic experience. Let us recall that this concept was developed in the aesthetics of Plato, later - in the Neoplatonist Plotinus, in Christian theologians, in particular Dionysius the Areopagite. Representatives of philosophical romanticism, first of all, F. Schelling, comprehensively substantiated the concept of a symbol, in particular an artistic symbol, considering art as the most adequate way of self-expression of the Absolute. The symbolic nature of art in the historical change of the type of symbolism in connection with the change in the nature of the dialectical connections of the idea and the image is argued in Hegel's "aesthetics". Interesting developments in the problem of the symbol are contained in the philosophical heritage of E. Cassirer, the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud and the analytical psychology of K. Jung. Philosophical analysis of the problem of the symbol reveals its specific, and universal property - the symbolic nature of thinking, the genesis of which is associated with the spiritual self-development of mankind in the activity of objectifying the world. Let us recall that the Greek word symbolon means "sign, sign". The symbol is characterized by the wealth of experience invested in it in the spiritual and practical development of the world through semantic layers of meanings. A symbol as an aesthetic concept is an image, but in a special way of its existence: concentration of content, which requires "decoding", the ability to see spiritually related content behind an external sign. A. Losev considers a symbol as "a generalized semantic power of an object, decomposing into an infinite series, comprehends and the entire infinity of particular objects, the meaning of which is itself." In other words, a symbol with expressive manifestations of the vitality of an object arises from the concentration of semantic layers of spiritual experience, explains itself as specific objects.

A symbol serves as a kind of code for the conclusion of spiritual experience in certain forms determined by culture. In this sense, the nature of a symbol also arises aesthetic. Not only the works of human hands have an aesthetic nature, not only artistic formation, not only images of the natural world introduced into the spiritual experience of mankind. Scientific knowledge also has a symbolic nature: it "creates" the world, concluding its manifestations in a system, has the reliability of truth, comprehends the laws of being. In this case, "the concept of true things is their symbol"

The foundations of individualization of the human image are acquired due to the allocation of individual knowledge, skills or possession of "sacred" objects, which ensures the special effectiveness of efforts. In myths, fairy tales, epics, the hero is made (or he makes himself) tools, designed specifically for his strength, adapted to his hands. In Homer's "Iliad", the god Hephaestus makes weapons for Achilles, caring about beauty and convenience, that is, the unity of function and quality.

No less stable is the idea of ​​the symbolic (magical) property of objects to be amulets from evil forces or to help a person gain victory over evil. In fairy tales, the hero often wins not so much due to his own strength, but due to the properties of the sword or stick in his hand. It is no coincidence that objects are given individual vitality ("soul") in the form of symbolic definitions of its unique vitality (ornament, inlay, etc.). For example, a belt - a symbol of a circle - is an amulet object, which in the culture of many peoples symbolizes the protection of life. The origins of its symbolic properties are connected with the image of the solar disk. The same function is performed by decorations in the form of a circle on the hands, neck, chest. This is an image-symbol of protection from evil forces. Let us recall the magic circle that Khoma the philosopher outlined in Gogol's story "Viy". Evil forces could not break through its boundaries until Foma himself destroyed it: raising his eyes to Viy, he established a spiritual connection with the forces of evil.

Individualization of experience by means of symbolic imagery corresponds to the need to raise it above everyday life, to formalize it into a holistic, expressive image of vitality and thereby acquire the experience of an indifferent attitude towards it. Consequently, activity creates an image, and its content symbolizes the possibilities and achievements of humanity as a whole in the images of knowledge and skill bearers. Let us emphasize the essential feature characteristic of aesthetic consciousness: it reflects the uniqueness of individual vitality in the image given to it and at the same time symbolizes the natural in the spiritual experience of humanity (the idea of ​​spirituality).

The idea of ​​human creative powers and possibilities shines in the individual image. In order to highlight the boundaries of the valuable in experience, its concentration is needed. Therefore, the real bearer of the experience of the masses to be a hero - to symbolize the ability of the race. With his creative qualities, he forms the content of experience, opens its formative possibilities. Thanks to the individualization of the image of knowledge and skills in their subject, there is a transition "from mythological thinking to metaphorical", that is, from aesthetic formation to its highest level - the artistic imagery of art with its inherent richness of the cross. In an expressive figurative way of being, experience arises psychologically convincing and is experienced as personally desirable. Thus, the personification of the universal in the sense of experience, taking into account its values, arises the idea of ​​God. In worship before him, a person bows before himself, aesthetically experiencing his being: not himself-ordinariness and profanity of this world, but experiences his symbolic figurative embodiment, his potential power and the infinity of his possibilities - the potency of his possible "other" being. This is where mythological ideas about the "other world" come from. This is a symbol of the possibility of realizing one's own potential in another, more perfect "being". This is a project of oneself-another being, where paradise is an ideal environment for realizing oneself in an ideal image within the ideal space, that is, the prospect of realizing oneself in goodness, beauty, justice, rationality, etc. The more that is postponed for "later", the greater the hope and faith in the existence of this "later".

Conclusion
The symbolic and figurative nature of the aesthetic makes art and culture unique and multilayered. Symbols and images play a central role in the creation and perception of aesthetic objects, providing a deep and polysemantic interaction between the work of art and the viewer. This allows art and aesthetics to express complex ideas, emotions and philosophical reflections, making them important elements of human experience.