UDC

101.1+18:316

Authors

Inna V. Cherdantseva
Altai State University; ul. Dimitrova 66, Barnaul, 656049, Altayskiy kray, Russian Federation;
e-mail: innacherd@mail.ru
Anna S. Nikolaenko
Altai State University; ul. Dimitrova 66, Barnaul, 656049, Altayskiy kray, Russian Federation;
e-mail: nikolaenkoanna1990@gmail.com

Abstract

The authors examined the notions of taste and fashion through the prism of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic project, in which an original approach is taken to the interpretation of these notions. The article aimed to describe Gadamer’s understanding of taste and fashion as well as evaluate the importance of differentiating between these notions for philosophical discourse in the future. The authors found in Gadamer’s ideas some references to Kant’s aesthetic views and drew a parallel between these landmark teachings. Kant’s aesthetics treats taste as sensus communis (common sense), i.e. something obvious that goes without saying for most people. Gadamer develops this idea and interprets taste as a predominantly characteristic feature, shifting the focus of attention to the subject that uses taste as something well-known and generally accessible in order to socialize, adapt to a new social environment and acquire an aesthetic understanding of reality. The authors come to the conclusion that, according to Gadamer, the notions of taste and fashion differ in the axiological sense: taste is of individual nature and is mainly formed under the influence of internal factors, whereas fashion is affected by external factors. This difference in origin produces the difference in the essence of the phenomena in question. The paper describes the latter difference and suggests that in order to study taste and fashion one has to construct opposite grounds, for instance, single out social actors that differ in their status and functions: the elite and the masses. The authors conclude that when differentiating between taste and fashion it is important to turn to paradoxical mental models, because traditional approaches make it difficult to describe such controversial phenomena in their entirety.

Keywords

H.-G. Gadamer, philosophy of culture, hermeneutics, hermeneutic approach, aesthetics, fashion, taste

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