Aesthetics and Hermeneutics: Between Symbol and Allegory

In this article I argue that in the Western tradition there have appeared three different conceptions of art that correspond to three different philosophical positions: according to the first, the Platonic-Christian, there would be a close relationship between art and truth; according to the second, which corresponds to Modernity, art would be autonomous with respect to the truth; and finally, in its form—we could say—ultramodern, there would be a discrepancy between art and truth. Furthermore, I argue that in each of these interpretations of art and philosophy, our relationship with tradition is transformed and, with it, hermeneutics is also transformed into its function of preserving and transmitting said tradition. The main thesis consists in affirming, in the first part of the article, that aesthetics transforms hermeneutics and therefore philosophy itself. In the second, I describe the three different conceptions of philosophy that have occurred in the West and their different conceptions of art. I also argue that tradition must be preserved, but not because it possesses the truth that has to be accepted without any dispute, but because, among other things, following a suggestion from Nietzsche, art defends us from the truth. Here I highlight the tension between the Platonic-Christian tradition and the Greek tradition and I indicate, in the last part of the article, a possible synthesis between the two, distinguishing between symbol and allegory.