The (In)Existent Paradigm. On the Notion of Form in Wittgenstein’s Aesthetics

At the beginning of his "Lectures on Aesthetics" (1966: 2), Wittgenstein counterposes two ways of understanding language: (1) looking at the form of words (the wrong way) and (2) looking at the use made of that form (the right way). With respect to this opposition: form vs use, in my paper I wonder if (and how) it also applies to art and aesthetics, and if we should conclude that, at least according to Wittgenstein, there is no place for the notion of form in aesthetics or rather recognise that in aesthetics ‘form’ takes on a new and different meaning. Particularly, I shall try to answer these questions (a) by taking into consideration the possible meanings of ‘form’ to be found in Wittgenstein’s thought (from the logical form of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" to the later notions of perspicuous representation and paradigm), and (b) by focusing on the relation between form, works of art and aesthetic experience. What will turn out is that Wittgenstein doesn’t admit neither linguistic nor aesthetic (or artistic) formalism. Actually, the form considered as the paradigm which guides our aesthetic evaluation is not strictly a form, not a paradigm: we aesthetically evaluate art (and things) as if there is a paradigm, yet the paradigm doesn’t properly exist beyond our practice. So, for Wittgenstein, form is nothing but a rule of use: a rule of language, of thinking and feeling (see "Culture and Value", 1998: 59). It is, shall we say, a ‘form through the use’.