Media & Mass Communication ISSN 1314-8028, Volume 3, 2014 Journal of International Scientific Publications www.scientific-publications.net ARTS AND SCIENCES: WHEN THE PRECISE WORD IS NOT ENOUGH Clara Germana Gonçalves 1 , Maria João Soares 2 1 ISMAT, CITAD – Rua da Junqeira, 188-198, 1349-001 Lisboa, Portugal 2 ULL, CITAD – Rua da Junqeira, 188-198, 1349-001 Lisboa, Portugal Abstract This presentation aims to discuss today’s communication concerning the arts and the sciences. Contemporary’s objective/scientific paradigm seams to absorb the whole existence of true and to underestimates that which just “can be”. The discussion focus on the double paradox: on the one hand society preserves over time things that once seemed minor and on the other hand it appears that this same society finds more security when letting itself be dominated by the ultimately less human paradigm – the non-subjective one. Are we afraid of the aesthetics discourse? Key words: arts and sciences, aesthetics discourse 1. ON AN AESTHETICS DISCOURSE The discourse on aesthetics (or on beauty) seems to be a difficult matter to put into practice today. It appears as an uneasy subject specially when confronting opinions (feelings?– as feeling was not a human capacity as relevant as reasoning). Today’s society seems to be the truth/precision/proof’s society. In what constructing an aesthetics discourse concerns the lack of an adequate language and/or vocabulary allied to the protagonism of an objective knowledge independent and superior of a subjective one seems to be the main obstacle. And it is the lack of the precise word that implies the (apparently?) non-objectivity. To express an aesthetic point of view or opinion on a specific object can be hard to consider. However, while discussing the aesthetic dimension of any object may imply the lacking of that exact and unequivocal vocabulary that discussion is based upon a common experience. Experience that we know although not equal may be, however, comparable. When subjectivism becomes intersubjectivism it can turn into a basic system of common communication, even if it cannot be expressed using the precise word. Classical aesthetics categories like gracious or pathetic can well illustrate the case: one knows what they mean although not being able to describe them in an exact and unequivocally way. We all refer and report aesthetic experiences (and emotions), and even identify them with the fundamental qualitative aspects in what concerns the construction of the aesthetic value of a given object. The problems lies in turning that speech into a public one. We can take architecture as an example: an architectonic object’s capacity to induce emotion is, if not the greater, at least, one of its main capacities and surely a very desirable one. Everyone knows it though almost every critic discourse avoid a declaration on this fact. 2. OBJECTIVNESS’ REASON BASED PARADIGM Today, reason (celebrated by the Enlightenment) – supposedly superior to emotion (celebrated by Romanticism) for emotion is inferior in its certainty – seems to be a principle on which there is no discussion whatsoever. And it seems that this protagonism of the rational and the objective has led to a total adulteration of the themes and methods of debate and research concerning subjective matters; or, of those themes which seem more subjective – after all, the more human subjects. But wasn't post-modernity a definition created to put an end to it? If there was a struggle it has been a lost cause. Page 57