Outlines of theoretical and practical parity in the legacy of Joseph Addison

Abstract

The article analyzes the situation in the scientific and artistic space of England in the transition period from classicism to the Enlightenment on the example of the legacy of Joseph Addison - a famous English writer, esthetician and politician. It was J. Addison who belonged to those intellectuals of his time who perceived, positively evaluated and - within their own capabilities - contributed to the "entry" of certain enlightenment ideas into the research space of the time. On the one hand, they significantly expanded the ideas of his contemporaries about the potential of aesthetic knowledge, the attribution of which at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, albeit slowly, but transformed from a rationalist model to the recognition of the positive role of sensory factors. The role of J. Addison's scientific research on the phenomenon of "aesthetic experience" and its possible interaction with "imagination" is emphasized. This theoretical orientation contributed to the formation of philosophical and psychological theory of imagination, which later became entrenched in the European research space thanks to J. Vico. J. Addison's literary and theatrical environment was reconstructed, which intensified the popularization of his work in England, enabling the influence of the writer, poet and playwright on the current process of cultural creation and outlining the importance of his heritage in the national and European humanities due to the favourable assessment by R.G. Collingwood. It is proposed to use the factors of culturological analysis - interdisciplinarity, personalization in the context of the biographical method, dialogism and formal-logical structure "theoretical-practical parity", as far as the transition from classicism to the Enlightenment taking into consideration the time was an important historical and cultural stage which can also be the object of theoretical analysis in the framework of cultural history and culturology.