ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SELECTED IDEAS OF ETHICS AND AESTHETICS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE
Authors: Gejdoš Miroslav , Šimšíková Annamária 
Published: February 2025

The theme and task of this theoretical study is the ethics and aesthetics of human existence in philosophy. The aim is to provide a brief insight into the issues of ethics and aesthetics of human existence in philosophy and to present the philosophical-pedagogical ideas of selected thinkers in the history of philosophy. We could document this aim using the historiographic method and the method of philosophising. Based on the established research question: RQ: What role did the aesthetics and ethics of human existence play in philosophy? We focused on the views of selected ancient philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who paid great attention to ethics and the associated aesthetics. Subsequently, we focused on a thinker of medieval scholasticism influenced by ancient philosophers—Thomas Aquinas, who addres-sed questions of existence concerning ethics and aesthetics. Furthermore, from the modern era, we selected philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. From contemporary thinkers, we present ideas chosen from Popelová (1962), Lomnický (2010), Páleš (2012), and Švihura (2014). Based on the research question, we investigate the development and shift in the per-ception of ethics and aesthetics from classical Greek philosophy to contemporary history. Classical Greek philosophy advocated universal truths and forms, medieval philosophy upheld a synthesis of reason and faith, and modern existentialist philosophy, including con-temporary history, emphasises individual experience and creativity. We present specific fin-dings that Socrates already sought harmony between aesthetic value and its ethical dimen-sion, linking the aesthetic concept of beauty with moral and ethical principles—the ideal of good reflected in it. Subsequently, Plato does not separate ethical action from the aesthetic value of good, based on the concept that the world of physical, transient reality, i.e., the sen-sory world, imitates a lasting, ideal world characterised by the supreme idea of good and is dependent on the ideal world. Aristotle perceives aesthetic disposition—artistic creation and ethical disposition manifesting through practical action as integrity, attributes of a balanced soul. Thomas Aquinas connects concrete existence and general essence—being through the act of God, in which both coincide. In the modern era, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard enriches the dimensions of ethics and aesthetics with a third religious dimension. In contemporary history, specifically concerning postmodernism, Lukáš Švihura points out the risks of an aestheticised society, particularly when ethical principles are absent in aestheticising areas of life. Sub-sequently, Jiřina Popelová offers a tool within ethics and aesthetic education—"higher" art, through which a cultivated being can manifest itself in aesthetic creation. At the same time, Lomnický Igor confirms the contribution of art as a catalyst for activating being towards change. Emil Páleš provides stimuli for the aesthetic, psychological personality type in the direction of virtuous activation.