The Theory of the Aesthetic Situation of Maria Gołaszewska (1926–2015) and Feminist Interventions in Philosophy

Maria Gołaszewska (1926–2015) was a Polish philosopherPhilosopher associated throughout her life with Poland’sPoland oldest academic institution, the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. She was a student of the phenomenologist RomanRoman Ingarden, himself a student of Edmund HusserlHusserl. During the post-war and communist years in Poland, Gołaszewska conducted research focusing on issues related to art and aesthetics. She created her own conception of empirically and anthropologically oriented aestheticsAesthetics, which I argue is a prime example of a theory that accounts for the perspective of genderGender, and which should be acknowledged as having anticipated the main postulates of contemporary feministFeminist philosophy. In the article I present Gołaszewska’s philosophy as a cognitively valuable response to the search of feminist aestheticsFeminist aesthetics for a suitable description of women’s experiences related to art and aesthetic perception. In accordance with this aim, I discuss Gołaszewska’s theory of the aesthetic situation, a framework within which she proposed solutions similar to feminist standpoint theories developed primarily on the basis of the feminist philosophy and feminist epistemology (Elizabeth AndersonElizabeth Anderson, Donna HarawayDonna Haraway, Sandra HardingSandra Harding, Elizabeth PotterElizabeth Potter). In recent years they have also found creative applications in feminist aesthetics (Anne EatonAnne Eaton).