MANUSCRIPT. THE PROBLEM OF SPIRITUAL BEAUTY (1950-1955)

The text of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty belongs to Sesemann's manuscript collection, located at the Vilnius University (F122-85). The text was written by Sesemann during the time of his imprisonment in the Gulag labor camp in Taishet (Irkutsk region). Being in the camp, Sesemann used to teach western philosophy and aesthetics to other prisoners. Sesemann devotes the manuscript of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty to reflection on the circumstances which make the aesthetic contemplation of the moral qualities possible. According to Sesemann, spiritual beauty is possible not only in the ethical field, but it also manifests itself in intellectual constructions. Ethical actions and products of human thinking are not the same, but both of them can be of the aesthetic value. All of them require the conditions for sensual presentation and realization in the specific situations. Ideas must be sensually expressed in order to acquire aesthetic value. Sesemann emphasizes two following points with respect to the aesthetics of ethical behavior. First of all, the reference is made not to general judgments about beauty, but to individual experiencing of a particular situation. Secondly, aesthetic experiencing is provoked by the actions, which astonish by their spontaneity, clarity and timeliness in a concrete situation.