An Interdisciplinary Revision of the Concept of Shape and its Implications on the Crisis of Culture

Abstract

Th is article refl ects interdisciplinarily on the concept of shape, exploring further other than those of contour or sensitive appearance. A review is presented from the Greek origins with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, to then review the concept of form already in philosophical modernity with Kant, Schopenhauer and Cassirer. In addition, a revision of the concept of the forms of the unconscious is done from the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. Meanwhile, from the aesthetic, meanings of form are considered, following some assumptions of the German formalism of the nineteenth century. Th e conceptual revision is completed with the gestalt psychology of art by Rudolf Arnheim, with whom the problem of the artistic form and the human form as triggers of a crisis of culture is addressed. Finally, the concept of Universally Valid Forms is proposed to explain the pre-eminence of certain aesthetic universals that have operated epochally, giving symbolic-practical consistency to the basis of the social, political and religious organization of a culture and its individuals. It is concluded that the crises that have operated in culture can be explained by paying attention to the concept of form.