Aesthetic Dissonance, Cognitive Dissonance, Praxis

Like Aesthetic Dissonance, what is commonly known as 'cognitive' Dissonance involves the compresence of two apparently irreconcilable phenomena, but unlike that of the former, the latter experience often occasions an effort to reconcile them.  However, the difference between the two experiences does not consist in a variation between the two dissonances per se.  Rather, as has been previously discussed, the awareness of Dissonance is itself as dissonant condition--a combination of Repulsion and Attraction, the result of which is an inability to act.  And, while an inability to act enhances Aesthetic Experience, and is generally regarded as necessary condition for the evaluation of Art, it can be detrimental in the context of real-life experience.  Thus, the contrast illustrates that the intellectual need to overcome Cognitive Dissonance is, ultimately, one of Praxis.