Machine generated contents note: -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction, by Michael Weisberg and Jeffrey Kovac. -- 1 Trying to Understand, Making Bonds, by Roald Hoffmann -- Part 1: Chemical Reasoning and Explanation -- 2. Why Buy That Theory?, by Roald Hoffmann. -- 3. What Might Philosophy of Science Look Like If Chemists Built It?, by Roald Hoffmann -- 4. Unstable, by Roald Hoffmann -- 5. Nearly Circular Reasoning, by Roald Hoffmann -- 6. Ockham's Razor and Chemistry, by Roald (...) Hoffmann, Vladimir I. Minkin, and Barry K. Carpenter -- 7. Qualitative Thinking in the Age of Modern Computational Chemistry, or What Lionel Salem Knows, by Roald Hoffmann -- 8. Narrative, by Roald Hoffmann -- 9. Learning from Molecules in Distress, by Roald Hoffmann and Henning Hopf -- 10. Why Think Up New Molecules? by Roald Hoffmann -- 11. Protean, by Roald Hoffmann and Pierre Laszlo -- 12. How Should Chemists Think? by Roald Hoffmann -- Part 2: Writing and Communicating in Chemistry -- 13. Under the Surface of the Chemical Article, by Roald Hoffmann -- 14. Representation in Chemistry, by Roald Hoffmann and Pierre Laszlo -- 15.. The Say of Things, by Roald Hoffmann and Pierre Laszlo -- 16. How Symbolic and Iconic Languages Bridge the Two Worlds of the Chemist: A Case Study from Contemporary Bioorganic Chemistry, by Emily R. Grosholz and Roald Hoffmann -- 17 How Nice to Be an Outsider, by Roald Hoffmann -- 18. The Metaphor, Unchained, by Roald Hoffmann, -- Part 3: Art and Science -- 19. Art in Science? by Roald Hoffmann -- 20. Science and Crafts by Roald Hoffmann -- 21. Molecular Beauty, by Roald Hoffmann -- Part 4 Chemical Education -- 22. Teach to Search by Roald Hoffmann -- 23. Some Heretical Thoughts on What Our Students Are Telling Us, by Roald Hoffmann and Brian P. Coppola -- 24 Very Specific Teaching Strategies, and Why They Work, by Roald Hoffmann and Saundra Y. McGuire -- Part 5 Ethics in Science -- 25. Mind the Shade, by Roald Hoffmann -- 26. Science and Ethics: A Marriage of Necessity and Choice for this Millennium," by Roald Hoffmann -- 27. Honesty to the Singular Object, by Roald Hoffmann -- 28. The Material and Spiritual Rationales Are Inseparable, by Roald Hoffmann -- Index. (shrink)
Rediscovering Aesthetics brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy and artistic practice who reflect on current notions, ...
Designed for readers with no or little prior knowledge of the subject, this concise anthology brings together key texts in aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
Pandey, V. Introduction.--Kalelkar, K. S. Jainism, a familyhood of all religions.--David, M. D. From Risabha to Mahavira.--Chalil, J. E. Glimpses of Southern Jainism.--Gopani, A. S. Life and culture in Jaina narrative literature, 8th, 9th and 10th century A.D.--Gopani, A. S. Position of women in Jaina literature.--Ranka, R. Evolution of Jaina thought.--Pandey, V. Jaina philosophy and religion.--Shah, C. C. Jainism and modern life.--Sankalia, H. D. The great renunciation.--Shah, U. P. Jaina contribution to Indian art.--Gorakshkar, S. Early metal images of the (...) Jainas.--Bhagwati, U. Bibliographical aids for the study of Jainism. (shrink)
Figuring Animals is a collection of fifteen essays concerning the representation of animals in literature, the visual arts, philosophy, and cultural practice. At the turn of the new century, it is helpful to reconsider our inherited understandings of the species, some of which are still useful to us. It is also important to look ahead to new understandings and new dialogue, which may contribute to the survival of us all. The contributors to this volume participate in this dialogue in (...) a variety of ways--through personal experience, natural history, cultural studies, philosophical inquiry, art history, literary analysis, film studies, and theoretical imagining, and through a combination of these trains of thought. The essays expose weaknesses in western epistemological frames of reference that for centuries have limited our views and, thus, our experiences of animal being, including our own. (shrink)
Since the mid-1980s, Arthur C. Danto has been increasingly concerned with the implications of the demise of modernism. Out of the wake of modernist art, Danto discerns the emergence of a radically pluralistic art world. His essays illuminate this novel art world as well as the fate of criticism within it. As a result, Danto has crafted the most compelling philosophy of art criticism since Clement Greenberg. Gregg Horowitz and Tom Huhn analyze the constellation of philosophical and critical elements (...) in Danto's new- Hegelian art theory. In a provocative encounter, they employ themes from Kantian aesthetics to elucidate the continuing persistence of taste in shaping even this most sophisticated philosophy of art. (shrink)
The most cursory look at video games raises several interesting issues that have yet to receive any consideration in the philosophy of art, such as: Are videogames art and, if so, what kind of art are they? Are they more closely related to film, or are they similar to performance arts, such as dance? Perhaps they are more akin to competitive sports and games like diving and chess? Can we even define “video game” or “game”? We often say that (...) video games are interactive, but what is interactivity and what are the effects of interactivity on eliciting emotional responses from players? (shrink)
Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art Topics addressed include the nature of beauty, aesthetic experience, artistic value, and the nature of our emotional responses to art. Each question is treated by a pair of opposing essays written by eminent scholars, and (...) especially commissioned for the volume. Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in aesthetics, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers. (shrink)
"Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art" also features a selection of key papers from subsequent contributors that illustrate how the debates developed and how ...
In What Is Philosophy? we find philosophy devised as that power of thinking and creating which, in a division of labour with science and art, creates the concept. This division of labour points to the free interplay of Reason, Understanding and Imagination in Kant's Critique of Judgement and enables us to affirm, without obliterating the differences in kind, the non-hierarchical relationship between the three forms of thought that is asserted by Deleuze and Guattari. However, as powers of thinking (...) and creating, philosophy, science and art do not inscribe themselves in a transcendental subject. Rather, Deleuze and Guattari conceive of them, following Spinoza's ‘creating nature’, as powers that express themselves in an attribute in which every thinking subject participates. (shrink)
Marcel Duchamp once asked whether it is possible to make something that is not a work of art. This question returns over and over in modernist culture, where there are no longer any authoritative criteria for what can be identified (or excluded) as a work of art. As William Carlos Williams says, “A poem can be made of anything,” even newspaper clippings.At this point, art turns into philosophy, all art is now conceptual art, and the manifesto becomes the distinctive (...) genre of modernism. This book takes seriously this transformation of art into philosophy, focusing upon the systematic interest that so many European philosophers take in modernism. Among the philosophers Gerald Bruns discusses are Theodor W. Adorno, Maurice Blanchot, Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Emmanuel Levinas.As Bruns demonstrates, the difficulty of much modern and contemporary poetry can be summarized in the idea that a poem is made of words, not of any of the things that we use words to produce: meanings, concepts, propositions, narratives, or expressions of feeling. Many modernist poets have argued that in poetry language is no longer a form of mediation but a reality to be explored and experienced in its own right. But what sort of experience, philosophically, might this be? The problem of the materiality or hermetic character of poetic language inevitably leads to questions of how philosophy itself is to be written and what sort of communitydefines the work of art—or, for that matter, the work of philosophy.In this provocative study, Bruns answers that the culture of modernism is a kind of anarchist community, where the work of art is apt to be as much an event or experience—or, indeed, an alternative form of life—as a formal object. In modern writing, philosophy and poetry fold into one another. In this book, Bruns helps us to see how. (shrink)
A timely and philosophically significant contribution to modern aesthetics featuring some of the best contemporary work in philosophical studies of literature, moral beliefs, and thinking in art Reflects the importance of a moral life of engagement with works of art Forms part of the prestigious New Directions in Aesthetics series, which confronts the most intriguing problems in aesthetics and the philosophy of art today.
Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde explores the relationship between art and philosophy. Andrew Benjamin argues for a reworking of the task of philosophy in terms of the centrality of ontology. It is in relation to this centrality, understood through the differences between modes of being, that art, mimesis, and the avant-garde come to be presented. A fundamental part of this book is the original interpretations of important contemporary painters and their themes: Lucian Freud's self-portraits, Francis Bacon's use (...) of mirrors, R. B. Kitaj and Jewish identity, Anselm Kiefer and iconoclasm. Apart from painting, Benjamin considers architecture, literature, and the philosophical writings of Walter Benjamin and Descartes in elaborating the various aspects of ontological difference. Benjamin develops the theory of the avant-garde as a philosophical category rather than a historical marker, thus bringing the worlds of contemporary art criticism and contemporary philosophy closer together. (shrink)
v. 1. Description of the torso in the Belvedere in Rome, Essay on the capacity for the sentiment for the beautiful in art, Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks -- v. 2. The history of ancient art (vols. I, II) -- v. 3. The history of ancient art (vols. III, IV).
As an introduction to the plenary session “Metaphysics and Aesthetics” in my article I try to describe the state of philosophy of art today and give an outlook to its future development. In the last century analytical philosophy of art has been occupied with the following four questions: What is the essence of art? What is the ontological status of works of art? What are aesthetic qualities and how do we come to know them? Have aesthetic value judgments (...) objective validity? In the first step I explain why analytical philosophy of art failed to answer these questions and what this failure has to do with the end of art. In the second step I attempt to give a definition of art myself which allows to show that this failure and the end of art were inevitable. Finally I try—as a consequence—to define the general features of the art of the future. (shrink)
In Art and intention Paisley Livingston develops a broad and balanced perspective on perennial disputes between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists in philosophical aesthetics and critical theory. He surveys and assesses a wide range of rival assumptions about the nature of intentions and the status of intentionalist psychology. With detailed reference to examples from diverse media, art forms, and traditions, he demonstrates that insights into the multiple functions of intentions have important implications for our understanding of artistic creation and authorship, the ontology (...) of art, conceptions of texts, works, and versions, basic issues pertaining to the nature of fiction and fictional truth, and the theory of art interpretation and appreciation. Livingston argues that neither the inspirationist nor rationalistic conceptions can capture the blending of deliberate and intentional, spontaneous and unintentional processes in the creation of art. Texts, works, and artistic structures and performances cannot be adequately individuated in the absence of a recognition of the relevant makers4intentions. The distinction between complete and incomplete works receives an action-theoretic analysis that makes possible an elucidation of several different senses of "fragment" in critical discourse. Livingston develops an account of authorship, contending that the recognition of intentions is in fact crucial to our understanding of diverse forms of collective art-making. An artist's short-term intentions and long-term plans and policies interact in complex ways in the emergence of an artistic oeuvre, and our uptake of such attitudes makes an important difference to our appreciation of the relations between items belonging to a single life-work. The intentionalism Livingston advocates is, however, a partial one, and accommodates a number of important anti-intentionalist contentions. Intentions are fallible, and works of art, like other artefacts, can be put to a bewildering diversity of uses. Yet some important aspects of art's meaning and value are linked to the artist's aims and activities. (shrink)
This paper contains a reconstruction and discussion of some central subjects in Nelson Goodman's philosophical work. Goodman's creative symbol-constructional philosophy concerns fundamental aspects of human cognition and practice. It is argued that this provides us with the intellectual tools for constructing a genuine relationship between logic, knowledge, art, and understanding. This is shown by focusing on subjects ranging from the projectibility of predicates and nominalistic mereology to constructive relativity, ways of worldmaking and a general theory of symbols.
The contributions to this volume provide a thorough introduction to the major topics in contemporary aesthetics and the philosophy of art, in the distinctive format of philosophers engaging in head-to-head debate at a level accessible to ...
The first study dedicated to the relationship between Alexander Pope and George Berkeley, this book undertakes a comparative reading of their work on the visual environment, economics and providence, challenging current ideas of the relationship between poetry and philosophy in early eighteenth-century Britain. It shows how Berkeley's idea that the phenomenal world is the language of God, learnt through custom and experience, can help to explain some of Pope's conservative sceptical arguments, and also his virtuoso poetic techniques.
Below I will review a number of recent publications in philosophy of art and aesthetics. Since aestheticians and philosophers of art currently have a wide selection of texts available to them that would be appropriate for instructional use, it seems useful to evaluate some of these recent texts. The texts I have chosen to review vary in style, organization, and type. Because there are so many ways one could teach an aesthetics or philosophy of art course, it is (...) useful to pursue a diversity of content in assessing some of the more recent offerings in the discipline. (shrink)
The book concludes that it is a mistake to think of Art as something subjective, or as an arbitrary social representation, and of Technology as an instrumental ...
Over the last decade, aesthetic and art theory has played an increasingly significant role in the way work and its organization has come to be understood. Bringing together the work of an international spectrum of academics, this collection contributes, in an overall more critical vein, to such emerging debates. Combining both empirical and theoretical material, each chapter re-evaluates the emerging relationship between art, aesthetics, and work, exploring its potential as both a medium of critical analysis, and as a site of (...) conflict and resistance. (shrink)
Abstract In this essay I trace the role of history in the philosophy of art from the early twentieth century to the present, beginning with the rejection of history by formalists like Clive Bell. I then attempt to show how the arguments of people like Morris Weitz and Arthur Danto led to a re-appreciation of history by philosophers of art such as Richard Wollheim, Jerrold Levinson, Robert Stecker and others.
Abstract It is argued that the scattered remarks on the fine arts made in Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) present a conception of the relation between perception and the fine arts that is at once compatible with and different from Reid's mature theory of art in Of Taste (1785). This alternative account of art-relevant perception also points beyond the limits of a philosophy of art developed according to the traditional theory of taste dominant in 18th-century Scottish aesthetic (...) thought, and anticipates certain 20th-century theories. (shrink)
Introduction -- Great Mother Nature -- The gendering of nature as female : from prehistory through the Middle Ages -- Nature and art in the Quattrocento : from pupil to equal -- Technology and the mastery of physical nature : Brunelleschi and Alberti -- Genesis and the reproduction of life : Masaccio and Michelangelo -- The rebirth of Venus and the feminization of beauty : Botticelli -- A balance of power : pictorial metaphors for nature in transition -- Nature's special (...) child : Leonardo da Vinci -- The goddess in Arcady : Giorgione -- Art and nature in the Cinquecento : from competitor to master -- Love and death in Venice : Titian -- Art against nature : Raphael, the early Mannerists, and late Michelangelo -- Natura bound : the later Tuscan Mannerists -- Epilogue. (shrink)
What constitutes an event? Propelled by this question, Sounding the Event encounters a variety of theories and a host of issues that have implications for not only conceptions of nature and becoming, subject and substance but also practices of time, art and photography. This book explores dialogue in its writing and as it encounters the philosophical utterances of Michel Serres, Isabelle Stengers, Alfred North Whitehead, Jean-Franbliogçois Lyotard, Maurice Blanchot, Gilles Deleuze and Fbliogelix Guattari, and Alain Badiou.
Most "art and science" books focus on the science of perspective or the psychology of perception. Hidden Harmony does not. Instead, the book addresses the surprising common ground between physics and art from a novel and personal perspective. Viewing the two disciplines as creative processes, J. R. Leibowitz supplements existing and original research with illustrations to demonstrate that physics and art share guiding aesthetics and compositional demands and to show how each speaks meaningfully to the other. Leibowitz widens our experience (...) and understanding of both domains by exploring how concepts such as balance and re-balance, coherence and unity, and symmetry and "broken" symmetry affect and are affected by artistic vision and scientific principle. He reveals shared themes and understandings in each field and adroitly illustrates the parallels between the dabs of color and layers of images in a work of art and the particles of matter and packets of energy that compose the observable, physical world. Featuring examples of art images and complementary examples of physics concepts, this contemplative work helps us see art and physics as artists and physicists do. (shrink)
A ideia de beleza - e sua consequente fruição estética - variou conforme as transformações das sociedades humanas, no tempo. Durante a Idade Média, coexistiram diversas concepções de qual era o papel do corpo na hierarquia dos valores estéticos, tanto na Filosofia quanto na Arte. Nossa proposta é apresentar a estética do corpo medieval que alguns filósofos desenvolveram em seus tratados (particularmente Isidoro de Sevilha, Hildegarda de Bingen, João de Salisbury, Bernardo de Claraval e Tomás de Aquino), além de algumas (...) representações corporais nas imagens medievais (iluminuras e esculturas), e assim analisar o tema em três vertentes: a) o corpo como cárcere da alma, b) o corpo como instrumento, e c) o corpo como desregramento. The concept of beauty, and its consequent aesthetic enjoyment, has varied according the transformations of human societies over time. During the Middle Ages there were different conceptions, in both philosophy and art, of what the role of the body is in the hierarchy of aesthetic values. Our purpose is to present the aesthetic of the body that some medieval philosophers developed in their treatises (especially Isidore of Seville, Hildegard of Bingen, John of Salisbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas), as well as some bodily representations of medieval images (illuminations and sculptures). We thus examine the issue in three ways: a) the body as a prison of the soul, b) the body as an instrument, and c) the body as degradation. (shrink)
This book explores how the practice of art, in particular of avant-garde art, keeps our relation to time, history and even our own humanity open. Examining key moments in the history of both technology and art from the beginnings of industrialisation to today, Charlie Gere explores both the making and purpose of art and how much further it can travel from the human body.
Artists inspired by music and musicians -- Composers inspired by art and artists -- Twin talents : artist-musicians and musician-artists -- Musicians pose for the artists : a history of portrait iconography.
The aim of this thesis is to consider the relationship between philosophy and biography, and the bearing that this relationship has on debates concerning the nature and function of philosophy. There exists a certain tradition that conceives philosophy exclusively in terms of rational discourse and as such explicitly rejects the idea of any substantial relationship between philosophy and the way in which one lives. I shall argue that the claim that philosophy cannot have any impact (...) upon biography is often based upon an implicit conception of philosophy as primarily rational discourse. In contrast to this I shall draw upon Socratic and Stoic philosophical resources in order to reconstruct an alternative conception of philosophy as an art concerned with one's way of life. Central to this conception will be the relationship between philosophical discourse or argument and philosophical training or exercise. I shall argue that the ancient claim that philosophy is primarily expressed in one's behaviour presupposes a conception of philosophy as an art that involves both rational discourse and training or exercise as two equally important components. I shall argue that by adopting this alternative conception of philosophy as a techne it will be possible to understand properly the relationship between philosophy and biography. In Part One I shall outline the ancient idea that philosophy is something expressed in one's life, the Socratic conception of philosophy as an art, the Stoic development of this conception into an art of living, and some ancient objections to this Stoic conception. In Part Two I shall examine the relationship between philosophical discourse and exercises in Stoic philosophy, focusing upon the neglected concept of philosophical askesis. Central to this will be the literary form of such exercises and so I shall focus upon two texts (by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) concerned with philosophical exercises. (shrink)
Charles Bernheimer described decadence as a "stimulant that bends thought out of shape, deforming traditional conceptual molds." In this posthumously published work, Bernheimer succeeds in making a critical concept out of this perennially fashionable, rarely understood term. Decadent Subjects is a coherent and moving picture of fin de siècle decadence. Mature, ironic, iconoclastic, and thoughtful, this remarkable collection of essays shows the contradictions of the phenomenon, which is both a condition and a state of mind. In seeking to show why (...) people have failed to give a satisfactory account of the term decadence, Bernheimer argues that we often mistakenly take decadence to represent something concrete, that we see as some sort of agent. His salutary response is to return to those authors and artists whose work constitutes the topos of decadence, rereading key late nineteenth-century authors such as Nietzsche, Zola, Hardy, Wilde, Moreau, and Freud to rediscover the very dynamics of the decadent. Through careful analysis of the literature, art, and music of the fin de siècle including a riveting discussion of the many faces of Salome, Bernheimer leaves us with a fascinating and multidimensional look at decadence, all the more important as we emerge from our own fin de siècle. (shrink)
Defining the meaning and spiritual use of sacred art through its symbolic content and dependence on metaphysical principles, this work is wide in scope, covering Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Taoist art.
CHAPTER ONE Introduction The purpose of the present work is to sketch a theory of aesthetic judgement and appreciation in terms of an empiricist philosophy ...
Interpreting the everyday -- Art interpretation : the central issues -- A theory of art interpretation : substantive claims -- A theory of art interpretation : conceptual and ontological claims -- Radical constructivism -- Moderate and historical constructivism -- Interpretation and construction in the law -- Relativism versus pluralism.
Deconstruction and the Visual Arts brings together a series of new essays by scholars of aesthetics, art history and criticism, film, television and architecture. Working with the ideas of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, the essays explore the full range of his analyses. They are modelled on the variety of critical approaches that he has encouraged, from critiques of the foundations of our thinking and disciplinary demarcation, to creative and experimental readings of visual 'texts'. Representing some of the most innovative thinking (...) in the various arts disciplines, these contributions offer important challenges to existing disciplinary orthodoxies. Also included in this volume is a long interview with Derrida, published here for the first time. (shrink)
"The premise of this collection is that despite this perceptual sharing, "sublime economy" has yet to be investigated in a purely cross-disciplinary way.
"In this illustrated book, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier sets out the panorama of Pythagoras's influence and that of Christian and Jewish thinkers who followed ...
This symposium is inspired by the round tables organised by James Elkins in Cork, Ireland and Chicago which aimed to create a dialogue between art historians and philosophers on concepts which are central to the way both disciplines conduct their respective endeavours. For our symposium, art historians and philosophers will discuss topics and concepts which are likely to be given different interpretations by the respective disciplines. We will attempt to bridge the gap between the respective interpretations by inviting a closer (...) consideration of the alternative perspective. The first topic will be the relation of aesthetic and moral considerations in evaluating the photography of Bill Henson. The second will be "Beauty" and the third, will be the nature of "Aesthetic Autonomy". (shrink)
CHAPTER ONE Plato IT is a mark of wisdom in Greek political thought that the form and content of education receive primary consideration from those who are ...
In this multi-disciplinary volume, comprising the work of several established scholars from different countries, central concepts associated with the work of the Bakhtin Circle are interrogated in relation to intellectual history, language theory and an understanding of new media. The book will prove an important resource for those interested in the ideas of the Bakhtin Circle, but also for those attempting to develop a coherent theoretical approach to language in use and problems of meaning production in new media.
Integrating Kant's ideas on aesthetics and morality, Dr. Kemal explains how Kant's theories emphasize that art is critical to the development of culture and community goals. He clarifies Kant's often obscure efforts to justify artistic judgements and demonstrates Kant's claim that they have their own necessity. Containing explanations of many difficult terms present in Kant's Critique of Judgment, this study is a valuable guide to understanding Kant's association of beauty and morality.
The machine in the ghost -- A computer art form -- Live wires: computing interaction -- Work to rule -- Artist to audience -- Computer art poetics -- Atari to art -- Envoi.
I describe the emergence of Floridi’s philosophy of information (PI) and information ethics (IE) against the larger backdrop of Information and Computer Ethics (ICE). Among their many strengths, PI and IE offer promising metaphysical and ethical frameworks for a global ICE that holds together globally shared norms with the irreducible differences that define local cultural and ethical traditions. I then review the major defenses and critiques of PI and IE offered by contributors to this special issue, and highlight Floridi’s (...) responses to especially two central problems – the charge of relativism and the meaning of ‹entropy’ in IE. These responses, conjoined with several elaborations of PI and IE offered here by diverse contributors, including important connections with the naturalistic philosophies of Spinoza and other major Western and Eastern figures, thus issue in an expanded and more refined version of PI and IE – one still facing important questions as well as possibilities for further development. (shrink)
This essay investigates Josiah Royce's sustained interest in the Platonic dialogues by focusing not only on Royce's explicit commentary on Socrates and Plato but also on significant philosophical connections between Royce and these figures. In section 1, we explain the nature of loyalty according to Royce and how Socratic loyalty exemplifies Royce's ideas in both evident and surprising ways. In section 2, we claim that Royce's treatment of “lost causes” (particularly truth as a lost cause) relates to Socrates' dedication to (...) the logos; the Platonic dialogues are reinvestigated in order to make this point. In section 3, we explain the nature of “cause” both in Royce's thought and in the Platonic dialogues in order to see how loyalty to a cause culminates in the art of wise living—Socrates' philosophical practice. (shrink)
Leisure activities account for much of our time - and money. But are contemporary forms of leisure good for us? Are they really leisure? And how much does (and should) leisure matter? Classical philosophers paid attention to these questions. Increasingly, modern philosophers too are realizing the importance of leisure, and of a good leisure / work balance. Hayden Ramsay looks at the meaning of leisure, and the links between recreation, relaxation, virtue, and happiness. By focusing on leisure activities such as (...) sport, travel, music and reading, Ramsay explores the need for good play in a good life. (shrink)
Art and Morality is a collection of groundbreaking new papers on the theme of aesthetics and ethics, and the link between the two subjects. A group of world-class contributors tackle the important question that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life. The volume is a significant contribution to the philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include the relation (...) of aesthetic to ethical judgment; the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness; the moral status of fiction; the concepts of sentimentality and decadence; the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music; the moral significance of tragedy; and the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. (shrink)
In his Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism, Paul Crowther argued that art and aesthetic experiences have the capacity to humanize. In Art and Embodiment he develops this theme in much greater depth, arguing that art can bridge the gap between philosophy's traditional striving for generality and completeness, and the concreteness and contingency of humanity's basic relation to the world. As the key element in his theory, he proposes an ecological definition of art. His strategy involves first mapping out and analyzing (...) the logical boundaries and ontological structures of the aesthetic domain. He then considers key concepts from this analysis in the light of a tradition in Continental philosophy (notably the work of Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Hegel) which--by virtue of the philosophical significance that it assigns to art--significantly anticipates the ecological conception. On this basis, Crowther is able to give a full formulation of his ecological definition. Art, in making sensible or imaginative material into symbolic form, harmonizes and conserves what is unique and what is general in human experience. The aesthetic domain answers basic needs intrinsic to self-consciousness itself, and art is the highest realization of such needs. In the creation and reception of art the embodied subject is fully at home with his or her environment. (shrink)
