Aesthetic Action

Florian Klinger

Published by Stanford University Press 2024

Aesthetic Action

Florian Klinger

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503637627

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this new book, Florian Klinger gives readers a basic action-theoretical account of the aesthetic. While normal action fulfills a determinate concept, Klinger argues, aesthetic action performs an indeterminacy by suspending the action's conceptual resolution. Taking as examples work by Tino Sehgal, Kara Walker, Mazen Kerbaj, Marina Abramović, Cy Twombly, and Franz Kafka, the book examines indeterminacy in such instances as a walk that is at once leisurely and purposeful, a sound piece that is at once joyous and mournful and mechanical, or a sculpture that at once draws one in and shuts one out. Because it has irresolution as its point, aesthetic action presents itself as an unsettling of ourselves, our ways, our very sense of who we are. As performers of such action, we don't recognize one another as bearers of a shared human form as we normally would, but find ourselves tasked anew with figuring out what sharing a form would mean.

In conversation with philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Anscombe; political thinkers such as Marx and Lorde; and contemporary interlocutors such as Michael Thompson, Sebastian Rödl, and Thomas Khurana, Klinger's book makes a case for a conception of the human form that systematically includes the aesthetic: an actualization of the form that is indeterminate and nevertheless rational. The book gives the project of Western philosophical aesthetics a long-overdue formulation for our present that aims to do justice to contemporary aesthetic production as it actually exists. It will appeal to those working in philosophy, art, and political thought.

Author / Editor information

Florian Klinger is Associate Professor in Germanic Studies and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Theory of Form: Gerhard Richter and Art in the Pragmatist Age (2022).

Reviews

"This book rethinks action through aesthetics and aesthetics through action, providing us with a new insight into the kind of unsettling that the aesthetic is and affords."—María del Rosario Acosta López, University of California, Riverside

"Klinger gives us an entirely new way of understanding the indeterminacy of our encounters with art. In his incisive analyses he offers a truly fresh view of art, one that opens the fields of interaction each work creates."—Niklaus Largier, University of California, Berkeley

"Aesthetic Action offers a highly original and substantial outline of a new understanding of aesthetics. This is an important and rigorous contribution to emerging conversations in philosophy, of highest interest for readers interested in giving an account of contemporary art."—Rüdiger Campe, Yale University

"With ingenious, stunning readings, Klinger breaks new ground in aesthetics. This is a philosophy of art with which thinkers and scholars will contend for years to come."—Henry W. Pickford, Duke University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ONE: The Unsettling
1. The Thought of Aesthetic Distinction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Life Form and Settledness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
3. Aesthetic Unsettling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
4. The Use of Unsettling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
5. The Account Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
TWO: Accounting for Ourselves
1. Determinacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
2. The Original Scene of Self-Determination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
3. Form as Answer: Hegel’s Conception of the Aesthetic as Determinacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
4. Form as Question: A Conception of the Aesthetic as Indeterminacy The Alternative Accounts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
5. The Task of a Unified Accounting Our Argument about Indeterminacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
THREE: A Three-Way Capacity
1. Rationality and Indeterminacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
2. A Rational Capacity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
3. Failed Attempts at Conceiving Indeterminacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
4. Indeterminacy as Part of Our Form Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
5. Indeterminacy as Such Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
FOUR: Logical Account of Aesthetic Action: Aspectual Irresolution
1. The Concept of Aesthetic Action Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
2. Distinction through Aspectual Irresolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
3. Internal Unity in Crisis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
4. Aesthetic Indeterminacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
5. External Unity with Action at Large Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
FIVE: Material Account of Aesthetic Action: Bond without Terms
1. Logical and Material Accounting Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
2. Bond without Terms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
3. Aesthetic Interaction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
4. Life as Such Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
5. The Question of Who We Are Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
SIX: Aesthetic Transformation
1. Aesthetic Action as Transformation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
2. Performance without Resources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
3. The Work of Aspectual Irresolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
4. Transformation That Includes Its Terms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
5. The Aesthetic Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
SEVEN: The Use of the Aesthetic
1. The Political as Example Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
2. Our Form as Political Task Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	282
3. Tino Sehgal: Genus Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	290
4. Kara Walker: Politics of Difference Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	304
5. Mazen Kerbaj: Politics of Life as Such Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	373
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	385

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 404
Keywords: Aesthetic action; Theory of action; Philosophical aesthetics; Theory of art; Political theory; the human form; Kant; Hegel; Marx; Lorde

eBook

Published: January 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781503637627