Aesthetics A Comprehensive Anthology

by Cahn, Steven M.; Meskin, Aaron

• ISBN13: 9781405154345
• ISBN10: 1405154349
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-10-08
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The appreciation of art and the pursuit of beauty are fundamental elements of human life, and for almost as long as we have engaged in philosophical inquiry we have been theorizing about aesthetic matters. Covering nearly 2,500 years of theory and analysis, this anthology offers the most comprehensive collection of readings on aesthetics and philosophy of art currently available. From Plato's Ion to work by contemporary philosophers of art, Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology showcases classic texts that speak for themselves in showing the development of philosophical thought about art and the aesthetic. Thorough, systematic, and flexible, this volume is an ideal guide to the field and makes an excellent textbook for a variety of courses in philosophical aesthetics.

Author Biography

Steven M. Cahn is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of nine books, including Fate, Logic, and Time, Saints and Scamps: Ethics in Academia, revised edition, Puzzles and Perplexities, second edition, and God, Reason, and Religion. He has also edited or co-edited some thirty volumes, including Classics of Western Philosophy, now in its seventh edition.

Aaron Meskin is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. His publications on aesthetics have appeared in the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research and a number of anthologies. He is also aesthetics editor for the online journal Philosophy Compass (Wiley-Blackwell).

Table of Contents

Alternative Table of Contents	p. ix
Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xvi
Source Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Classic Sources
Introduction	p. 3
Ion	p. 16
The Republic	p. 24
Symposium	p. 34
Poetics	p. 41
Ennead I, vi	p. 57
De Musica	p. 64
On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology	p. 72
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times	p. 77
An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue	p. 87
Of the Standard of Taste	p. 103
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful	p. 113
Laocoon	p. 123
Critique of Judgement	p. 131
Modern Theories
Introduction	p. 163
Letter of an Aesthetic Education of Man	p. 167
Philosophy of Art	p. 170
The Philosophy of Fine Art	p. 180
The World as Will and Representation	p. 193
The Beautiful in Music	p. 217
The Birth of Tragedy	p. 222
What is Art?	p. 233
"Psychical Distance" as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle	p. 243
Art	p. 261
Aesthetics	p. 270
The Principles of Art	p. 282
Art as Experience	p. 296
Feeling and Form	p. 317
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction	p. 327
The Origin of the Work of Art	p. 344
Aesthetic Theory	p. 358
Truth and Method	p. 370
Contemporary Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
Introduction	p. 391
Aesthetic Problems of Modern Philosophy	p. 396
The Role of Theory in Aesthetics	p. 409
The Artworld	p. 417
What is Art? An Institutional Analysis	p. 426
When is Art?	p. 438
Identifying Art	p. 445
The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude	p. 455
Art and Its Objects	p. 466
What a Musical Work Is	p. 479
Aesthetic Concepts	p. 494
Beauty Restored	p. 509
Categories of Art	p. 521
Appreciation and the Natural Environment	p. 538
The Intentional Fallacy	p. 547
The Postulated Author: Critical Monism as a Regulative Ideal	p. 556
Art, Intention, and Conversation	p. 568
The Ethical Criticism of Art	p. 589
Expressive Properties of Art	p. 602
Style and Personality in the Literary Work	p. 616
Emotions in the Music	p. 628
Fearing Fictions	p. 637
Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers, and the Gendered Spectator: The "New" Aesthetics	p. 651
Index	p. 664
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