"Dissanayake argues that art was central to human evolutionary adaptation and that the aesthetic faculty is a basic psychological component of every human being. In her view, art is intimately linked to the origins of religious practices and to ceremonies of birth, death, transition, and transcendence. Drawing on her years in Sri Lanka, Nigeria, ......
In this exploration of the aesthetics of modernity, Christine Buck-Glucksmann argues that in periods of perceived crisis a new form of rationality emerges to replace reasoned ways of thinking. She examines a number of key themes for modern social theory: the critique of instrumental rationality, the political crisis of loss of community and of innocence with the development of industrialization, as well as the impact of relativism on realist theories of knowledge. After examining the condition of modernity - alienation, melancholy and nostalgia - the author goes on to explore the place of the feminine in discussions of modernity: how woman is used as one of the main sources of allegorical interpretations of modernity; and how the feminine comes to stand for and represent the miraculous, the utopian, the dangerous and the androgynous. In the final part, she identifies Nietzsche, Adorno, Musil, Baudelaire, Barthes and Lacan as constituting a baroque paradigm, and lays the foundation for a baroque reason. In her explanation of themes fundamental to our contemporary condition, she invites the reader beyond post-modernism to a realm of the Other.
Offers a look at the history, ethics, and aesthetics of art from the perspective of the specific philosophical concepts of transcendence, metaphysics, subjectivity, and conditionality. This volume questions many philosophical concepts used to justify art, and views their meaning within the perspective of philosophical development.
The 13 essays in this collection are marked by a diversity of philosophical styles and perspectives on art. While some authors focus on specific forms of art, others are more concerned with the interpretation given to art by past and contemporary philosophers and artists. In some essays nothing less than the outline of a systematic account of the ......
An increasing number of philosophers are engaged in contemporary discussions in the philosophy of the arts. This work includes a broad sampling of original essays in philosophy and literature; philosophy and particular art forms, such as music; and traditional questions in philosophical aesthetics.
Includes fourteen selections from respected authorities on literature, dance, the visual arts, theatre, music, cinema, and architecture. This book captures the diversity of our changing views of art while at the same time discloses its variegated influence on the contemporary art scene.
