Resumen: En el presente artículo se analizan y vinculan las nociones de naturaleza, cuerpo y potencia a partir de Spinoza y Marx, en virtud de los cuales se plantea que la exteriorización del hombre y su esencia es no solo social, sino productiva en el sentido de praxis y actividad de sí mismo y lo social. En este sentido, este acto de producción en el mundo contemporáneo está enmarcado en la experiencia cotidiana de habitar la ciudad, la cual, bajo el (...) alero del capitalismo, ha sido reducida a una estética del hábitat a partir de procesos de dominación material y subjetiva, que ostentan la estandarización de las prácticas sociales, escindiendo la potencia del hombre, invirtiendo el orden afectivo y por tanto escindiendo la corporalidad y el ámbito cognitivo de los hombres.: In the present article it will be analysed and associated the concepts of nature, body and potency based on Spinoza and Marx, from this point it will be suggest that the act of man’ exteriorization it’s not only social, but also productive in the sense of praxis and activity of itself and of social. In this sense, this creative act is based in the contemporary world in the daily experience of inhabit the city, the one, under capitalism, is been reduced to an habitat’aesthetic, by process of material and subjective domination which pretend the social practices’ standardization, separating man’s potency, inverting the affective order and, by conclusion, separating corporality and the cognitive sphere of men. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the complex relations between aesthetics and phenomenology as they show themselves within the core locus of their interplay—the realm of the visible and the invisible. To do so, the paper examines a specific case study, a Rembrandt painting—A Woman Bathing in a Stream (1654)—through which the discussion illuminates the interconnected and inseparable relationship between aesthetics and phenomenology in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the visible and the invisible. The reading addresses both dimensions of the (...) visible: the essential intersubjective aspect of life and its complex visual representation in art. To achieve this, the paper first explores Merleau-Ponty’s late aesthetic ontology—a phenomenology that perceives the aesthetic realm, particularly the visible domain, as originating from human corporeal existence, thereby redefining the act of seeing and the concepts of the visible and the invisible; I show the manner in which invisible elements permeate our visual experience in the Rembrandt painting and in seeing as such. The paper also reveals the unique ontological role of painting and the painter in unveiling the aesthetic world, and in guiding the philosopher toward a vision that true philosophy—phenomenology—must embrace. The paper concludes by rethinking the significance of aesthetics, and especially, the arts, to phenomenological thought, and the necessity of phenomenology to aesthetic thought. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The analysis of Heidegger’s conception of language serves as a starting point and common thread to explain his aesthetics theory and the linkage and relationship between aesthetics and ontology, and between aesthetics and truth, (...) understood as aletheia, as an “out of oblivion”, as “un-concealment.” Second, we analyze the constitutive characteristics of Da-sein, as being-in-the-world, from the point of view of language. Third, considering the historical horizon as ontologically constitutive of Da-sein, we try to explain from real life what does this temporality mean and what does create mean, as well as why the creation of a work of art occupies an important place in relation to Heidegger’s proposal. We finally ask what is poetry to Heidegger and in what ways it is inseparable from the truth (aletheia). And we try to interpret the scope of Poetry (Dichtung) in relation to aesthetics and of language in relation to the truth. Lenguaje, olvido del ser, aletheia (verdad), desocultación, Dichtung (Poesía), poiesis, creación, estética, ontología fundamental, vida auténtica o autenticidad. (shrink)

본고에서는 왕부지의 氣一分殊說의 사유방식에 주목하고 그 속에서 담긴 一本萬殊의 氣學的모형을 생태주의적 본체론에서 접근하여 생명공동체의 지속가능한 차원을 모색한다. 氣一分殊說은 자연계에서 진행되는 元氣의 유기체적 체계, 즉 생명의 자생적 연결망과 그 생명력의 흐름에 착안한 것이다. 그것은 元氣, 太虛, 氣化및 太和의 범주로 설명된다. 즉 생명력의 원기는 태허의 순환적 실재 속에 기화의 지속적 과정을 거쳐 태화의 최적화된 상태를 통합적으로 유지한다. 氣一分殊說은 一本萬殊의 모형으로 특징화된다. 이 모형에는 인간 주체가 객체적 대상의 세계를 통합적으로 조망하는 지속가능한 시계가 있다. 그것은 자연과 인간의 내재적 관계에 초점을 맞추고 元氣의 유기체적 체계에서 (...) 삼라만상의 스펙트럼을 인식한 통일적 질서의식의 틀을 제공한다.BR 이러한 질서의식의 틀은 생태주의적 본체론을 통해 접근될 수 있다. 생태주의적 본체론은 생태주의의 시선과 본체론의 사유를 결합한 방법론이다. 그것은 元氣의 創發的생명력을 바탕으로 하여 派生의 존재를 규정하고 稟受의 가치를 상정한 방법론이라고 말할 수 있다. 특히 파생과 품수의 본체론적 관계는 太虛의 場에서 氣化의 역동적 과정을 거쳐 최적화된 太和의 통합적 상태에 집중되어있다. 태화의 통합적 상태는 생명공동체의 지속가능한차원에서 이해된다. 그것은 공감대와 유대감의 지속가능한 질서를 반영하며 생명공동체의 심미의식으로 자리잡는다. 이러한 의식 속에 인간의 삶은 끊임없이 변화하고 지향하는, 결코 완결되거나 완성되지 않는 자아실현의 과정이다. 여기에서 개인의 사적인 욕구와 집단의 공적 이익은 원만하게 충족된다. 이러한 태화의 생태주의적 차원에서야 비로소 인간은 변화의 세계를 올바로 인식하고 세계의 변화를 주체적으로 이끌어가면서 창조적 삶의 조감도를 만들어갈 수 있다. 따라서 一本萬殊의 생태주의적 본체론은 태화의 공감대와 유대감에 접근할 수 있는 방법론으로서 생명공동체의 생명미학적 경계와 맞물려있다. (shrink)

Yuriko Saito, the leading figure in the field, explores the nature and significance of the aesthetic dimensions of people's everyday lives. She argues that everyday aesthetics can be an effective instrument for directing humanity's collective and cumulative world-making project.

The aesthetics of everyday life, originally developed by Henri Lefebvre and other modernist theorists, is an extension of traditional aesthetics, usually confined to works of art. It is not limited to the study of humble objects but is rather concerned with all of the undeniably aesthetic experiences that arise when one contemplates objects or performs acts that are outside the traditional realm of aesthetics. It is concerned with the nature of the relationship between subject and object. (...) One significant aspect of everyday aesthetics is environmental aesthetics, whether constructed, as a building, or manipulated, as a landscape. Others, also discussed in the book, include sport, weather, smell and taste, and food. (shrink)

The complex relationship between life and the arts has always Vbeen a crucial topic in philosophical discourse. The essays in this book discuss fundamental issues of modern and contemporary aesthetics, drawing upon the work of the French philosopher Jean- Pierre Cometti, a key fi gure in the studies of aesthetics, pragmatism, and Austrian philosophy. The volume covers a wide-range of topics, from the examination of fundamental principles of art and literary criticism to a new understanding of the (...) Modernist notion of art. It proposes an anthropological aesthetics using Musil's The Man Without Qualities or the analysis of literary characters such as Tolstoj's Hadji Murat and Cervantes' Don Quixote as a tool to cast light on themes in Wittgenstein's philosophy. Editors Carla Carmona and Jerrold Levinson have brought together renowned voices in the field of philosophy to offer a window onto Cometti's philosophical work, as well as an in-depth analysis of contemporary artistic and aesthetic practices, in an effort to overcome what can sometimes appear as a gulf between art and life. (shrink)

The review examines different essays from the context set by the idea of 'everyday aesthetics'. Confronted with the notion of "everyday aesthetics," one is immediately faced with some problems of definition. Such problems potentially threaten the viability of the everyday aesthetics project to extend the scope of philosophical aesthetics, so that, as Jonathan Smith suggests in his introduction to this collection of essays, "nothing in the everyday world (or at least very little) can be supposed devoid (...) of the power to excite an aesthetic response." "Everyday" can mean both "daily" and "ordinary," and while the two definitions often coincide in practice, there's no necessary connection: we can conceive the "daily" as remarkable, and the "ordinary" may not be a regular occurrence. If we focus on the aesthetics of the "daily," we might wonder which particular daily occurrences we can be properly said to experience aesthetically and if this means some reassessment of the category of "aesthetic objects" is required, given that "daily" is so often associated with the mundane, the nonaesthetic. Alternatively, if we conceive an aesthetics of the "ordinary" (with agreement on this classification of certain events and objects), then our notion of the "aesthetic" now seems vulnerable on either of two counts: (1) to claims of incoherence, given any agreement that exemplary aesthetic experience, at least, is fundamentally not of the "ordinary" (and never of the "ugly," of the stained, damp, cracked, and so on, in our domestic lives) but of an extraordinary class of events and objects called "art"; (2) to claims of cognitive and moral triviality (to amorality too, perhaps, that it's possible then, after Thomas de Quincy, to appreciate the way a murder is done), so that the aesthetic response is understood as merely a subjective, noncritical "look and feel" response to (almost) everything. It should be evident, then, that the notion of everyday aesthetics needs clarification before it can be of value to those interested in instructing or helping people to live aesthetic lives, and that such work of clarification gets to the very heart of philosophical aesthetics: answers to questions about what constitutes the "aesthetic" in life will inform all aspects of aesthetic inquiry, education, and practice, including the making and appreciating of artworks. (shrink)

This ethnography explores the aesthetic dimension of religion and the sensational ways in which it contributes to shaping ordinary ethics on Long Street in Cape Town, South Africa. In the context of everyday social life on Long Street, homeless peoples’ claim of an ethical character is denied recognition. Long Street is a public space of conviviality and differences, a hybrid social reality marked with growing urbanization, globalization, and neoliberalism, and overseen by a continuous presence of security units. It is (...) a street saturated with ever‐increasing social problems resulting from a revival of class differences. Ordinary ethics on Long Street is complex, unpredictable, dynamic, and vulnerable, and stands the risk of potential breakdown. Against this backdrop, this ethnography recounts the ways in which aesthetic formations of religion stimulate technologies of imaginations that offer homeless people sensory experiences of refuge, recognition, being, and belonging amidst social exclusion and a harsh lived experience. Aesthetics of religion are ethics made visible in public life. (shrink)

Ayn Rand was both an artist and an esthetic theorist. The essence of Rand's view of art is that an artwork presents a philosophy, that is, a basic view of life. To identify what an artwork concretizes, Rand introduces her concept of metaphysical value‐judgments. Rand's esthetic theory, being reached inductively rather than being deductively imposed on phenomena, allows for special cases which differ in certain respects, such that the same general principles apply in a somewhat different way. Architecture and (...) music are such cases. Rand's championing of Romanticism is one more case in which she applies the principle that underlies her entire esthetics. Art serves a fundamental need of man's consciousness by bringing his concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allowing him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts, thereby unifying man's consciousness and offering him a coherent view of existence. (shrink)

Deleuze's publications have attracted enormous attention, but scant attention has been paid to the existential relevance of Deleuze's writings. In the lineage of Nietzsche, Life Drawing develops a fully affirmative Deleuzean aesthetics of existence. For Foucault and Nehamas, the challenge of an aesthetics of existence is to make your life, in one way or another, a work of art. In contrast, Bearn argues that art is too narrow a concept to guide this kind of existential project. (...) He turns instead to the more generous notion of beauty, but he argues that the philosophical tradition has mostly misconceived beauty in terms of perfection. Heraclitus and Kant are well-known exceptions to this mistake, and Bearn suggests that because Heraclitean becoming is beyond conceptual characterization, it promises a sensualized experience akin to what Kant called free beauty. In this new aesthetics of existence, the challenge is to become beautiful by releasing a Deleuzean becoming: becoming becoming. Bearn's readings of philosophical texts--by Wittgenstein, Derrida, Plato, and others--will be of interest in their own right. (shrink)

You have a complex and detailed aesthetic life. You make aesthetic decisions every day. You wake up, shower, and dress. When you decide what to wear, you think about how it feels and fits. You have aesthetic feelings and reactions every day. The sunset swings into view as you turn a corner and you think, “That’s beautiful.” A wave of calm and pleasure wash over you. You take a bite of cake and you think, “Wow, that’s sweet.” Maybe too (...) sweet. Almost everything you do has an aesthetic dimension—from the way you make your bed, prepare your coffee, and tie your shoes, to the way you speak to others and edit photos to post on social media. You have a complex and detailed aesthetic life that you orchestrate every day through your aesthetic decisions, reactions, feelings, and actions. But why live this way? What exactly is aesthetic life and why, if at all, does it matter? In Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters, three philosophers present their different answers to this question and discuss the many challenging and fascinating philosophical issues that arise in our aesthetic lives. (shrink)

This paper explores the general characteristics of the aesthetics of life. Our approach will be in thinking about the aesthetics of life as a domain independent from the realms of ethics and morality. This thesis discusses some of the theoretical debates around those concepts. The notion of ‘pleasure’ in those practices will be discussed as the one that gives shape to ‘the art of life’. Pleasure also makes it possible for a person to perform these (...) practices for a long period of time; what we call the ‘life-long character of the aestheticization of life’.However, this effort endeavors to demonstrate another central theme of this style of life; the individual/social character of those practices is the one that exemplifies ‘the art of life’. Thinking simultaneously about ‘oneself’ and the ‘other’ is the main concept that helps us the most to appreciate these practices. These debates are elaborated further in some case studies that have been researched between 2016 and 2019. These are real examples of peoples’ lived experiences who, in different ways, try to give meaning to their lives by turning their existence into a work of art. (shrink)

The Aesthetic Sense of Life is a fast-moving book about how to see the world and get value from living every day with the "everyday." Do the infinite number of sensations we're surrounded with every day have intrinsic value? If not, what gives them value? Who appreciates the sunrise if we don't? Is it enough for just us to appreciate it? Or do we have to share it? The Aesthetic Sense of Life considers and answers to questions such (...) as these in clear, readable prose, offering a way of looking at life that makes clear its value and its meaning. The aesthetic sense of life is neither the viewpoint of the saints—for whom the sensations of the world are mere murmuring and illusion—nor the viewpoint of those completely fulfilled by their things, their gadgets, the particulars of their own lives. Most of us fall in the middle between these two extremes: we appreciate, say, a good cup of coffee, a power tool, a new set of towels, or a juicy steak, but don't think the answer to the riddle of existence is to be found in any of these. We appreciate them without thinking them sufficient. What's missing from them? What's missing is this: a sense that they can give meaning to life. (shrink)

Introduction At first sight the field of Marxist theories of aesthetics consists of a disparate collection of theories with very little in common. ...

The paper aims to investigate the peculiar relationship between art and life in the context of Nietzsche’s thought. We mean to show how Nietzschean aesthetics is not conceived as a theoretical and rational reflection that abstractly investigates the conditions of possibility of beauty and art: on the contrary, aesthetics is understood by Nietzsche as a practice aimed at shaping life in a beautiful form. The topic of the Lebens-form is considered as a common thread of an (...) original exegesis of human types as aesthetic symbols of life within Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche’s notion of “becoming who we are” will therefore be understood as an ability to affirm and realize one’s life in all its potential. The Dionysian conception of art, which is considered in The Birth of Tragedy as an ecstatic inebriation that stimulates life and saves man from the tragedy of pain, will then be compared with the idea of ars vivendi, referring to the notion of wisdom and to the Hellenistic-Roman practice of ἄσκησις. (shrink)

This paper traces the philosophical concept of life prior to Kant and uses this to contextualize his account of aesthetic judgment as a form of life. It argues on this basis that, according to Kant, the form that taste claims for itself, as explicated in its four moments, results in a demand being placed on the transcendental philosopher to admit the idea of an ultimate subjective basis of all cognitive activities in human beings, that is, a shared principle (...) and form of cognititive life htat is uniquely human. (shrink)

From the 1970s to the early-1990s, the discourse surrounding aesthetics largely disappeared from the study of art history, theory and cultural studies. Claims for the aesthetic value of art-works were thought of as elitist and politically regressive. The 1990s witnessed a return to aesthetics, but one that stressed the independent claims of beauty, in reaction to its perceived suppression by ethical and political imperatives. However, beauty is just one aspect of the aesthetic. In recent years, increasing attention has (...) been given to the ways in which aesthetics and ethics are intertwined. In a series of paired essays and responses, a group of the English-speaking world's most distinguished thinkers consider this 'new' aesthetics, demonstrating its cross-disciplinary relevance in terms accessible to a non-specialist readership. (shrink)

In Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life, Yuriko Saito continues, and extends, her work in everyday aesthetics. Her writings on aesthetics have always h.

The main objective of this article is to reflect on the way in which a certain neoliberal logic and rationality have become common-sense and to contemplate the possibility of a different aesthetic. The tone or mood of this piece draws on recent work on atmosphere, affect and complexity, which will be used to explore the theme of neoliberalism within the context of the university. In the course of this discussion, I will consider questions such as: how could a different aesthetic (...) influence the university as public space; the curriculum and academic community and friendship? How could a different aesthetic respond to epistemic, ontological and, inherently tied to them, spatial injustice? (shrink)

The main objective of this article is to reflect on the way in which a certain neoliberal logic and rationality have become common-sense and to contemplate the possibility of a different aesthetic. The tone or mood of this piece draws on recent work on atmosphere, affect and complexity, which will be used to explore the theme of neoliberalism within the context of the university. In the course of this discussion, I will consider questions such as: how could a different aesthetic (...) influence the university as public space; the curriculum and academic community and friendship? How could a different aesthetic respond to epistemic, ontological and, inherently tied to them, spatial injustice? (shrink)

Reading is an affective and reflective relationship with a text, whether it is a new, groundbreaking monograph or one of those books that keeps getting pulled off the shelf year after year. Unlike traditional reviews, the pieces in this section may veer off in new directions as critical reading becomes an extended occurrence of thinking, being, and creation. The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life, by Giorgio Agamben.Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013.

A collection of my essays on aesthetic value and related topics.

Applying Aesthetics to Everyday Life surveys current debates in the field of everyday aesthetics, examining its history, methodology and intersections with cognate research areas. Lisa Giombini and Adrián Kvokacka bring together an international team of renowned scholars who are shaping the present and future of the discipline. They demonstrate how the historical origins of everyday aesthetics emerges across the history of Western aesthetic thought, from Renaissance thinkers to the modern German philosophers Baumgarten, Kant and Heidegger. Chapters (...) shed light on the field's methodological underpinnings, tracing its theoretical foundations back to epistemology and ethics and assess the potential of everyday aesthetics as a theoretical tool. They reveal its interdisciplinary nature and how it assists various fields of inquiry, including environmental and urban aesthetics, conservation ethics and the philosophy of art. Through fresh explorations of its origins, background and contemporary developments, this collection advances a new definition of everyday aesthetics and provides a cutting edge reflection on the world we inhabit today. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between Life-world (Lebenswelt) and the concepts of Originality (Originalität) and Primordiality (Primordialität) founded in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy developed in the 20’s. In order to achieve this goal, we need to begin with a transcendental phenomenological analysis to then gain access to Ontology of the World in general. Therefore, we must explain how Transcendental Philosophy relates to Transcendental Aesthetics and how it phenomenologically labels all that is outside of theory (...) and reflection (i.e., the Natural World) as a precondition to all theoretical classifications. This way the Life-world could explain the relationship between the Originality and Primordiality as proto-datum that is the base of all human acts genetically describable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Still Life Is Really a Moving LifeThe Role of Mirror Neurons and Empathy in Animating Aesthetic ResponseCarol S. Jeffers (bio)IntroductionIn the Western aesthetic canon, the still life enjoys a certain prestige; its place in the museum and on the pages of the art history text is secure. Art aficionados who appreciate the character of Cezanne's apples help to ensure the lofty standing of the still (...) class='Hi'>life, as do students who admire the dewdrops still glistening on flowers picked and painted in the nineteenth century. For some students, however, it is difficult to understand such veneration. Despite the coaxing of dedicated art or museum educators, these students find apples nestled among drapery folds or translucent petals in a spring bouquet to be "boring." No matter how compelling the apples, how exquisitely rendered the blossoms, the still life is much too static, offering little more than the lifelessness of inanimate objects.In my experience, even the most unappreciative of students can be persuaded to take a closer look at the inanimate—not by me or any strategies I may have devised but rather by classmates who have chosen still life paintings to serve as their personal metaphors. When shared during the courses I teach, these still lifes and their depicted objects acquire special meanings that are uniquely associated with the individual students who chose them. Reflecting on these class presentations, converted students offered these thoughts: "I related myself with the metaphors and the way my classmates felt"; and "What really stayed with me were the stories and the way my classmates connected with their paintings—how they connected to the art emotionally." Still another wrote: "I really liked the way their presentations went because I got to know [my classmates] a little bit more." Through these connections to still life and other genres, students explored [End Page 31] their concepts of self within a community of others and began to experience the power of empathy.Empathy, typically defined as "the intellectual or emotional identification with another,"1 is a human capacity that, according to the noted neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese, allows us to understand the world of objects as well as the world of others.2 With the recent discovery of the mirror neuron system in the human brain, Gallese and other investigators around the world have identified the neurological basis of empathy.3 Subsequent studies of the remarkable properties of mirror neurons have yielded potent new understandings of the connections between empathy, objects of art and material culture, and intrapersonal relationships among human beings. Interestingly, these twenty-first-century findings tend to confirm a nineteenth-century connection between aesthetics and empathy, or more precisely, Einfuhlung ("in-feeling," or "feeling into"), a term coined by the philosopher Robert Vischer in 1873 to describe the projection of human feeling onto art objects.4 As Vischer himself described this phenomenon, "I transport myself into the inner being of an object and explore its formal character from within, as it were."5These insights, whether gained through the use of state-of-the-art brain imaging technologies or dusty volumes in a German library, have led Gallese to consider some interesting implications, such as, for example, those involving the still life—its bottles, apples, even its brushstrokes—and to claim that "a still life is really a moving life" when understood from the perspective of neuroscience.6 To explore this claim and its relevance to classroom and museum practices, this article examines the relationship between mirror neurons, empathy, and aesthetic response as it developed among preservice teachers who presented metaphorical works of art in two teacher education courses. A brief synopsis of research results highlighting the workings of the mirroring mechanism is presented and then applied to two student presentations: one given by Molly about Cezanne's Still Life with Apples (1893-94) and the other by Deborah about Fantin-Latour's White and Pink Mallows in a Vase (1895). The stories told by Molly, Deborah, and their classmates allow additional insights with implications for art and museum education.Mirror Neurons: Some Research ResultsSome fifteen years ago, what Gallese characterizes as a "strange class" of neurons was discovered, first... (shrink)

The volume collects a series of groundbreaking new studies which delve into the work of Franz Rosenzweig and assess its enduring yet still unacknowledged value for Epistemology, Aesthetics, Moral and Political Philosophy, going far beyond Theology and Philosophy of Religion.

This book presents interdisciplinary research on the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection. Broadening this growing field, it connects the aesthetics of imperfection with issues in areas including philosophy, music, literature, urban environment, architecture, art theory, and cultural studies. -/- The contributors to this volume argue that imperfection has value in being open and inclusive. The aesthetics of imperfection is thus typified by organic, unpolished production and the avoidance of perfect finish, instead representing living and natural change, and (...) opposing the consumerist concern with the flawless and pristine. The chapters are divided into seven thematic sections. After the first section, on imperfection across the arts and culture, the next three parts are on imperfection in the arts of music, visual and theatrical arts, and literature. The second half of this book then switches focus to categories in everyday life, and branches this further into body, self, and the person, and urban environments. Together, the chapters promote a positive ethos of imperfection that furthers individual and social engagement and supports creativity over mere passivity. -/- Imperfectionist Aesthetics in Art and Everyday Life will appeal to a broad range of scholars and advanced students working in philosophical aesthetics, literature, music, urban environment, architecture, art theory, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Aesthetic value cannot be discussed separately from aesthetic experience. According to Western aesthetics discourse, the paradigm of aesthetic experience is a s.

Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is one of the most widely read works of Continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion. While several commentaries and critical editions exist, Jeffrey Hanson offers a distinctive approach to this crucial text. Hanson gives equal weight and attention to all three of Kierkegaard’s "problems," dealing with Fear and Trembling as part of the entire corpus of Kierkegaard's production and putting all parts into relation with each other. Additionally, he offers a distinctive analysis of the (...) Abraham story and other biblical texts, giving particular attention to questions of poetics, language, and philosophy, especially as each relates to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Presented in a thoughtful, well-informed, and fresh manner, Hanson’s claims are original and edifying. This new reading of Kierkegaard will stimulate fruitful dialogue on well-traveled philosophical ground. (shrink)

The everyday is that element of our material and social environment that comes closest to us, and is thus the least visible; for it stands to reason that it will neither attract attention to itself, nor catch the eye.

As a new trend in aesthetics appearing concurrently in the West and the East in the last ten years, the aesthetics of everyday life points to a growing diversification among existing methodologies for pursuing aesthetics, alongside the shift from art-based aesthetics. The cultural diversity manifest in global aesthetics offers common ground for the collaborative efforts of aesthetics in both the West and the East. Given the rapidly growing interest and its potential for attracting (...) new audiences extending beyond the more narrowly focused traditions of twentieth-century analytic and environmental aesthetics, it stands to command its own share of attention in the future of aesthetic studies. The aesthetics of everyday life has become a stream of thought with a global ambition. This interest has led to numerous systematic and in-depth works on this topic, some of which were conducted by the authors represented in this volume. A salient feature of this book is that it not only represents the recent developments of the aesthetics of everyday life in the West, but also highlights the interaction between scholars in the West and the East on this topic. Thus, the project is a contribution toward mutual progress in the collaboration between Western and Eastern aesthetics. What distinguishes this book from other anthologies and monographs on this topic is that it reconstructs the aesthetics of everyday life through cultural dialogue between the West and the East, with a view to building a new form of aesthetics of everyday life, as seen from a global perspective. At present, the aesthetics of everyday life as a newly emergent approach to aesthetics may encounter skepticism among aestheticians accustomed to the rigors of analytic philosophers who prefer to discuss aesthetics at the level of abstract concepts and argument, and who tolerate the particulars of experience mainly as illustrations. But, there is no reason to abandon the pursuit of the aesthetics of everyday life in the face of such objections. On the contrary, there are many benefits to gain in bringing aesthetics to bear on a wider sphere of human life, made possible through efforts to show the relevance of aesthetics to a broader range of human actions. (shrink)