Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age

by Luc Ferry

Robert De Loaiza (Translator) and R.D. Loaiza (Translator)

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Can subjective, individual taste be reconciled with an objective, universal standard? Luc Ferry argues that this problem of aesthetic theory is fundamentally related to the political problem of democratic individualism. Ferry begins in the mid 1600s with the simultaneous invention of the notions of taste (the essence of art as subjective pleasure) and modern democracy (the idea of the State as a consensus among individuals). He explores the differences between subjectivity and individuality by examining aesthetic theory as developed first by Kant's predecessors and then by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and proponents of the avant-garde. Ferry discerns two "moments" of...Read more
  • ISBN10 0226244598
  • ISBN13 9780226244594
  • Publish Date 23 January 1994 (first published 21 March 1990)
  • Publish Status Out of Stock
  • Out of Print 27 July 2021
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint University of Chicago Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 280
  • Language English