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This is a book about simplicity - not destitution, parsimoniousness or self-denial, but the restoration of wealth in the midst of an affluence in which we are starving the spirit. It is a book about the advantages of living a less cluttered, less stressful life than that which has become the norm in the overcrowded and manic-paced consuming nations. It is a book about having less and enjoying more, enjoying time to do the work you love, enjoying time to spend with your family, enjoying time to p...

Die Sartre Gesellschaft nahm das Erscheinen von Sartres Drama Der Teufel und der liebe Gott vor gut funfzig Jahren zum Anlass, das aus der religioesen Tradition ins Politische verschobene Kategorienpaar gut - boese in seinen aktuellen moralischen und ethischen Dimensionen zu befragen. Von der Breite und Vielfalt dieses Themas zeugen die hier veroeffentlichten Tagungsbeitrage. Aufsatze und Rezensionen erweitern und erkunden philosophische, literarische und ideengeschichtliche Bezuge, die unter Be...

This study offers an original and innovative collection of fresh approaches to the investigation of the concept of ugliness. It is divided into three parts: the idea of ugliness; Kantian conceptions of the ugly; and ugliness and art. The papers in all three sections deal with problems in the way that aesthetics has understood the concept of the ugly, in aesthetic experience, in fine art, and in contrast with the beautiful. These are new papers from a range of scholars from diverse philosophical...

Die Rede von einer Goetheschen Asthetik unterstellt dem Kunstdenken des Dichters einen theoretischen Anspruch, der Goethes Schriften zur Kunst und zur Literatur zunachst nicht zu entnehmen ist. Eine Rekonstruktion dieser explizit nicht aufweisbaren Kunsttheorie wird daher immer nur auf Umwegen moglich sein und problematisch bleiben mussen. Vor dem Hintergrund der fur das klassische Kunstdenken in seiner systematischen Entfaltung reprasentativen Kunsttheorie Humboldts sollen hier die kunsttheoret...

Gadamer's aesthetics demonstrates that the experience of art is grounded in the objectivities of language, history and tradition. By treating words and images as transmittable placeholders for meanings and concepts, hermeneutics gives a persuasive account of how artworks communicate. Davey demonstrates how hermeneutics transforms aesthetic reflection into a poignant attentive practice that is open to the unexpected. This new "poetics" is relevant not only to the understanding of art but also to...

Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson's and Deleuze's time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging "Ci...

He has been regarded with suspicion by some, as an anti-postmodernist who dared to write about unfashionable concepts such as truth and meaning. But in recent years, the philosopher Alain Badiou has risen in prominence, pioneering new ways to produce, conceptualise and discover art. Badiou Reframed is an original book about an original thinker which applies - for the first time - Badiou's philosophy to the visual arts. The six central concepts of this philosophy - 'being and appearing', 'event a...

Building upon Husserl's challenge to oppositions such as those between form and content and between constituting and constituted, The Concept of Passivity in Husserl's Phenomenology construes activity and passivity not as reciprocally exclusive terms but as mutually dependent moments of acts of consciousness. The book outlines the contribution of passivity to the constitution of phenomena as diverse as temporal syntheses, perceptual associations, memory fulfillment and cross-cultural communicati...

Carlo Belli (1903-1991) war vorwiegend als Kunst- und Musikkritiker tatig. Zu Beginn der 30er Jahre pragte er das Programm der fortschrittlichen Mailander Galerie "Il Milione," in der zum ersten Mal in Italien Werke von Kunstlern wie Kandinsky und Albers gezeigt wurden. 1935 publizierte Belli seine Streitschrift "Kn," in der er vehement fur eine anti-individualistische und ungegenstandliche Kunst eintritt. Diese Studie untersucht Bellis geistig-historisches Umfeld und die Genese seiner in "Kn" f...

Bildlichkeit ist eine zentrale Kategorie nicht nur der Asthetik seit Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts, sondern mittlerweile auch eines Alltags, der immer starker bildmedial erfahrbar wird. Dies hat auch diese Aufsatzsammlung uber Denkbilder motiviert, kurze literarische Texte also, die einen anschaulichen Moment entfalten und seine Subjektivitat pragnant werden lassen fur allgemeingultige Zusammenhange. In einem historischen Langsschnitt von Winckelmann/Lessing bis Handke/Ransmayr soll deutlich werden...

Immer noch unterstellen theologische Interpretationen Kunstwerken religiose Aussagen, ohne sie wirklich analysiert zu haben. Ein solcher Ansatz, mit dem in der Moderne die Autonomie des Betrachters nicht wahrgenommen wird, ist der asthetischen Konzeption des offenen Kunstwerkes keineswegs angemessen. Eine zeitgemasse theologische Interpretation der Kunst sollte sich von jedem wahrheitsasthetisch gepragten Ansatz verabschieden und sich stattdessen zeichentheoretisch orientieren. Gerade dieser Ans...

Comparing the lived world with the ideal world, noted American philosophical naturalist, poet, and literary critic George Santayana (1863-1952) seeks in this influential compilation of his earlier works to outline the ancient ideal of a well-ordered life, one in which reason is the organizing force that recognizes the need to allocate science, religion, art, social concerns, and practical wisdom their proper role and appropriate emphasis within the fully developed human experience.

Infinite Gradation is an astonishing meditation on the moral, emotional, and philosophical implications of love and the creative act, especially those creative works that, as George Steiner has said, "make a deposit in the bank of terror." Michaels has chosen to draw on that "bank" - to embrace life through an unblinking confrontation with the terror that is death in our time - by speaking through the work of three great artists, recently dead, who were her confidants: the sculptor Eva Hesse, th...

In this original and compelling exploration of the meaning of the term 'fine' and the phenomenon of refinement, noted scholar Michael Gelven reflects on the relationship between refinement and existence. Beginning with a study of perceptual refinement, Gelven shows how in some cases this refinement discloses an existential essence-as an architect shows us what it means to dwell. Gelven then moves to a refinement of self, not equating it with virtue but showing how refinement illuminates our unde...

The Poetics of the Avant-garde in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy presents a range of chapters written by a highly international group of scholars from disciplines such as literary studies, arts, theatre, and philosophy to analyze the ambitions of avant-garde artists. Together, these essays highlight the interdisciplinary scope of the historic avant-garde and the interconnected of its artists. Contributors analyze topics such as abstraction and estrangement across the arts, the imaginary dial...

Contemporary discussions of the image like to emphasize art's societal functions. Few studies come close to answering why pictures and sculptures fascinate and intrigue regardless of any practical functions they might serve. In this original, thought-provoking study, Paul Crowther reveals the intrinsic significance of pictures and sculptures. To address the question of how painting becomes an art, Crowther uses the analytic philosophy of Richard Wollheim as a starting point. But to sufficient...