From Metaphysical Representations to Aesthetic Life


Book Description

What is "Chinese philosophy?" What is "philosophy" itself? How can one understand unfamiliar philosophical stances? How can comparison become a prominent philosophical tool? In this book, Massimiliano Lacertosa examines these questions by proposing an ethical understanding of the aesthetic encounter with the other and the world. Through the analysis of the works of Laozi, Zhuangzi, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, among others, this book explores the possibilities of stepping out of the anthropocentric standpoint and seeing the relation of objects in the world under a different light. This implies a shift from the metaphysical representation of the world divided between the sensible and the supersensible to an aesthetic and undivided experience of the world in which one partakes in the constant transformation of the myriad things. Approachable yet rigorous, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the most fundamental issues of philosophy and in the challenges of doing philosophy in a multicultural context.







Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work


Book Description

This book introduces the reader to the literary work and to an understanding of its cultural background and its specific features. In doing so, it refers to two main traditions of Western culture: one of aesthetics and the theory of art and the other of literary theory. In our postmodern world, language and artistic creation (and above all literature as the art of language) occupy a special role in understanding the human world and become existential issues. A critical attitude requires knowledge of the relevant past in order to understand what we are today. The author presents key topics, ideas, and representatives of aesthetics, theory, and the interpretation of works of art in an historical perspective, in order to explain the Western tradition with constant attention to the present condition. Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work offers an outline of essential concepts and authors of aesthetics and theories of the literary work, presenting basic topics and ideas in their historical context and development, considering their relevance to the contemporary debate, and highlighting the specificity of the experience of the art work in our present world. The best way to approach a work of art is to enjoy it. In order to enjoy a literary work, we have to consider its correct context and its specific artistic qualities. The book is conceived as a general and enjoyable introduction to the experience of the work of art in Western culture. See inside the book.




What Happens to Us When We Think


Book Description

Author Michael Gelven suggests that thinking metaphysically transforms us, and consequently the nature of metaphysics itself is transformational. Using concrete existential phenomena such as the learning process, how children mature into adults, and how fear can develop into courage, he establishes an understanding of metaphysical transformation.




The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art


Book Description

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art provides an extensive research resource to the burgeoning field of Asian aesthetics. Featuring leading international scholars and teachers whose work defines the field, this unique volume reflects the very best scholarship in creative, analytic, and comparative philosophy. Beginning with a philosophical reconstruction of the classical rasa aesthetics, chapters range from the nature of art-emotions, tones of thinking, and aesthetic education to issues in film-theory and problems of the past versus present. As well as discussing indigenous versus foreign in aesthetic practices, this volume covers North and South Indian performance practices and theories, alongside recent and new themes including the Gandhian aesthetics of surrender and self-control and the aesthetics of touch in the light of the politics of untouchability. With such unparalleled and authoritative coverage, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art represents a dynamic map of comparative cross-cultural aesthetics. Bringing together original philosophical research from renowned thinkers, it makes a major contribution to both Eastern and Western contemporary aesthetics.




Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel


Book Description

The real represents to my perception the things that we cannot possibly not know, sooner or later, in one way or another', wrote Henry James in 1907. This description, riven with double negatives, hesitation, and uncertainty, encapsulates the epistemological difficulties of realism, for underlying its narrative and descriptive apparatus as an aesthetic mode lies a philosophical quandary. What grounds the 'real' of the realist novel? What kind of perception is required to validate the experience of reality? How does the realist novel represent the difficulty of knowing? What comes to the fore in James's account, as in so many, is how the forms of realism are constituted by a relation to unknowing, absence, and ineffability. Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel recovers a neglected literary history centred on the intricate relationship between fictional representation and philosophical commitment. It asks how—or if—we can conceptualize realist novels when the objects of their representational intentions are realities that might exist beyond what is empirically verifiable by sense data or analytically verifiable by logic, and are thus irreducible to conceptual schemes or linguistic practices—a formulation Charlotte Jones refers to as 'synthetic realism'. In new readings of Edwardian novels including Conrad's Nostromo and The Secret Agent, Wells's Tono-Bungay, and Ford's The Good Soldier, this volume revises and reconsiders key elements of realist novel theory—metaphor and metonymy; character interiority; the insignificant detail; omniscient narration and free indirect discourse; causal linearity—to uncover the representational strategies by which realist writers grapple with the recalcitrance of reality as a referential anchor, and seek to give form to the force, opacity, and uncertain scope of realities that may lie beyond the material. In restoring a metaphysical dimension to the realist novel's imaginary, Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel offers a new conceptualization of realism both within early twentieth-century literary culture and as a transhistorical mode of representation.




Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation'


Book Description

Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation is one of the central texts in the history of Western philosophy. It is one of the last monuments to the project of grand synthetic philosophical system-building, where a single, unified work could aim to clarify, resolve, and ground all the central questions of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, religion, aesthetics and science. Poorly received at its initial publication, it soon became a powerful cultural force, inspiring not only philosophers but also artists, writers and musicians, and attracting a large popular audience of non-scholars. Perhaps equally importantly, Schopenhauer was one of the first European philosophers to take non-Western thought seriously and to treat it as a living tradition rather than as a mere object of study. This volume of new essays showcases the enormous variety of contemporary scholarship on this monumental text, as well as its enduring relevance.




The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1


Book Description

Volume 1 of the definitive English translation of one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement in one important stream of post-Kantian thought.




The Power of the Metaphysical Artifact


Book Description

This book describes the political-philosophical controversies in nineteenth-century France and Mexico. Frausto argues that these controversial spaces and times integrate humanities, sciences, and technologies. The power of the metaphysical artifact is a democratic metaphor to transcend disciplinary boundaries and welcome different perspectives.




Representations of G.F. Watts


Book Description

Originally published in 2004. Once the most popular Victorian artist, G. F. Watts was also a complex and elusive figure. Influenced by evolutionary theory, he reinterpreted the tradition of the classical body, while his philanthropic and educational interests informed projects for a more affective public art. This book is the first modern account of the full range of Watts's different artistic interests and practices. Offering fresh approaches to his historical, allegorical and mythological paintings, it also traces his increasingly radical approach to portraiture and sculpture and examines the institutional and biographical factors behind his immense public profile. Together the essays present a comprehensive analysis of Watts's work and his vital relationship to the intellectual, cultural and social forces of his time.