This volume adopts a varied approach to the study of the "material world" in the French literature, thought and visual arts of the 19th century. Beginning with more purely philosphical definitions of materialism, seen as a topic within the history of ideas, it moves to a broader, more general treatment of materialism - and examines the political, social and cultural repercussions of the emergence of this consumer society.;In particular, the book tackles the question of how things, objects and the material surface of the world - for so long disdained and excluded by a deeply entrenched Neo-classical cultural tradition - came to be fully incorporated into the literature and visual arts of the period. Contributors look not only at the Romantic and Realist transcendence of the Neo-classical heritage of abstraction and idealism, but also adopt modern critical perspectives to analyze central themes such as urbanization, fetishism and the representation of the female body. By the author of "Popular Culture in Modern France: A Study of Cultural Discourse" and co-editor (with N. Hewitt) of "France and the Mass Media".

This book examines evangelical dieting and fitness programs and provides a systematic approach of this diverse field with its wide variety of programs. When evangelical Christians engage in fitness and dieting classes in order to "glorify God," they often face skepticism. This book approaches devotional fitness culture in North America from a religious studies perspective, outlining the basic structures, ideas, and practices of the field. Starting with the historical backgrounds of this current, the book approaches both practice and ideology, highlighting how devotional fitness programs construe their identity in the face of various competing offers in religious and non-religious sectors of society. The book suggests a nuanced and complex understanding of the relationship between sports and religion, beyond 'simple' functional equivalency. It provides insights into the formation of secular and religious body ideals and the way these body ideals are sacralized in the frame of an evangelical worldview.

Awarded an Honourable Mention by the Association for Israeli Studies. Exploring the politics of the image in the context of Israeli militarized visual culture, Civic Aesthetics examines both the omnipresence of militarism in Israeli culture and society and the way in which this omnipresence is articulated, enhanced, and contested within local contemporary visual art. Looking at a range of contemporary artworks through the lens of "civilian militarism", Roei employs the theory of various fields, including memory studies, gender studies, landscape theory, and aesthetics, to explore the potential of visual art to communicate military excesses to its viewers. This study builds on the specific sociological concerns of the chosen cases to discuss the complexities of visuality, the visible and non-visible, arguing for art's capacity to expose the scopic regimes that construct their visibility. Images and artworks are often read either out of context, on purely aesthetic or art-historical ground, or as cultural artefacts whose aesthetics play a minor role in their significance. This book breaks with both traditions as it approaches all art, both high and popular art, as part of the surrounding visual culture in which it is created and presented. This approach allows a new theory of the image to come forth, where the relation between the political and the aesthetic is one of exchange, rather than exclusion.

First published in 1927, Science and Philosophy: And Other Essays is a collection of individual papers written by Bernard Bosanquet during his highly industrious philosophical life. The collection was put together by Bosanquet's wife after the death of the writer and remains mostly unaltered with just a few papers added and the order of entries improved. The papers here displayed consist of various contributions Bosanquet made to Mind, the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, the International Journal of Ethics and other periodicals, as well as work from volumes of lectures and essays under his own or other editorship. Throughout the collection, Bosanquet considers the relationship between science and philosophy. The two subject areas became increasingly intertwined during Bosanquet's lifetime as scientific writers grew more interested in the philosophical investigation of the concepts which underlined their work and philosophical thinkers recognised the importance of the relationship between mathematics and logic as well as that between physics and metaphysics. The first essay in this volume discusses this idea explicitly and all subsequent articles may be regarded as essays in support of the main discussion with which the volume opens.

In this stimulating, lucid and insightful inquiry, philosopher Elisabeth Schellekens invites readers to reflect on their own opinions about art and morality.Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, such as in our everyday assessments of artworks that raise moral questions, but also theoretically, such as in Kant's theory that beauty is the symbol of morality. Some philosophers have argued that it is in the relation between aesthetic and moral value that the key to an adequate understanding of either notion lies. But difficult questions abound. Must a work of art be morally admirable in order to be aesthetically valuable? How, if at all, do our moral values shape our aesthetic judgements - and vice versa?"Aesthetics and Morality" is a stimulating and insightful inquiry into precisely this set of questions. Elisabeth Schellekens explores the main ideas and debates at the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy. She invites readers to reflect on the nature of beauty, art and morality, and provides the philosophical knowledge to render such reflection more rigorous. This original, inspiring and entertaining book sheds valuable new light on a notably complex and challenging area of thought."The Continuum Aesthetics" series looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the arts.

Aesthetic Order challenges contemporary theories of aesthetics, offering the idea of beauty as quantitative yet different from the traditional discursive order. It will be of importance to all interested in aesthetic theory.

Although various sections of this work have been published separately in various journals and volumes their separate publication is wholly attributable to the exigencies of life in academia: the work was devised as and is supposed to constitute something of an organic unity. Part II of 'The Cow with the Subtile Nose' was published under the title 'A Creative Use of Language' in New Literary History (Autumn, 1972), pp. 108-18. 'The Cow on the Roof' appeared in The Journal oj Philosophy LXX, No. 19 (November 8, 1973), pp. 713-23. 'A Fine Forehand' appeared in the Journal oj the Philosophy oj Sport, Vol. 1 (September, 1974), pp. 92-109. 'Quote: Judgements from Our Brain' appeared in Perspectives on the Philosophy oj Wittgenstein, ed. by I. Block (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), pp. 201-211. 'Art and Sociobiology' appeared in Mind (1981), Vol. XC, pp. 505-520. 'Anything Viewed'appeared in Essays in Honour oj Jaakko Hintikka, ed. by Esa Saarinen, Risto Hilpinen, Illkka Niiniluoto and Merrill Provence Hintikka (Dordrecht, Holland and Boston, Massachusetts: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979), pp. 285-293. 'How I See Philosophy' appeared in The Owl oj Minerva, ed. by C. J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1975), pp. 223-5. All the remaining parts are also forthcoming in various journals and volumes. I am grateful to Bradley E. Wilson for the preparation of the index.

If architectural judgment were a city, a city of ideas and forms, then it is a very imperfect city. When architects judge the success or failure of a building, the range of ways and criteria which can be used for this evaluation causes many contentious and discordant arguments. Proposing that the increase in number and intensity of such arguments threatens to destabilize the very grounds upon which judgment is supposed to rest, this book examines architectural judgment in its historical, cultural, political, and psychological dimensions and their convergence on that most expressive part of architecture, namely: architectural character. It stresses the value of reasoned judgment in justifying architectural form -a judgment based on three sets of criteria: those criteria that are external to architecture, those that are internal to architecture, and those that pertain to the psychology of the architect as image-maker. External criteria include, philosophies of history or theories of modernity; internal criteria include architectural character and architectural composition; while the psychological criteria pertain to 'mimetic rivalry', or rivaling desires for the same architectural forms. Yet, although architectural conflicts can adversely influence judgment, they can at the same time, contribute to the advancement of architectural culture.

This book provides a clear and informed account of aesthetic and callistic concepts as they occur in the works of Plato and Aristotle. The author illustrates their ideas on art and beauty by close reference to their texts and finds a profound similarity which unites them, revealing many of their differences to be complementary aspects of an essentially similar viewpoint. He also shows how Greek notions of art and beauty are not merely primitive steps in the advance to modern ideas but have a direct relevance to modern critical controversies.

Animation - Process, Cognition and Actuality presents a uniquely philosophical and multi-disciplinary approach to the scholarly study of animation, by using the principles of process philosophy and Deleuzian film aesthetics to discuss animation practices, from early optical devices to contemporary urban design and installations. Some of the original theories presented are a process-philosophy based theory of animation; a cognitive theory of animation; a new theoretical approach to the animated documentary; an original investigative approach to animation; and unique considerations as to the convergence of animation and actuality. Numerous animated examples (from all eras and representing a wide range of techniques and approaches - including television shows and video games) are examined, such as Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Madame Tutli-Putli (2007), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), The Peanuts Movie (2015), Grand Theft Auto V (2013) and Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist (1995-2000). Divided into three sections, each to build logically upon each other, Dan Torre first considers animation in terms of process and process philosophy, which allows the reader to contemplate animation in a number of unique ways. Torre then examines animation in more conceptual terms in comparing it to the processes of human cognition. This is followed by an exploration of some of the ways in which we might interpret or 'read' particular aspects of animation, such as animated performance, stop-motion, anthropomorphism, video games, and various hybrid forms of animation. He finishes by guiding the discussion of animation back to the more tangible and concrete as it considers animation within the context of the actual world. With a genuinely distinctive approach to the study of animation, Torre offers fresh philosophical and practical insights that prompt an engagement with the definitions and dynamics of the form, and its current literature.

First published in 1927, Science and Philosophy: And Other Essays is a collection of individual papers written by Bernard Bosanquet during his highly industrious philosophical life. The collection was put together by Bosanquet's wife after the death of the writer and remains mostly unaltered with just a few papers added and the order of entries improved. The papers here displayed consist of various contributions Bosanquet made to Mind, the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, the International Journal of Ethics and other periodicals, as well as work from volumes of lectures and essays under his own or other editorship. Throughout the collection, Bosanquet considers the relationship between science and philosophy. The two subject areas became increasingly intertwined during Bosanquet's lifetime as scientific writers grew more interested in the philosophical investigation of the concepts which underlined their work and philosophical thinkers recognised the importance of the relationship between mathematics and logic as well as that between physics and metaphysics. The first essay in this volume discusses this idea explicitly and all subsequent articles may be regarded as essays in support of the main discussion with which the volume opens.

What does it mean to be human? Is there something that makes us distinct from computers, other great apes, Martians, gods? Is there philosophical, ethical, or political value in continuing to think in terms of a common human nature? Or should we rather throw this concept into the dustbin of history? A paradox of the concept of "human nature" is that it holds both the promise of universal equality-insofar as it takes us all to share a common nature-while all too often rationalizing exploitation, oppression, and even violence against other individuals and other species. Most appallingly, differences in skin color and other physiological traits have been viewed as signs of a "lesser" humanity, or of outright inhumanity, and used to justify great harms. The volume asks: is the concept of human nature separable from the racist, sexist, and speciest abuse that has been made of it? And is it even possible-or desirable-to articulate a notion of human nature unaffected by race or gender or class, as if it were possible to observe humanity in a pure form? This volume traces the history of the concept "human" by examining the history of claims about distinctively human properties and capacities, and the ethical and political repercussions of such accounts. Spanning the history of philosophy, political science, religion, medical ethics, the history of art and science fiction, it illuminates how our self-understanding as "human" evolved across time and place-from ancient Greek, classical Chinese, and medieval Arabic accounts of human nature to contemporary evolutionary theory and the transhumanist movement. It examines problems ranging from the intelligibility of Incarnation (a relationship between divine and human beings) to problems posed by genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Short pieces, or Reflections, are interspersed among the chapters, which take up topics ranging from Frankenstein to Marx's concept of human nature.

Metaphysics and Music in Adorno and Heidegger explains how two notoriously opposed German philosophers share a rethinking of the possibility of metaphysics via notions of music and waiting. This is connected to the historical materialist project of social change by way of the radical Italian composer Luigi Nono.

"Aesthetics and film" is a philosophical study of the art of film. Its motivation is the recent surge of interest among analytic philosophers in the philosophical implications of central issues in film theory and the application of general issues in aesthetics to the specific case of film. Of particular interest are questions concerning the distinctive representational capacities of film art, particularly in relation to realism and narration, the influence of the literary paradigm in understanding film authorship and interpretation, and our imaginative and affective engagement with film. For all of these questions, Katherine Thomson-Jones critically compares the most compelling answers, driving home key points with a wide range of film examples. Students and scholars of aesthetics and cinema will find this an illuminating, accessible and highly enjoyable investigation into the nature and power of a technologically evolving art form.

Many otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or worse yet as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the real issues of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals.

Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples from Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice to Larry David 's Curb Your Enthusiasm the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.

This motivational analysis of the protagonists in Thomas Hardy's three most widely read novels--Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Jude the Obscure--highlights an often-overlooked aspect of his art. Bernard J. Paris shows Hardy's genius in creating imagined human beings. He demonstrates that while Hardy tends to blame external conditions for his characters' painful fates, their downfalls are due to a very complex combination of cosmic, social, and psychological factors.

Hardy's characters are usually discussed primarily in thematic terms. The characters are are so richly portrayed, Paris argues, that they can be better understood independent of Hardy's interpretations, in motivational terms and he utilizes the psychologist Karen Horney's theories to recover Hardy's intuitions. The characters are full of inner conflicts that make them difficult to fathom, but the approach Paris employs explains their contradictions and illuminates their troubled relationships--shedding light on these expertly crafted imagined human beings.

This psychological approach to Hardy's characters enables us to understand his characters and gain insight into the implied authors of the works. In addition, the approach shows Hardy's authorial personality. We can see that Hardy treats some defensive strategies more sympathetically than others. Given his view of life as "a general drama of pain," resignation, like that of Hardy's character Elizabeth-Jane, is the strategy he prefers.

Artistic Judgement sketches a framework for an account of art suitable to philosophical aesthetics. It stresses differences between artworks and other things; and locates the understanding of artworks both in a narrative of the history of art and in the institutional practices of the art world. Hence its distinctiveness lies in its strong account of the difference between, on the one hand, the judgement and appreciation of art and, on the other, the judgement and appreciation of all the other things in which we take an aesthetic interest. For only by acknowledging this contrast can one do justice to the importance regularly ascribed to art. The contrast is explained by appealing to an occasion-sensitive account of understanding, drawn from Charles Travis directly, but with Gordon Baker (and Wittgenstein) as also proximate rather than remote. On this basis, it argues, first, that we need to offer accounts of key topics only as far as questions might be raised in respect of them (hence, not exceptionlessly); and, second, that we should therefore defend the view that the meaning of artworks can be changed by later events (the historical character of art, or forward retroactivism) and that art has an institutional character, understood broadly on the lines of Terry Diffey's Republic of Art. Besides providing a general framework, Artistic Judgement also explores the applications of the ideas to specific artworks or classes of them.

First published in 2000. This is Volume VII of ten in the International Library of Philosophy in a series on Ancient Philosophy. Written around 1953, this book looks at Plato and his ideas on art based on his 'Dialogues'.

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key topics, subjects, thinkers and debates in philosophy and music. Over fifty entries by an international team of contributors are organised into six clear sections: general issues emotion history figures kinds of music music, philosophy and related disciplines The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, music and musicology.

1. The first handbook to be published in the burgeoning field of Neuroaesthetics 2. Brings together leading academics from the field to present their cutting-edge research

Paul de Man - literary critic, literary philosopher, "American deconstructionist" - changed the landscape of criticism through his rigorous theories and writings. Upon its original publication in 1988, Christopher Norris' book was the first full-length introduction to de Man, a reading that offers a much-needed corrective to the pattern of extreme antithetical response which marked the initial reception to de Man's writings.

Norris addresses de Man's relationship to philosophical thinking in the post-Kantian tradition, his concern with "aesthetic ideology" as a potent force of mystification within and beyond that tradition, and the vexed issue of de Man's politics. Norris brings out the marked shift of allegiance in de Man's thinking, from the thinly veiled conservative implications of the early essays to the engagement with Marx and Foucault on matters of language and politics in the late, posthumous writing. At each stage, Norris raises these questions through a detailed close reading of individual texts which will be welcomed by those who lack any specialised knowledge of de Man's work.

Paul de Man - literary critic, literary philosopher, "American deconstructionist" - changed the landscape of criticism through his rigorous theories and writings. Upon its original publication in 1988, Christopher Norris' book was the first full-length introduction to de Man, a reading that offers a much-needed corrective to the pattern of extreme antithetical response which marked the initial reception to de Man's writings. Norris addresses de Man's relationship to philosophical thinking in the post-Kantian tradition, his concern with "aesthetic ideology" as a potent force of mystification within and beyond that tradition, and the vexed issue of de Man's politics. Norris brings out the marked shift of allegiance in de Man's thinking, from the thinly veiled conservative implications of the early essays to the engagement with Marx and Foucault on matters of language and politics in the late, posthumous writing. At each stage, Norris raises these questions through a detailed close reading of individual texts which will be welcomed by those who lack any specialised knowledge of de Man's work.

Postdigital Aesthetics is a contribution to questions raised by our newly computational everyday lives and the aesthetics which reflect both the postdigital nature of this age, but also critical perspectives of a post-internet world.

Art, Emotion and Ethics is a systematic investigation of the relation of art to morality, a topic that has been of central and recurring interest to the philosophy of art since Plato. Berys Gaut explores the various positions that have been taken in this debate, and argues that an artwork is always aesthetically flawed insofar as it possesses a moral defect that is aesthetically relevant. Three main arguments are developed for this view; these involve showing how moral goodness is itself a kind of beauty, that artworks can teach us about morality and that this is under certain conditions an aesthetic merit in them, and that our emotional responses to works of art are properly guided in part by moral considerations. Art, Emotion and Ethics also contains detailed interpretations of a wide range of artworks, including Rembrandt's Bathsheba and Nabokov's Lolita, which show that ethical criticism can yield rich and plausible accounts of individual works. Gaut develops a new theory of the nature of aesthetic value, explores how art can teach us about the world and what we morally ought to do by guiding our imaginings, and argues that we can have genuine emotions towards people and events that we know are merely fictional. Characterised by its clarity and sustained argument, this book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the relation of art to morality.

Since the turn of the millennium, protests, meetings, schoolrooms, reading groups and many other social forms have been proposed as artworks or, more ambiguously, as interventions that are somewhere between art and politics. This book surveys the resurgence of politicized art, tracing key currents of theory and practice, and mapping them against the dominant experience of the last decade: crisis. Drawing upon leading artists and theorists within this field - including Hito Steyerl, Marina Vishmidt, Art & Language, Gregory Sholette, John Roberts and Dave Beech - this book argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between socially-engaged art and neoliberalism. Kim Charnley explores the possibility that neoliberalism has destabilized the art system so that it is no longer able to absorb and neutralize dissent. As a result, the relationship between aesthetics and politics is experienced with fresh urgency and militancy.