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In this thought-provoking book Lambert Wiesing asks simply: What is
luxury? Drawing on a fascinating range of examples, he argues that
luxury is an aesthetic experience. Unlike experience gained via the
senses, such as seeing, hearing or tasting, he argues that luxury
is achieved by possessing something - an aspect of philosophy that
has been largely neglected. As such, luxury becomes a gesture of
individual defiance and a refusal to conform to social expectations
of restraint. An increasingly rational and goal-oriented ethos in
society makes the appeal of luxury grow even stronger. Drawing on
the ideas of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich
Schiller, Martin Heidegger and the novelist Ernst Junger, as well
as sociologists such as Thorstein Veblen and Theodor Adorno, A
Philosophy of Luxury will be of great interest to those in
philosophy, art, cultural studies and literature as well as
sociology.
In this thought-provoking book Lambert Wiesing asks simply: What is
luxury? Drawing on a fascinating range of examples, he argues that
luxury is an aesthetic experience. Unlike experience gained via the
senses, such as seeing, hearing or tasting, he argues that luxury
is achieved by possessing something - an aspect of philosophy that
has been largely neglected. As such, luxury becomes a gesture of
individual defiance and a refusal to conform to social expectations
of restraint. An increasingly rational and goal-oriented ethos in
society makes the appeal of luxury grow even stronger. Drawing on
the ideas of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich
Schiller, Martin Heidegger and the novelist Ernst Junger, as well
as sociologists such as Thorstein Veblen and Theodor Adorno, A
Philosophy of Luxury will be of great interest to those in
philosophy, art, cultural studies and literature as well as
sociology.
These collected studies on the philosophy of the image offer the
fundamental insight that images alone make the artificial presence
of things possible. Images present things as exclusively visible,
released from the laws of physics. Taking this idea as his point of
departure, Wiesing provides an overview of the fundamental
positions in contemporary image studies. He describes the use of
images as signs from a phenomenological perspective, reconstructs
Plato's concept of mimesis by way of the canon of images it
presupposes, and demonstrates the special relevance of extreme
types of images-- virtual reality, desktop windows, or abstract
photography--for the philosophical labor of the concept of the
image.
These collected studies on the philosophy of the image offer the
fundamental insight that images alone make the artificial presence
of things possible. Images present things as exclusively visible,
released from the laws of physics. Taking this idea as his point of
departure, Wiesing provides an overview of the fundamental
positions in contemporary image studies. He describes the use of
images as signs from a phenomenological perspective, reconstructs
Plato's concept of mimesis by way of the canon of images it
presupposes, and demonstrates the special relevance of extreme
types of images-- virtual reality, desktop windows, or abstract
photography--for the philosophical labor of the concept of the
image.
Now available in English for the first time, The Visibility of the
Image explores the development of an influential aesthetic
tradition through the work of six figures. Analysing their
contribution to the progress of formal aesthetics, from its origins
in Germany in the 1880s to semiotic interpretations in America a
century later, the six chapters cover: Robert Zimmermann
(1824-1898), the first to separate aesthetics and metaphysics and
approach aesthetics along the lines of formal logic, providing a
purely syntactic way of using signs, regardless of objective
content; Alois Riegl (1858-1905), who went on to further develop
aesthetics on the model of formal logic, creating a theory of style
in response to Zimmermann's call for an aesthetics oriented toward
formal logic; Heinrich Woelfflin (1864-1945), who represents a step
toward an understanding of consciousness by using pictures as
cognitive tools; Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895), the Saxon philosopher
who considered the possibility that some kinds of images are made
and viewed not for what they show, but for their visibility's sake
alone; Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), responsible for taking up
the connections between the problems of reducing the range of
potential meanings and contexts of a given image down to just the
picture surface; Charles William Morris (1901-1979), who set out to
establish whether a picture with no objective reference, such as an
abstract painting, still counts as a sign, and if so, in what
sense. Bringing these thinkers together and interlinking their
ideas, Lambert Wiesing presents an engaging history of formal
aesthetics, while reconstructing the philosophical foundations for
the appearance of new image forms in the 20th century, including
the video-clip, abstract collage, digital simulation and virtual
reality. Using this original approach, The Visibility of the Image
introduces the rise of modern image theory and provides a valuable
account of our engagement with pictures in the 21st century.
Lambert Wiesing's The Philosophy of Perception challenges current
theories of perception. Instead of attempting to understand how a
subject perceives the world, Wiesing starts by taking perception to
be real. He then asks what this reality means for a subject. In his
original approach, the question of how human perception is possible
is displaced by questions about what perception obliges us to be
and do. He argues that perception requires us to be embodied, to be
visible, and to continually participate in the public and physical
world we perceive. Only in looking at images, he proposes, can we
achieve something like a break in participation, a temporary
respite from this, one of perception's relentless demands.
Wiesing's methods chart a markedly new path in contemporary
perception theory. In addition to identifying common ground among
diverse philosophical positions, he identifies how his own,
phenomenological approach differs from those of many other
philosophers, past and present. As part of the argument, he
provides a succinct but comprehensive survey of the philosophy of
images His original critical exposition presents scholars of
phenomenology, perception and aesthetics with a new, important
understanding of the old phenomenon, the human being in the world.
Now available in English for the first time, The Visibility of the
Image explores the development of an influential aesthetic
tradition through the work of six figures. Analysing their
contribution to the progress of formal aesthetics, from its origins
in Germany in the 1880s to semiotic interpretations in America a
century later, the six chapters cover: Robert Zimmermann
(1824-1898), the first to separate aesthetics and metaphysics and
approach aesthetics along the lines of formal logic, providing a
purely syntactic way of using signs, regardless of objective
content; Alois Riegl (1858-1905), who went on to further develop
aesthetics on the model of formal logic, creating a theory of style
in response to Zimmermann's call for an aesthetics oriented toward
formal logic; Heinrich Woelfflin (1864-1945), who represents a step
toward an understanding of consciousness by using pictures as
cognitive tools; Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895), the Saxon philosopher
who considered the possibility that some kinds of images are made
and viewed not for what they show, but for their visibility's sake
alone; Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), responsible for taking up
the connections between the problems of reducing the range of
potential meanings and contexts of a given image down to just the
picture surface; Charles William Morris (1901-1979), who set out to
establish whether a picture with no objective reference, such as an
abstract painting, still counts as a sign, and if so, in what
sense. Bringing these thinkers together and interlinking their
ideas, Lambert Wiesing presents an engaging history of formal
aesthetics, while reconstructing the philosophical foundations for
the appearance of new image forms in the 20th century, including
the video-clip, abstract collage, digital simulation and virtual
reality. Using this original approach, The Visibility of the Image
introduces the rise of modern image theory and provides a valuable
account of our engagement with pictures in the 21st century.
Lambert Wiesing's" The Philosophy of Perception" challenges current
theories of perception. Instead of attempting to understand how a
subject perceives the world, Wiesing starts by taking perception to
be real. He then asks what this reality means for a subject. In his
original approach, the question of how human perception is possible
is displaced by questions about what perception obliges us to be
and do. He argues that perception requires us to be embodied, to be
visible, and to continually participate in the public and physical
world we perceive. Only in looking at images, he proposes, can we
achieve something like a break in participation, a temporary
respite from this, one of perception's relentless demands.
Wiesing's methods chart a markedly new path in contemporary
perception theory. In addition to identifying common ground among
diverse philosophical positions, he identifies how his own,
phenomenological approach differs from those of many other
philosophers, past and present. As part of the argument, he
provides a succinct but comprehensive survey of the philosophy of
imagesHis original critical exposition presents scholars of
phenomenology, perception and aesthetics with a new, important
understanding of the old phenomenon, the human being in the world.
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