This volume brings philosophers, art historians, intellectual historians, and literary scholars together to argue for the philosophical significance of Michael Fried's art history and criticism. It demonstrates that Fried's work on modernism, artistic intention, the ontology of art, theatricality, and anti-theatricality can throw new light on problems in and beyond philosophical aesthetics. Featuring an essay by Fried and articles from world-leading scholars, this collection engages with philosophical themes from Fried's texts, and clarifies the relevance to his work of philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, Morris Weitz, Elizabeth Anscombe, Arthur Danto, George Dickie, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, G. W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Denis Diderot, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roland Barthes, Jacques Ranciere, and Soren Kierkegaard. As it makes a case for the importance of Fried for philosophy, this volume contributes to current debates in analytic and continental aesthetics, philosophy of action, philosophy of history, political philosophy, modernism studies, literary studies, and art theory.

This volume brings philosophers, art historians, intellectual historians, and literary scholars together to argue for the philosophical significance of Michael Fried's art history and criticism. It demonstrates that Fried's work on modernism, artistic intention, the ontology of art, theatricality, and anti-theatricality can throw new light on problems in and beyond philosophical aesthetics. Featuring an essay by Fried and articles from world-leading scholars, this collection engages with philosophical themes from Fried's texts, and clarifies the relevance to his work of philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, Morris Weitz, Elizabeth Anscombe, Arthur Danto, George Dickie, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, G. W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Denis Diderot, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roland Barthes, Jacques Ranciere, and Soren Kierkegaard. As it makes a case for the importance of Fried for philosophy, this volume contributes to current debates in analytic and continental aesthetics, philosophy of action, philosophy of history, political philosophy, modernism studies, literary studies, and art theory.

A deflationary, anti-theoretical film-philosophy through the cinema of Abbas KiarostamiMathew Abbott presents a powerful new film-philosophy through the cinema of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. Mathew Abbott argues that Kiarostami's films carry out cinematic thinking: they do not just illustrate pre-existing philosophical ideas, but do real philosophical work.Crossing the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, he draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Alice Crary, Noel Carroll, Giorgio Agamben, and Martin Heidegger, bringing out the thinking at work in Kiarostami's most recent films: 'Taste of Cherry', 'The Wind Will Carry Us', 'ABC Africa', 'Ten', 'Five', 'Shirin', 'Certified Copy' and 'Like Someone in Love'.

Mathew Abbott presents a powerful new film-philosophy through the cinema of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. Mathew Abbott argues that Kiarostami's films carry out cinematic thinking: they do not just illustrate pre-existing philosophical ideas, but do real philosophical work. Crossing the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, he draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Alice Crary, Noel Carroll, Giorgio Agamben, and Martin Heidegger, bringing out the thinking at work in Kiarostami's most recent films: Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, ABC Africa, Ten, Five, Shirin, Certified Copy, and Like Someone in Love.

This title fundamentally rereads Agamben to defend and develop his philosophy as post-Heideggerian political ontology. What if we've been wrong when reading Agamben? The work of the Italian Continental philosopher Giorgio Agamben is usually read in terms of critical theory or traditional political philosophy. Now Mathew Abbott argues that Agamben's thought has been widely misunderstood. Instead, he shows that it engages with political ontology: studying the political stakes of the question of being. It radically reinterprets Agamben's political philosophy, including his concepts of 'bare life' and 'the exception'. It places Agamben's work in its philosophical context, positioning it in relation to Benjamin, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Levinas, Nancy and Wittgenstein. It critiques the category of representation to show the decisive importance of poetry and poetic experience for thinking through political community and to shed light on a number of problems in contemporary political theory.

What if we've been wrong when reading Agamben? Mathew Abbott argues that Agamben's thought is misunderstood when read in terms of critical theory or traditional political philosophy. Instead, he shows that it engages with political ontology: studying the political stakes of the question of being. Abbot demonstrates the crucial influence of Martin Heidegger on Agamben's work, locating it in the post-Heideggerian tradition of the critique of metaphysics. As he clarifies it, Abbott links Agamben's philosophy with Wittgenstein's picture theory and Heidegger's concept of the world-picture, showing the importance of this for understanding - and potentially overcoming - the forms of alienation characteristic of the society of the spectacle.