This volume brings together new essays from distinguished scholars in a variety of disciplines--philosophy, history, literary studies, art history--to explore various ways in which aesthetics, politics and the arts interact with one another. Together the essays demonstrate the need to counteract the reductionist view of the relationship between politics and the arts that prevails in different ways in both philosophy and critical theory. They suggest that the irreducibility of the aesthetic must prompt us to reconceive the political as it relates to human cultural activity.

This astonishingly rich volume collects the work of an international group of scholars, including some of the best known in academia. Experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship what is arguably Friedrich Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. Sections are devoted to the topic of genealogy generally, numerous essays on specific passages, applications of genealogy in later thinkers, and the import of Nietzsche's Genealogy in contemporary politics, ethics, and aesthetics. A lengthy introduction, annotated bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research.

This book examines the studies of Aristotle's Poetics and related texts in which three Medieval philosophers proposed a conception of poetic validity (beauty), and a just relation between subjects in a community (goodness).

This book brings together a distinguished group of scholars from music, drama, poetry, performance art, religion, classics and philosophy to investigate the complex and developing interaction between performance and authenticity in the arts. The volume begins with a perspective on traditional understandings of that relation, examining the crucial role of performance in the Poetics, the marriage of art with religion, the experiences of religious and aesthetic authenticity, and modernist conceptions of authenticity. Several essays then consider music as a performative art. The final essays discuss the link of authenticity to sincerity and truth in poetry, explain how performance, as an authentic feature of poetry, embodies a collective effort, and culminate in a discussion of the dark side of performance - its constant susceptibility to inauthenticity. Together the essays suggest how issues of performance and authenticity enter into consideration of a wide range of the arts.

Explanation and Value in the Arts offers penetrating studies by art historians, literary theorists and philosophers, of issues central to explaining works of literature and painting. The first chapters look at the sources of interest in the fine arts and point to the intimate relation between aesthetic and other values. The following contributions develop the interaction between value and explanation by examining the construction of value in the study of the arts, including considerations of the nature of creativity and the principles for the explanations of works. A final section takes up questions of the role of ideology and the determining role of power.

This volume brings together essays from distinguished scholars in a variety of disciplines - philosophy, history, literary studies, art history - to explore various ways in which aesthetics, politics and the arts interact with one another. Politics is an elastic concept, covering an oceanic breadth of mechanisms for conducting relations between empowered groups, and these essays offer a range of perspectives, including nations, classes, and gendered subjects, which examine the imbrication of politics with arts. Together they demonstrate the need to counteract the reductionist view of the relationship between politics and the arts which prevails in different ways in both philosophy and critical theory, and suggest that the irreducibility of the aesthetic must prompt us to reconceive the political as it relates to human cultural activity.

This book examines the studies of Aristotle's Poetics and its related texts in which three Medieval philosophers - Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes - proposed a conception of poetic validity (beauty), and a just relation between subjects in a community (goodness). The work considers the relation of the Poetics to other Aristotelian texts, the transmission of these works to the commentators' context, and the motivations driving the commentators' reception of the texts. The book focuses on issues central to the classical relation of beauty to truth and goodness.

Nietzsche’s writings have shaped much contemporary reflection on the relation between philosophy and art. This book brings together a number of distinguished contributors to examine his aesthetic account of the origins and ends of philosophy. They discuss the transformative power which Nietzsche ascribes to aesthetic activity, including his aesthetic justification of existence and its fusion of social and personal existence, and they investigate his experiments with an ‘aesthetic politics’ and a politicisation of aesthetics. Together their essays set out the ground for future debate about the inter-relation between art, philosophy, and value.

This book brings together a distinguished group of scholars from music, drama, poetry, performance art, criticism, religion, classics, and philosophy to investigate the complex and developing interaction between performance and authenticity in the arts. The subjects discussed include the experiences of religious and aesthetic authenticity, the performance of music, the link of authority and sincerity and truth in poetry, and the dark side of performance--its constant susceptibility to inauthenticity. Together the essays suggest how issues of performance and authenticity enter into consideration of a wide range of the arts.

Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts offers probing studies of the complex structure of aesthetic responses to nature. Each chapter refines and expands the terms of discussion, and together they enrich the debate with insights from art history, literary criticism, geography and philosophy. To explore the interrelation between our conceptions of nature, beauty and art, the contributors consider the social construction of nature, the determination of our appreciation by artistic media, and the duality of nature's determining in gardening. Showing that natural beauty is impregnated with concepts derived from the arts and from particular accounts of nature, the volume occasions questions of the distinction and relation between art and nature generally, and culminates in a set of philosophical studies of the role of scientific understanding, engagement and emotion in the aesthetic appreciation of nature.

In Explanation and value in the arts, art historians, literary theorists, and philosophers explore the sources of interest in literature and the fine arts, the intimate relation between aesthetic and other values, the involvement of values in the explanations of works, and the determining role of power. The first chapters consider the construction of value in works. Michael Podro analyzes the density or presence of the medium, arguing that explanations must account for this significance or fail to grasp value. Walter Biemel and Wayne C. Booth propose that philosophy and morality are crucial to aesthetic valuation. The following chapters examine the construction of value in the study of the arts. Mark Roskill looks at what "extra-aesthetic" considerations make particular works historically important, and contends that literature and art history invite distinctive criteria. Svetlana Alpers assesses the contribution of Panofsky, among others, to show how methodological commitments in art history import assumptions about value; while Gregg Horowitz argues that the study of works of fine art is something other than a merely theoretical enterprise of trying to grasp the nature of objects from the past. Questions of power underlie Jon Elster's contribution, an analysis of the nature of creativity, and Pierre Bourdieu's, a philosophical and sociological construal of the principles for an explanation of cultural objects. In the final chapters, Richard Eldridge and Noel Carroll take up this theme, examining the nature and role of ideology.

Each of the chapters in this volume is a response to theoretical and practical questions regarding the relationship between the art object and language in art history. Accessible to readers of all social science disciplines, the issues discussed challenge the boundaries to thought that some contemporary theorizing sustains.

In this accessible yet authoritative book, the author explains the argument and strategy of Kant's analysis of beauty. He clarifies the nature of aesthetic claims, examines the scope of Kant's justification of their validity, and shows how these lead Kant to investigate the relationship between beautiful objects, morality, and subjects. In the course of his discussion, the author links Kant's theory to contemporary commentaries, including those by Donald Crawford, Jacques Derrida, Paul Guyer, Rudolph Makkreel, Mary McCloskey, and Kenneth Rogerson.

This astonishingly rich volume collects the work of an international group of scholars, including some of the best known in academia. Experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship what is arguably Friedrich Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. Sections are devoted to the topic of genealogy generally, numerous essays on specific passages, applications of genealogy in later thinkers, and the import of Nietzsche's Genealogy in contemporary politics, ethics, and aesthetics. A lengthy introduction, annotated bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research.