Aesthetics (2^nd Ed.) A Comprehensive Anthology Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies Series

A revised second edition of the bestselling anthology on the major figures and themes in aesthetics and philosophy of art, the ideal resource for a comprehensive introduction to the study of aesthetics

Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology offers a well-rounded and thorough introduction to the evolution of modern thought on aesthetics. In a collection of over 60 readings, focused primarily on the Western tradition, this text includes works from key figures such as Plato, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Danto, and others. Broad in scope, this volume also contains contemporary works on the value of art, frequently-discussed continental texts, modern perspectives on feminist philosophy of art, and essays by authors outside of the community of academic philosophy, thereby immersing readers in an inclusive and balanced survey of aesthetics.

The new second edition has been updated with contemporary essays, expanding the volume?s coverage to include the value of art, artistic worth and personal taste, questions of aesthetic experience, and contemporary debates on and new theories of art. This edition also incorporates new and more standard translations of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment and Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, as well as texts by Rousseau, Hegel, DuBois, Alain Locke, Budd, Robinson, Saito, Eaton and Levinson.

• Presents a comprehensive selection of introductory readings on aesthetics and philosophy of art
• Helps readers gain a deep historical understanding and clear perspective on contemporary questions in the field
• Offers new essays specifically selected to promote inclusivity and to highlight contemporary discussions
• Introduces new essays on topics such as environmental and everyday aesthetics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the connections between aesthetics and ethics

Appropriate for both beginning and advanced students of philosophical aesthetics, this selection of texts initiates readers into the study of the foundations of and central developments in aesthetic thought.

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xi

Sources xiii

Part I: Classic Sources

1 The Modern System of the Arts 3
Paul Oskar Kristeller

2 The Ancient and Modern System of the Arts 17
James O. Young

3 Ion 31
Plato

4 The Republic 39
Plato

5 Symposium 49
Plato

6 Poetics 57
Aristotle

7 Ennead I, vi 73
Plotinus

8 De Musica 81
St. Augustine

9 On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology 89
St. Bonaventure

10 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times 95
Third Earl of Shaftesbury

11 An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 105
Francis Hutcheson

12 Of the Standard of Taste 121
David Hume

13 Of Tragedy 131
David Hume

14 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful 137
Edmund Burke

15 Laocoon 147
Gotthold Lessing

16 Critique of the Power of Judgment 155
Immanuel Kant

Part II: Modern Theories

17 Introduction 199
Christopher Janaway and Sandra Shapshay

18 Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man 205
Friedrich Schiller

19 Letter to M. d’Alembert on the Theatre 209
J.-J. Rousseau

20 Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics 217
G.W.F. Hegel

21 The World as Will and Representation 241
Arthur Schopenhauer

22 The Beautiful in Music 281
Eduard Hanslick

23 The Birth of Tragedy 287
Friedrich Nietzsche

24 What is Art? 299
Leo Tolstoy

25 “Psychical Distance” as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle 313
Edward Bullough

26 Art 331
Clive Bell

27 The Principles of Art 341
R.G. Collingwood

28 Art as Experience 357
John Dewey

29 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 379
Walter Benjamin

30 The Origin of the Work of Art 397
Martin Heidegger

31 Aesthetic Theory 411
Theodor Adorno

32 Criteria of Negro Art 423
W.E.B. Du Bois

33 Art or Propaganda? 429
Alain Locke

Part III: Contemporary Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

34 Introduction 433
Stephanie Ross

35 The Artworld 439
Arthur Danto

36 What is Art? An Institutional Analysis 449
George Dickie

37 “Art” as a Cluster Concept 461
Berys Gaut

38 When is Art? 475
Nelson Goodman

39 Art and Its Objects 483
Richard Wollheim

40 Varieties of Art 497
Stephen Davies

41 What a Musical Work Is 513
Jerrold Levinson

42 Fictional Characters as Abstract Artifacts 529
Amie L. Thomasson

43 Aesthetic Concepts 535
Frank Sibley

44 Categories of Art 551
Kendall L. Walton

45 The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude 569
George Dickie

46 What is Aesthetic Experience? 581
Alan H. Goldman

47 Artistic Value 589
Malcolm Budd

48 Beauty Restored 597
Mary Mothersill

49 Artistic Worth and Personal Taste 609
Jerrold Levinson

50 Style and Personality in the Literary Work 619
Jenefer Robinson

51 Criticism and Interpretation 631
Noël Carroll

52 The Postulated Author: Critical Monism as a Regulative Ideal 641
Alexander Nehamas

53 Artistic Value and Opportunistic Moralism 653
Eileen John

54 Emotions in the Music 663
Peter Kivy

55 Music and Emotions 673
Jenefer Robinson

56 Fearing Fictions 691
Kendall L. Walton

57 Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism 705
Kendall L. Walton

58 The Power of Movies 723
Noël Carroll

59 Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers, and the Gendered Spectator: The “New” Aesthetics 737
Mary Devereaux

60 Feminist Philosophy of Art 751
A.W. Eaton

61 Appreciation and the Natural Environment 767
Allen Carlson

62 Everyday Aesthetics 777
Yuriko Saito

63 Aesthetic Value, Art, and Food 783
Carolyn Korsmeyer

64 Art and Aesthetic Behaviors as Possible Expressions of our Biologically Evolved Human Nature 791
Stephen Davies

Index 797

STEVEN M. CAHN is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He has authored or edited over 60 books. Most recently he wrote Philosophical Adventures, The Road Traveled and Other Essays, and Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies.

STEPHANIE ROSS is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is the author of What Gardens Mean and papers on a variety of topics in aesthetics. Her new book, Two Thumbs Up: How Critics Aid Appreciation is forthcoming.

SANDRA SHAPSHAY is Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY (City University of New York). She is the author of Reconstructing Schopenhauer's Ethics: Hope, Compassion, and Animal Welfare and has published on 18th-19th century theories of the sublime and tragedy as well as contemporary environmental aesthetics.