ABSTRACT

This book presents an up-to-date introduction to the subject that captures the excitement and passion of art itself. It opens by exploring why art is important to us and goes on to grip the reader with a discussion of all of the areas central to aesthetics: aesthetic experience, representation, expression, definition of art, evaluation, interpretation, structuralism and post-structuralism, truth and morality. It draws upon the great thinkers on art, Plato and Kant, Croce and Beardsley, including the most recent iconoclastic views of Barthes and Derrida.

chapter |16 pages

The disconsolations of philosophy

chapter 1|20 pages

Anglo-Kantian attitudes

chapter 3|24 pages

Ne’er so well expressed (I)

chapter 5|16 pages

Ne’er so well expressed (II)

chapter 6|22 pages

The proof of the pudding

chapter 8|28 pages

The structures of the self-sufficient word

chapter 9|28 pages

Helen’s Beethoven: truth and morality

chapter 10|14 pages

The point of it all