ABSTRACT

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 Rancière, and Søren 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.

chapter |17 pages

Michael Fried and Philosophy

chapter 2|15 pages

“When I Raise My Arm”

Michael Fried’s Theory of Action

chapter 3|16 pages

Why Does Photography Matter as Art Now, as Never Before?

On Fried and Intention

chapter 4|23 pages

Schiller, Schopenhauer, Fried

chapter 5|17 pages

Deep Relationality and the Hinge-like Structure of History

Michael Fried’s Photographs

chapter 6|13 pages

Becoming Medium

chapter 9|13 pages

Michael Fried’s Intentionality

chapter 10|20 pages

On the (So-Called) Problem of Detail

Michael Fried, Roland Barthes, and Roger Scruton on Photography and Intentionality

chapter 11|18 pages

The Aesthetics of Absorption

chapter 14|17 pages

The Promise of the Present

Michael Fried’s Poetry Now