The Genealogy of AestheticsCambridge University Press, 2002 M08 15 - 439 pages Is it body or spirit that makes us appreciate beauty and create art? The distinguished Canadian critic Ekbert Faas argues that, with occasional exceptions like Montaigne and Mandeville, the mainstream of western thinking about beauty from Plato onwards has greatly overemphasised the spirit. The Genealogy of Aesthetics redresses this imbalance, and offers a radical re-reading of thinkers like Plato, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida. Professor Faas attacks both the traditional and postmodern consensus, and offers a new pro-sensualist aesthetics, heavily influenced by Nietzsche, that draws on contemporary cognitive science. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Platos transvaluation of aesthetic values | 15 |
ProtoNietzschean opponents to Plato | 28 |
Late antiquity Plotinus and Augustine | 40 |
Augustines Platonopolis | 52 |
The Middle Ages | 64 |
The Renaissance | 75 |
The Renaissance Academy Ficino Montaigne and Shakespeare | 93 |
Marxs Nietzschean moment | 182 |
Heideggers destruction of traditional aesthetics | 199 |
Heidegger contra Nietzsche | 214 |
Heidegger Nietzsche and Derrida | 229 |
Différance Freud Nietzsche and Artaud | 241 |
Derridas megatranscendentalist mimēsis | 257 |
Postmodern or preNietzschean? Derrida Lyotard | 272 |
The postmodern revival of the aesthetic ideal | 286 |
Common terms and phrases
aestheticians aesthetics allegedly and/or animal argues argument Artaud artistic ascetic Augustine 1961 Augustine's beauty Blackwell bodily body Burke Cambridge University Press Christian cognitive science concept critical Critique of Judgment Darwin deconstruction Derrida Derridean différance divine doctrine E. R. Dodds essence eternal evil evolutionary feeling Feuerbach Ficino Hegel Heidegger 1991 Heidegger's Hence Hobbes human ibid ideal ideas imagination imitation instance Kant Kant's kind language Love's Labor's Lost Lyotard man's Mandeville Marx and Engels matter metaphysics mimesis mind Montaigne moral law nature Nietzsche 1968 Nietzsche's Nietzschean notion original originary Oxford painting Phaedo pharmakon philosophy Plato pleasure Plotinus poetry postmodern purpose Quoted religion Renaissance reversal sense sexual Seyn Shaftesbury Socrates soul speaking sublime taste Tatarkiewicz theology theory things thought tion traditional Trans transcendental transvaluation of values true truth turn ultimate words writes XLIII XXXII York