Robert Wicks

Beauty and truth : a study of Hegel's Aesthetics

This book, thought to be the first in English to attempt a full theoretical analysis of Hegels philosophy of art, examines his central thesis, that both Beauty and Truth can be understood in terms of systematic coherence, and that art, as a purveyor of Truth, embodies and reflects the beliefs of the societies from which it comes.

Being in the Dry Zen Landscape

As these three books amply illustrate, aesthetics today has expanded its range of inquiry far beyond its traditional scope; it has reconfigured and rethought its standard questions, and it has developed important links to other value theories. A half century ago, aesthetics was widely regarded as a comparatively weak philosophical field, inspiring scholarly suspicion rather than confidence. In The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers (New York: Unwin Hyman, 1960), J.O. Urmson went so far as to suggest that “aesthetics more than any other branch of philosophy seems doomed either to a pretentious vagueness or to an extreme poverty [of ideas] which make it a poor stepsister to other main fields of philosophical inquiry.” It is amusing to look back on this gloomy prediction precisely because it has fallen so far short of the mark. Although there is undeniably a substantial quotient of writing in the field — as in any other — that is vague, speculative, and lacking in rigor, there is an abundance of writing which, like the works reviewed here, is not. Far from being a poor stepsister, aesthetics today has taken its full and proper place in the philosophical household. This is not to say that it is a normal family member. That it can never be. Like art itself, aesthetics is now more than ever before committed to challenging the frameworks within which it dwells, critically reassessing everything about itself and its ever-expanding inventory of topics. Just as a-normality has lent vitality and strength to the arts in recent years, so it is the primary impetus behind an invigorated sense of purpose and pertinence unmistakable in aesthetics today.

Schopenhauer and Judaism

Through reflections on theism, optimism, animal rights , and Schopenhauer’s Jewish acquaintances, this chapter argues that Schopenhauer’s views on Judaism and Jews were conflicted: He identified with the social situation of the Jews as an alienated minority, but he regarded Judaism as the historical source of his own alienated condition as a philosophical outcast.

Schopenhauerian Moral Awareness as a Source of Nietzschean Nonmorality

n Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Friedrich Nietzsche observed that Arthur Schopenhauer, a supposed “pessimist,” actually played the flute, presumably happily and with great personal delight. In his reflections on this activity, and on other comparable ones within Schopenhauer’s daily schedule, Nietzsche wondered whether Schopenhauer himself was indeed a pessimist, and also whether Schopenhauer’s philosophy reveals itself to be less pessimistic than is usually thought, owing to its allegiance to, and advocacy of, Christian moral values. Nietzsche writes: The difficulty of providing a rational foundation for the [moral] principle cited 1 may indeed be great—as is well known, Schopenhauer did not succeed either—and whoever has once felt deeply how insipidly false and sentimental this principle is in a world whose essence is will to power, may allow himself to be reminded that Schopenhauer, though a pessimist, really—played the flute. Every day, after dinner: one should read his biography on that. And incidentally: a pessimist, one who denies God and the world but comes to a stop before morality—who affirms morality and plays the flute—the laede neminem [offend no one] morality—what? is that really—a pessimist? 2 In his consideration of Schopenhauer’s philosophy at this later stage in his career (1886), Nietzsche clearly distinguished his own view from Schopenhauer’s insofar as he associated Schopenhauer’s view with Christian morality, and his own view with a standpoint “beyond good and evil,” as is indicated by the title of his book from which the above excerpt is cited. Describing Schopenhauer simply as an adherent of Christian morality—which he was, without a doubt—nonetheless remains, as Nietzsche might himself admit, one-sided and incomplete, for it neglects how Schopenhauer took great pains to distinguish his own moral theory from that of Immanuel Kant, and, more significantly, it overlooks ways in which Schopenhauer’s conception of moral awareness is morally ambiguous in certain important respects. In this article, I will explore some of the moral ambiguities in Schopenhauer’s conception of moral awareness, with the aim of showing that

Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality

Preface Note on citations Introduction Part I. Kants Aesthetics in Historical Context: 1. Feeling and freedom: Kant on aesthetics and morality 2. The dialectic of disinterestedness: I. Eighteenth-century aesthetics 3. The dialectic of disinterestedness: II. Kant and Schiller on interest in disinterestedness 4. The perfections of art: Mendelssohn, Moritz and Kant 5. Hegel on Kants aesthetics: necessity and contingency in beauty and art Part II. Kants Aesthetics and Morality: Topical Studies: 6. The beautiful and the sublime 7. Nature, art and autonomy 8. Genius and the canon of art: a second dialectic of aesthetic judgement 9. Duties regarding nature 10. Duty and inclination Notes Bibliography Index.

Hegel's aesthetics

When Hegel presented his lectures on aesthetics in the 1820s, he probably believed that his system of beauty and the fine arts was the most up-to-date and comprehensive of its time. And perhaps he was right. But Hegel himself would have been the first to admit that only in retrospect would a proper assessment of his theory emerge. As we now look back, Hegels aesthetic theory stands as the product of mutually influencing currents of inquiry within German intellectual life of the early 1800s, the most salient of which was the philosophical effort to comprehend the universe within the contours of an encyclopedic, organically structured thought-system. Under the spell of this hopeful enterprise, Hegel composed his theory of art and beauty as a movement within his comprehensive metaphysical theory. Following the interpretative conventions of the time, he tacitly assumed that his readers would view his aesthetic theory as part of this greater metaphysical symphony - as a reflection and extension of his conception of a dynamic but essentially rational and harmonious universe. Although systematic, Hegels aesthetics is not self-contained, and it solidly depends upon the presuppositions of his idealistic outlook.