A History of Modern Aesthetics: Volume 1, The Eighteenth Century

A History of Modern Aesthetics narrates the history of philosophical aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century through the twentieth century.

Paul Guyer (Author)

9781108733816, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 September 2018

590 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 3.5 cm, 0.88 kg

A History of Modern Aesthetics narrates the history of philosophical aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century through the twentieth century. Aesthetics began with Aristotle's defense of the cognitive value of tragedy in response to Plato's famous attack on the arts in The Republic, and cognitivist accounts of aesthetic experience have been central to the field ever since. But in the eighteenth century, two new ideas were introduced: that aesthetic experience is important because of emotional impact - precisely what Plato criticized - and because it is a pleasurable free play of many or all of our mental powers. This book tells how these ideas have been synthesized or separated by aestheticians of modern times. This first volume recounts how philosophers in Britain, France, and Germany developed these new approaches and searched for ways to combine them with the cognitivism of traditional aesthetics.

1. Prologue
Part I. Aesthetics in Britain, 1725–1800: 2. Hutcheson to Hume
3. Hogarth, Burke, and Gerard
4. From Kames to Alison and Stewart
Part II. French Aesthetics in Mid-Century: 5. André to Rousseau
Part III. German Aesthetics between Wolff and Kant: 6. The first generation of Wolffian aesthetics
7. German aesthetics at mid-century
8. Coming closer to Kant
Part IV. Kant and After: 9. Kant
10. After Kant.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]