Herder's Naturalist Aesthetics

Provides an overview of Johann Gottfried Herder's aesthetics, interpreted as a naturalist theory with transformative historical significance for European philosophy.

Rachel Zuckert (Author)

9781108483070, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 April 2019

276 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.52 kg

In this book, Rachel Zuckert provides the first overarching account of Johann Gottfried Herder's complex aesthetic theory. She guides the reader through Herder's texts, showing how they relate to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European philosophy of art, and focusing on two main concepts: aesthetic naturalism, the view that art is natural to and naturally valuable for human beings as organic, embodied beings, and - unusually for Herder's time - aesthetic pluralism, the view that aesthetic value takes many diverse and culturally varying forms. Zuckert argues that Herder's theory plays a pivotal role in the history of philosophical aesthetics, marking the transition from the eighteenth-century focus on aesthetic value as grounded in human nature to the nineteenth-century focus on art as socially significant and historically variable. Her study illuminates Herder's significance as an innovative thinker in aesthetics, and will interest a range of readers in philosophy of art and European thought.

Introduction
Part I. Herder's Aesthetics: 1. Herder's philosophical naturalism
2. Synthesis and critique of eighteenth-century aesthetics
3. Aesthetics of the senses
4. Aesthetics of expression: coda cultural variation and taste
Part II. Explorations: 5. The problem of the sublime
6. Sculpture and touch
7. Aesthetics and (in)authenticity: Herder's reputation of Ossian
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]