The Question of Style in Philosophy and the Arts

Essays examining the historical transition in our perception of the arts and philosophy.

Caroline Eck (Edited by), James McAllister (Edited by), Renée van de Vall (Edited by)

9780521154413, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 June 2010

258 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.4 cm, 0.35 kg

"...this book reminds us that style has always played a role in philosophical writing despite claims to the contrary. Not only does it show that philosophy has influenced the arts, but that the arts might hold the key to understanding style in philosophical writing." Jeffrey R. DiLeo, Philosophy and Literature

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a change in the perception of the arts and of philosophy. In the arts this transition occurred around 1800, with, for instance, the breakdown of Vitruvianism in architecture, while in philosophy the foundationalism of which Descartes and Spinoza were paradigmatic representatives, which presumed that philosophy and the sciences possessed a method of ensuring the demonstration of truths, was undermined by the idea, asserted by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, that there exist alternative styles of enquiry among which a choice is open. The essays in this book examine the circumstances, features, and consequences of this historical transition, exploring in particular new aspects and instances of the inter-relatedness of content and its formal representation in both the arts and philosophy.

1. The style of method: repression and representation in the genealogy of philosophy B. Lang
2. Style in painting R. Wollheim
3. Stylistic strategies in William Hogarth's theatrical satires M. K. Lindberg
4. Style in architecture J. Mordaunt Crook
5. Par le style on atteint au sublime: the meaning of the term style in French architectural theory of the late eighteenth century C. A. Van Eck
6. Aesthetic forms of philosophising L. Wiesing
7. Style and community S. Kemal
8. Metaphor and paradox in Toqueville's analysis of democracy F. R. Ankersmit
9. The formation of styles: science and the applied arts J. W. McAllister
10. Beyond the mannered: the question of style in philosophy or questionable styles of philosophy N. Davey
11. Style and subjective agency C. Altieri
12. Style and innocence: lost, regained, and lost again? D. Franck
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN]