European Aesthetics: A Critical Introduction from Kant to Derrida PDF
Preview European Aesthetics: A Critical Introduction from Kant to Derrida
Praise for European Aesthetics: “Robert Wicks has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of continental European aesthetics between 1790 and 1990. His book will be of use to both scholars and advanced students.” Dabney Townsend, Secretary-Treasurer/Executive Director, American Society for Aesthetics “A highly accessible and richly contextualized guide to the history of continental European aesthetics... A valuable resource for historically-oriented courses in aesthetics and philosophy of art.” Sandra Shapshay, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University A Oneworld Book Published by Oneworld Publications 2013 This ebook edition published in 2013 Copyright © Robert L. Wicks 2013 The moral right of Robert L. Wicks to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN 978-1-85168-818-0 Paperback ISBN 978-1-85168-819-7 eBook ISBN 978-1-78074-077-5 Typeset by Cenveo Publisher Services, Bangalore, India Oneworld Publications 10 Bloomsbury St London WC1B 3SR England Stay up to date with the latest books, special offers, and exclusive content from Oneworld with our monthly newsletter Sign up on our website www.oneworld-publications.com For Gladys, Valentina and David CONTENTS Plates Acknowledgements Introduction: Art and the Disillusionment in Reason Part I: 1790–1900 1. The Beauty of Universal Agreement Immanuel Kant 2. The Beauty of Moral Cultivation Friedrich Schiller 3. The Beauty of Metaphysical Truth G. W. F. Hegel 4. The Art of Social Revolution Karl Marx 5. The Art of Transcendent Peace Arthur Schopenhauer 6. The Art of Supreme Health Friedrich Nietzsche 7. The Art of Subjective Inwardness Søren Kierkegaard 8. The Art of Unconscious Desire Sigmund Freud Part II: 1900–1980 9. The Art of Anti-Fascist Aesthetics Walter Benjamin 10. The Art of Atonal Autonomy Theodor Adorno 11. The Art of Poetically Disclosing Truth Martin Heidegger 12. The Art of Interpretation Hans-Georg Gadamer 13. The Art of Past Appearances Roland Barthes 14. The Art of Self-Discipline Michel Foucault 15. The Art of Free Interpretation Jacques Derrida 16. The Art of the Time Image Gilles Deleuze Conclusion: The Arts of Trust and Social Criticism Further Reading Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects PLATES 1 Design from the Lindisfarne Gospels manuscript (c.700) located in the British Library in London. 2 The image of Tukaroto Matutaera Potatau Te Wherowhero Tawhiao, Second Maori King – d.1894 (provided courtesy of the G.M.Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand). Discobolus (Discus Thrower), copy of the original statue by Myron, c.460-450 BCE located in the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens. 4 Carl Wilhelm Hübner, The Silesian Weavers (1846) located in the Kunstmuseum, Düsselsdorf. 5 Taj Mahal, Agra, India. 6 The original photograph of Nomadic Kyrgyz Family on the Golodnaya Steppe in Uzbekistan by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1911) located in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 7 The original photograph of Lewis Thornton Powell (a.k.a. Lewis Payne) by Alexander Gardner (1865) located in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 8 Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas (1656) located in the Prado Museum, Madrid. 9 Vincent van Gogh, A Pair of Shoes (1886) located in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. 10 Honoré Daumier, Third-Class Carriage (1862) located in the National Gallery of Canada. All the plates with the exception of Plate 2 are from Wikimedia Commons to whom the author expresses his gratitude. All of the images of works over 100 years old are in the public domain. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my gratitude to Oneworld Publications, who initially suggested the idea for this book, and to Mike Harpley at Oneworld, who allowed it to mature slowly. Thanks are also due to the Heads of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland whose tenures covered the duration of this book’s composition, Tim Dare and John Bishop, along with the Dean of Arts, Jan Crosthwaite, who respectively scheduled reduced administrative assignments, granted academic leave and secured special building access that allowed me to complete this book more effectively than would otherwise have been possible. In connection with the Kant chapter, I would like to thank Donald Crawford; for the chapters on Hegel, Schopenhauer, Freud and Benjamin, Ivan Soll; for the Marx chapter, Paul Warren; for the Heidegger chapter, Julian Young; for the Gadamer chapter, Matheson Russell; for the Foucault chapter, Stephen Davies. These individuals have been among my friends, colleagues and teachers who, through discussions or professional interactions of one kind or another, have shaped my views on the theorists here addressed. I am also indebted to two anonymous reviewers for Oneworld, whose insights and constructive criticisms significantly improved the manuscript. Thanks are also due to Routledge Publishing, for having given permission for me to draw from my Foucault entry in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. My gratitude also extends to my research assistant, Daniel Wilson, and to the students in my History of Aesthetics, Kant and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and Twentieth-Century French Philosophy classes at the University of Auckland, whose presence, maturity and intellectual enthusiasm motivated me to formulate some of the leading ideas contained herein. The birth of my son, David, during the course of this book’s development, almost on the birthday of Immanuel Kant, our initial theorist, and exactly during the scheduled time of my Kant–Hegel class at the University of Auckland (which had to be cancelled that morning for his arrival), rendered the memories of this book’s composition that much more exciting and meaningful. My wife, Gladys, and my daughter, Valentina, also deserve great thanks, as they open- mindedly allowed me some peaceful months of time to write in New York that otherwise would have been spent travelling happily with them while they were in South America. I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife and children. Auckland, April 24, 2012 INTRODUCTION: ART AND THE DISILLUSIONMENT IN REASON This book surveys sixteen theorists – mostly philosophers, but also representatives from literary criticism, psychiatry, classics, and history – whose work informs European aesthetics during the last two centuries. The arrangement is chronological on the whole, where the sequence of writers is further grouped according to their geographical origination and shared assumptions. For the sake of expository balance, the presentation divides evenly within each century between those who tend to respect reason’s capacities for enlightenment versus those who question its power. Reflected in their various conceptions of reason are ethical or political agendas that, as we shall see, usually predominate over their aesthetic views. Two broad strands of thought are consequently exposed, one rationalist and the other anti-rationalist, that extend side by side from 1790 to 1990, where our account ends, but where contemporary history also continues along the same dual tracks, albeit now more confusingly amalgamated. These are “broad” strands, for each thinker embodies a particular proportion of rational and anti-rational aspects which render the comparisons and contrasts between them more subtle and often less oppositional. This expository design reflects a seminal theme that extends across these 200 years and illuminates this time-segment of aesthetic theorizing, namely, the disagreement over the nature and value of reason. During the Enlightenment and culminating in the French Revolution, reason reaches a point where it is celebrated absolutely as the essence of God himself, or simply as the new God to replace those of traditional religions, and in particular Christianity. Optimistic applications of reason in science, politics, social organizations, and psychology – a trend that continues today – are prescribed here as the most truth-oriented and advisable ways to understand and manage our surroundings. Such ideals inhere in some of the French Revolution’s advocates and sadly, eventual victims, such as the Marquis de Condorcet (1743–94).
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