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Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics (Routledge Research in Aesthetics) PDF

173 Pages·2022·4.275 MB·English
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“By placing Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics in critical dialogue with both key aesthetic theories of the philosophical tradition as well as with important contemporary artists and art movements, Nielsen’s well-conceived study develops a vibrant bridge between past and present that clearly demonstrates the continued relevance of Gadamer’s hermeneutics for our comprehension of the experience and understanding of art.” – Daniel L. Tate, St. Bonaventure University, USA “Cynthia Nielsen’s study of the historical impact of Kant’s aesthetics on Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics and of the application of philosophical hermeneutics to contemporary music and art practice, has transformative implications. By revealing the ontological frame- works which enable the works of Bearden and Bansky to be so effec- tive, her book demonstrates the contemporaneousness of Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This volume is a notable achievement. It offers a dou- bled disclosure: whilst concretising Gadamer’s philosophical con- cepts in contemporary art practice, it also shows how art’s images reach beyond their immediacy by instantiating the structures of meaning informing them.” – Nicholas Davey, University of Dundee, UK Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics This book offers a sustained scholarly analysis of Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience of art. It examines fundamental themes in Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics such as play, festival, symbol, con- temporaneity, enactment, art’s performative ontology, and hermeneutical identity. The first two chapters focus on Gadamer’s critical appropriation and movement beyond Kantian and Hegelian aesthetics. (Chapter 2 also includes a coda on Heidegger’s influence.) The final three chapters argue for the continued relevance of Gadamer’s hermeneutical aesthetics by bringing his claims into conversation with contemporary art and music, as well as the ethical and sociopolitical dimensions of the Artworld and art praxis. The ethical and sociopolitical aspects of art- and music-m aking are given particular attention in chapters devoted to 20th-century African American artist Romare Bearden, Banksy’s street art, and a range of jazz expressions, from traditional jazz to the complex practice of free jazz. Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics will appeal to researchers and advanced students working on Gadamer, philosophical hermeneutics, continental philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of contemporary art and music. Cynthia R. Nielsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas, where she teaches courses in the areas of hermeneutics, aesthetics, contemporary continental philosophy, and the history of philosophy. She has two previously published books; a co-edited book, Gadamer’s Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary (Rowman & Littlefield, March 2022); and her articles have appeared in journals such as Philosophy Today, Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, and Philosophy and Literature. Routledge Research in Aesthetics Philosophy of Sculpture Historical Problems, Contemporary Approaches Edited by Kristin Gjesdal, Fred Rush, and Ingvild Torsen Art, Representation, and Make-Believe Essays on the Philosophy of Kendall L. Walton Edited by Sonia Sedivy Philosophy of Improvisation Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Theory and Practice Edited by Susanne Ravn, Simon Høffding, and James McGuirk The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality Grant Tavinor The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy Working with Husserl Paul Crowther Objects of Authority: A Postformalist Aesthetics Jakub Stejskal Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics Art as a Performative, Dynamic, Communal Event Cynthia R. Nielsen The Philosophy of Fiction Imagination and Cognition Edited by Patrik Engisch and Julia Langkau For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Aesthetics/book-series/RRA Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics Art as a Performative, Dynamic, Communal Event Cynthia R. Nielsen First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Cynthia R. Nielsen The right of Cynthia R. Nielsen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-032-02037-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02039-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-18156-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003181569 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive) Contents Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1 Kantian Resonances and Dissonances 10 2 Hegelian Resonances and Dissonances (and a Heideggerian Coda) 43 3 Romare Bearden’s Collages and Art’s Address: On World De-fabrication and Reconfiguration 71 4 Banksy, Street Art, and a Benjaminian Coda 94 5 It’s All about (Hermeneutical) Movement: Play, Leeway, Difference, and a Coda on Free Jazz 124 Bibliography 156 Index 161 Acknowledgments As is always the case, there are numerous people to whom I am indebted, owe thanks, and without whose help and generosity this project would not have been possible. First and foremost, I thank my partner Will and daughter Ash for your willingness to give me the space and time to work on this project. I am especially grateful to a handful of individuals for their kindness and encouragement, and I owe them special thanks for reading chapters (and parts of chapters) and offering helpful feedback: Nicholas Davey, Dan Tate, Niall Keane, Ted George, Greg Lynch, David Vessey, and John Arthos. Many thanks as well to the University of Dallas for supporting my research sabbatical for the 2021–2022 academic year and to my Dallas colleagues José Espericueta and Carla Pezzia for being so supportive and encouraging. Given that my book focuses on aesthet- ics, I am delighted that Siobhan Donnelly and the Bearden Foundation graciously granted me permission to include two beautiful black and white reproductions of Romare Bearden’s collages, Three Folk Musicians, 1967, and The Dove, 1964. Lastly, I would like to thank the following editors and journals for granting me permission to use excerpts and revised versions of my previ- ously published work. For example, Chapter 1 is an expanded version of my article “Gadamer’s Complex Engagement with Kantian Aesthetics,” International Yearbook for Hermeneutics, 2022. Chapter 3 is a reworked version of my article “Harsh Poetry and Art’s Address: Romare Bearden and Hans-Georg Gadamer in Conversation,” The Polish Journal of Aesthetics 43 (4) (2016). Chapter 5 includes a revised version of “Gadamer on Play and the Play of Art,” in The Gadamerian Mind, edited by Theodore George and Gert-Jan van der Heiden (New York: Routledge, 2021), and revised sections from “Gadamer on the Event of Art, the Other, and a Gesture Toward a Gadamerian Approach to Free Jazz.” Journal of Applied Hermeneutics, March 2016 (an online, open access journal). Introduction Chapter 1 focuses on Gadamer’s complex dialogue with Kantian aesthet- ics, beginning with his reflections on Kant’s Critique of Judgment in part one of Truth and Method. A careful reading of his engagement with Kant reveals that Gadamer does not simply dismiss Kant’s insights in toto but rather creatively reworks them as he develops his own hermeneutical aesthetics. Gadamer returns to Kant’s aesthetics 20 years after Truth and Method in his late essay “Intuition and Vividness” (1980). Here Gadamer’s dialogue with Kant becomes even more complex, as he reconfigures Kant’s thinking about the role of imagination in the experience of art. Before turning to Gadamer’s study of Kant in Truth and Method, we briefly review relevant key terms and concepts in Kant’s aesthetics. For example, in §1 of the Critique of Judgment, Kant introduces aesthetic judgments or judgments of taste. Aesthetic judgments contrast with empirical judgments. That is, judgments of taste are not cognitive judg- ments, as they are not based on concepts. Their determining ground is necessarily subjective. However, what Kant means by subjective must be clarified. He does not have in mind merely an individual’s subjective feel- ings, although he does emphasize a particular kind of feeling—namely, what he calls disinterested pleasure. A subject experiences disinterested pleasure when she, for example, is struck by a beautiful sunset or a beau- tiful painting. Disinterested pleasure is the result of her cognitive powers engaging in what Kant calls “free play.” On the one hand, disinterested pleasure is subjective in that an individual experiences it. On the other hand, it is an experience that in theory can be had by all subjects because all humans share the same cognitive faculties, imagination and under- standing, which can engage in free play. In Gadamer’s reading of Kant, he acknowledges that Kant provides an account of the subjective universality of aesthetic judgments that is not reducible to mere subjective preferences. Even so, he claims that Kant has, nonetheless, subjectivized aesthetics by grounding the normativity of aesthetic judgments in a subjective (and potentially intersubjective) feel- ing of disinterested pleasure. Pure aesthetic judgments, in other words, are not about particular features in the object, but rather concern a DOI: 10.4324/9781003181569-1

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.