The Continental Aesthetics Reader

641 Pages·2000·2.69 MB·English

by  Clive Cazeaux

THE CONTINENTAL AESTHETICS
READER
‘... an extremely impressive selection’.
Malcom Barnard, University of Derby
‘I fully endorse The Continental Aesthetics Reader and believe that for the foreseeable
future it will be required reading for all those who “think” about art.’
Gary Peters, University of West of England
‘The Continental Aesthetics Reader is a rich and intellectually uncompromising
anthology. It fills an important gap in the literature.’
Timothy R. Quigley, New School for Social Research, New York
‘Cazeaux’s brief introductions to the selections are insightful and cogent. This volume
will serve as a much-needed source for considering the range and depth of modern
aesthetic theory.’
Tom Huhn, Wesleyan University
‘This much-needed reader will provide a very valuable resource for teaching, and is an
excellent introduction for the general reader interested in the field.’
Michael Newman, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
The Continental Aesthetics Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writ-
ings on art and aesthetics from the major figures in Continental thought. The reader is
clearly divided into six sections: Nineteenth-Century German Aesthetics • Phenomen-
ology and Hermeneutics • Marxism and Critical Theory • Modernism • Poststructural-
ism and Postmodernism • Psychoanalysis and Feminism. Each section is clearly placed
in its historical and philosophical context by Clive Cazeaux.
Ideal for introductory courses in aesthetics, Continental philosophy, art, and visual
studies, The Continental Aesthetics Reader provides a thorough introduction to some of
the most influential writings on art and aesthetics from Kant to Derrida.
Clive Cazeaux is Senior Lecturer in Aesthetics at the University of Wales Insti-
tute, Cardiff.

THE CONTINENTAL
AESTHETICS READER
Edited by Clive Cazeaux
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 2000 Selection and editorial matter, Clive Cazeaux
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.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The continental aesthetics reader / edited by Clive Cazeaux.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Aesthetics, Modern – 20th century. 2. Aesthetics, Modern – 19th
century. 3.
Philosophy, European. I. Cazeaux, Clive.
BH201 .C59 2000
111′.85′094 – dc21 00– 032177
ISBN 0–415–20053–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–20054–7 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-18766-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18889-6 (Glassbook Format)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xiii
PART 1
Nineteenth-Century German Aesthetics 1
Introduction 3
1 Extracts from ‘Analytic of Aesthetic Judgment’ and ‘Dialectic of
Aesthetic Judgment’, Critique of Judgment 16
IMMANUEL KANT
2 Extracts from Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art 35
G.W.F. HEGEL
3 On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense 53
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
PART 2
Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 63
Introduction 65
4 The Origin of the Work of Art 80
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
5 What is Writing? 102
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
6 Reality and its Shadow 117
EMMANUEL LEVINAS
v
CONTENTS
7 The World of the Aesthetic Object 129
MIKEL DUFRENNE
8 The Dialectics of Outside and Inside 151
GASTON BACHELARD
9 The Intertwining – The Chiasm 164
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
10 Aesthetics and Hermeneutics 181
HANS-GEORG GADAMER
11 The Death or Decline of Art 187
GIANNI VATTIMO
PART 3
Marxism and Critical Theory 195
Introduction 197
12 Private Property and Communism 210
KARL MARX
13 Specific Particularity as the Central Category of Aesthetics 220
GEORG LUKÁCS
14 Extracts from Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life 234
THEODOR W. ADORNO
15 Nature and Revolution 257
HERBERT MARCUSE
16 Modernity versus Postmodernity 268
JÜRGEN HABERMAS
17 Extract from ‘Questions and Counterquestions’ 278
JÜRGEN HABERMAS
18 Postmodernism and Consumer Society 282
FREDRIC JAMESON
vi
CONTENTS
PART 4
Modernism 295
Introduction 297
19 Value and Money 305
GEORG SIMMEL
20 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 322
WALTER BENJAMIN
21 The Original Experience 344
MAURICE BLANCHOT
22 Artistic Illusion as Visible Anticipatory Illumination 355
ERNST BLOCH
PART 5
Poststructuralism and Postmodernism 365
Introduction 367
23 Sanctity, Eroticism and Solitude 384
GEORGES BATAILLE
24 The Plates of the Encyclopedia 392
ROLAND BARTHES
25 Las Meninas 401
MICHEL FOUCAULT
26 The Parergon 412
JACQUES DERRIDA
27 The Resistance to Theory 429
PAUL DE MAN
28 The Evil Demon of Images 444
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
29 The Sublime and the Avant-Garde 453
JEAN-FRANÇOIS LYOTARD
vii
CONTENTS
30 Percept, Affect, and Concept 465
GILLES DELEUZE AND FÉLIX GUATTARI
PART 6
Psychoanalysis and Feminism 489
Introduction 491
31 The Unconscious 506
SIGMUND FREUD
32 Of the Gaze as Objet Petit a 519
JACQUES LACAN
33 Approaching Abjection 542
JULIA KRISTEVA
34 The Invisible of the Flesh: A Reading of Merleau-Ponty, ‘The
Intertwining – The Chiasm’ 563
LUCE IRIGARAY
35 The Last Painting or the Portrait of God 583
HÉLÈNE CIXOUS
Select bibliography of major works in English 598
Index 611
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the following copyright holders for granting permission to reproduce
material in this book:
Immanuel Kant, extracts from ‘Analytic of Aesthetic Judgment’ and ‘Dialectic of
Aesthetic Judgment’, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar, Indianapolis,
Hackett, 1987, §§ 32–38, 44–46, 49, 56–57; pp. 145–56, 172–76, 181–86, 210–17.
© Hackett Publishing Company.
G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Concept of the Beauty of Art’ and ‘Division of the Subject’, Aesthetics:
Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 1–3,
22–25, 69–90. © Oxford University Press.
Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense’, Philosophy and
Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s, ed. Daniel Breazeale,
Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1994, pp. 79–91. © Prometheus
Publishers.
Martin Heidegger, ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans.
Albert Hofstadter, New York, Harper and Row, 1971, pp. 17–22, 26–37, 41–57, 69–70,
72–78. © Harper and Row.
Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘What is Writing?’, What is Literature?, London, Routledge, 1997,
pp. 1–25. © Routledge.
Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Reality and its Shadow’, Collected Philosophical Papers, trans.
Alphonso Lingis, The Levinas Reader, ed. Séan Hand, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996, pp.
130–43. © Martinus Nijhoff.
Mikel Dufrenne, ‘The World of the Aesthetic Object’, The Phenomenology of
Aesthetic Experience, trans. E.S. Casey, Evanston, Northwestern University Press,
1966, pp. 166–98. © Northwestern University Press.
Gaston Bachelard, ‘The Dialectics of Outside and Inside’, The Poetics of Space, trans.
Maria Jolas, Boston, Beacon Press, 1994, pp. 211–31. © Penguin Putnam.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘The Intertwining – The Chiasm’, The Visible and the Invisible,
ed. Claude Lefort, trans. Alphonso Lingis, Evanston, Northwestern University Press,
1968, pp. 130–55. © Northwestern University Press.
ix