Aesthetics category: 1179 books

This is the first full exploration of the implications of Wittgenstein's philosophy for understanding the arts and cultural criticism. These original essays by philosophers and critics address key philosophical topics in the study of the arts and culture, such as humanism, criticism, psychology, painting,...

John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is a classic exposition and defence of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863.   The eldest son...

Five meditations on the role of beauty in human life and its direct connection with the sacred • Looks at how beauty has the power to elevate and counterbalance the negative side of the reality facing us • Presents the role of beauty in transforming individuals and transforming the...

Presented in a new edition with expanded notes, this genre-defying meditation on the semiotics of late-1920s Weimar culture, composed of 60 short prose pieces that vary wildly in style and theme, offers a fresh opportunity to encounter Walter Benjamin at his most virtuosic and experimental, writing in a vein that anticipates later masterpieces.

“Essential reading.” — New Society.A classic of eighteenth-century thought, Friedrich Schiller’s treatise on the role of art in society ranks among German philosophy’s most profound works. In addition to its importance to the history of ideas, this 1795 essay remains relevant to our own time.Beginning...

Lo stile è soltanto il vestito formale del contenuto, come una pellicola che riveste esteriormente un nucleo sostanziale? Possibile che la verità stia tutta dalla parte del “che cosa”, relegando il “come” a funzione decorativa ornamentale? Se le cose fossero così, un baratro si aprirebbe...

Johannes is an aesthete, dedicated to creating the possibility of seduction through the careful manipulation of young women. He stealthily pursues the innocent Cordelia until she becomes increasingly drawn to him. But when she is ready to give herself completely, she realizes she may have got everything...

This new edition:Adds descriptive titles to each of Burke's five parts.Corrects Burke's inaccurate quotations.Translates Burke's foreign language quotations.Adds accurate citations for all references.Provides a bibliography of scholarly work on Burke's philosophy of art since 1995.Lists...

Philosophy may be said to contain the principles of the rational cognition that concepts afford us of things (not merely, as with logic, the principles of the form of thought in general irrespective of the objects), and, thus interpreted, the course, usually adopted, of dividing it into theoretical...

What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Could a nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep be full of concealed loathing, resentment, and aggression? In this accessible, delightfully entertaining book, Terry Eagleton addresses these intriguing questions and...

In the beginning was the night. All light, shapes, language, and subjective consciousness, as well as the world and art depicting them, emerged from this formless chaos. In fantasy, we seek to return to this original darkness. Particularly in literature, visual representations, and film, the night...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. No matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers in even layers, adapting to the contours of things and marking the passage of time. In itself, it is also...

One of the seminal works of Western philosophy, Aristotle's Rhetoric vastly influenced all subsequent thought on the subject — philosophical, political, and literary. Focusing on the use of language as both a vehicle and a tool to shape persuasive argument, Aristotle delineates with remarkable insight...

'God is dead ... but given the ways of men, perhaps for millennia to come there will be caves in which his shadow will be shown' Friedrich Nietzsche described The Joyous Science as a book of 'exuberance, restlessness, contrariety and April showers'. A deeply personal and affirmative work, it...