A History of Modern Aesthetics: Volume 1, The Eighteenth Century: v. 1

"Volume I: The development of aesthetics was one of the great accomplishments of eighteenth-century philosophy, as the classical conception of aesthetic experience as a form of knowledge came under pressure from increasing recognition of the emotional impact of art and from increasing emphasis on the value of freedom in the moral and political thought of the century. This opening volume of A History of Modern Aesthetics recounts how philosophers in Britain, France, and Germany developed these new approaches and searched for ways to combine them with the cognitivism of traditional aesthetics. A History of Modern Aesthetics narrates the history of philosophical aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century through the twentieth century. Aesthetics began with Aristotle's defense of the cognitive value of tragedy in response to Plato's famous attack on the arts in The Republic, and cognitivist accounts of aesthetic experience have been central to the field ever since. But in the eighteenth century, two new ideas were introduced: that aesthetic experience is important because of emotional impact - precisely what Plato criticized - and because it is a pleasurable free play of many or all of our mental powers. This book tells how these ideas have been synthesized or separated by both the best-known and lesser-known aestheticians of modern times, focusing on Britain, France, and Germany in the eighteenth century; Germany and Britain in the nineteenth; and Germany, Britain, and the United States in the twentieth"-- Provided by publisher Volume 1: The Eighteenth Century Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Prologue: The Origins of Modern Aesthetics Part One Aesthetics in Britain, 1725–1800 2 From Hutcheson to Hume: The Sense of Beauty 3 Hogarth, Burke, and Gerard: Forms of Feeling 4 From Kames to Alison and Stewart: The Final Flowering Part Two French Aesthetics in Mid-Century 5 André to Rousseau Part Three German Aesthetics 6 The First Generation of Wolffi an Aesthetics 7 German Aesthetics at Mid-Century 8 Breaking with Rationalism: From Herder to Moritz Part Four Kant and After 9 Kant 10 After Kant Bibliography Index Volume 2: The Nineteenth Century Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One German Aesthetics in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century 1 Early Romanticism and Idealism: Schlegel and Schelling 2 High Romaticism in the Shadow of Schelling 3 The High Tide of Idealism: 4 In the Wake of Hegel Part Two (Mostly) British Aesthetics in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 5 Ruskin 6 Aestheticism: The Aestheticist Movement 7 Bosanquet and Tolstoy Part Three German Aesthetics in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 8 In the Shadow of Schopenhauer 9 Neo-Kantian Aesthetics 10 Psychological Aesthetics: Play and Empathy Bibliography Index Volume 3: The Twentieth Century Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One German Aesthetics in the Twentieth Century 1 German Aesthetics between the Wars 2 German Aesthetics after World War II Part Two Aesthetics in Britain until World War II 3 Bloomsbury, Croce, and Bullough 4 First Responses to Croce 5 Collingwood Part Three American Aesthetics in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 6 Santayana 7 The American Reception of Expression Theory I: 8 Dewey 9 The American Reception of Expression Theory II: 10 After Dewey and Cassirer Part Four Wittgenstein and After 11 Wittgenstein 12 The First Wave 13 The Second Wave Epilogue: Truth, Feeling, and Play in Recent Aesthetics Bibliography Index "A History of Modern Aesthetics narrates the history of philosophical aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century through the twentieth century"-- Description de l'éditeur