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The Aesthetics of Meaning and Thought: The Bodily Roots of Philosophy, Science, Morality, and Art
by Mark JohnsonAll too often, we think of our minds and bodies separately. The reality couldn’t be more different: the fundamental fact about our mind is that it is embodied. We have a deep visceral, emotional, and qualitative relationship to the world—and any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of the mind must take into account the ways that cognition, meaning, language, action, and values are grounded in and shaped by that embodiment. This book gathers the best of philosopher Mark Johnson’s essays addressing questions of our embodiment as they deal with aesthetics—which, he argues, we need to rethink so that it takes into account the central role of body-based meaning. Viewed that way, the arts can give us profound insights into the processes of meaning making that underlie our conceptual systems and cultural practices. Johnson shows how our embodiment shapes our philosophy, science, morality, and art; what emerges is a view of humans as aesthetic, meaning-making creatures who draw on their deepest physical processes to make sense of the world around them.
The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems
by Stephen HalliwellMimesis is one of the oldest, most fundamental concepts in Western aesthetics. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art: above all, in the highly influential writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in later Greco-Roman philosophy and criticism, and subsequently in many areas of aesthetic controversy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Combining classical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and the history of ideas--and ranging across discussion of poetry, painting, and music--Stephen Halliwell shows with a wealth of detail how mimesis, at all stages of its evolution, has been a more complex, variable concept than its conventional translation of "imitation" can now convey. Far from providing a static model of artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models of art, encompassing a spectrum of positions from realism to idealism. Under the influence of Platonist and Aristotelian paradigms, mimesis has been a crux of debate between proponents of what Halliwell calls "world-reflecting" and "world-simulating" theories of representation in both the visual and musico-poetic arts. This debate is about not only the fraught relationship between art and reality but also the psychology and ethics of how we experience and are affected by mimetic art. Moving expertly between ancient and modern traditions, Halliwell contends that the history of mimesis hinges on problems that continue to be of urgent concern for contemporary aesthetics.
The Aesthetics of Science: Beauty, Imagination and Understanding (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
by Steven French Milena IvanovaThis volume builds on two recent developments in philosophy on the relationship between art and science: the notion of representation and the role of values in theory choice and the development of scientific theories. Its aim is to address questions regarding scientific creativity and imagination, the status of scientific performances—such as thought experiments and visual aids—and the role of aesthetic considerations in the context of discovery and justification of scientific theories. Several contributions focus on the concept of beauty as employed by practising scientists, the aesthetic factors at play in science and their role in decision making. Other essays address the question of scientific creativity and how aesthetic judgment resolves the problem of theory choice by employing aesthetic criteria and incorporating insights from both objectivism and subjectivism. The volume also features original perspectives on the role of the sublime in science and sheds light on the empirical work studying the experience of the sublime in science and its relation to the experience of understanding. The Aesthetics of Science tackles these topics from a variety of novel and thought-provoking angles. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of science and aesthetics, as well as other subdisciplines such as epistemology and philosophy of mathematics.
The Aesthetics of Scientific Experiments (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
by Milena Ivanova Alice MurphyThe relationship between aesthetics and science has begun to generate substantial interest. However, for the most part, the focus has been on the beauty of theories, and other aspects of scientific practice have been neglected. This book offers a novel perspective on aesthetics in experimentation via ten original essays from an interdisciplinary group comprised of philosophers, historians of science and art, and artists. The collection provides an analysis of the concept of beauty in the evaluation of experiments. What properties do practicing experimenters value? How have the aesthetic properties of scientific experiments changed over the years? Secondly, the volume looks at the role that aesthetic factors, including negative values such as ugliness, as well as experiences of the sublime and the profound, play in the construction of an experiment and its reception. Thirdly, the chapters provide in-depth historical case studies from the Royal Society, which also allows for a study of the depiction of scientific experiment in artworks, as well as contemporary examples from the LHC and cases of AI-designed experiments. Finally, it offers a exploration of the commonalities between how we learn from experiments on the one hand, and the cognitive value of artworks on the other. The Aesthetics of Scientific Experiments will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy and history of science, and philosophy and history of art, as well as practicing scientists.
The Aesthetics of Self-Becoming: How Art Forms Empower (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)
by Paul CrowtherThis book shows that art involves an aesthetics of self-becoming, wherein we do not simply consume artistic meaning, but become empowered—by adapting ourselves to what creation in the different art forms makes possible. Paul Crowther argues that the great political task in aesthetics is no longer the creation of political art as such, but rather the winning back of art and aesthetics as central societal concerns. This involves the overcoming of neo-liberal treatments of art as mere commodity and misguided attitudes that dismiss it as the product of dead white European males. The book begins with a theory of self-consciousness which reveals the necessary role played by the aesthetic in personal identity. It then emphasises how art forms empower through processes of making and aesthetic effects that are unique to them individually. To show this, he considers the ontology of pictorial art, sculpture, installation and assemblage works, architecture, literature, cinema, and music. His arguments concerning these are supported, throughout, by in-depth discussions of specific artworks. The book’s effect, overall is to reorientate aesthetics by showing how art empowers through its revelation of new possibilities of experience. The Aesthetics of Self-Becoming will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as scholars in art history, literary studies, film studies, and music theory who are interested in the book’s central concerns.
The Aesthetics of Videogames (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)
by Jon Robson Grant TavinorThis collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.
The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)
by Grant TavinorThis is the first book to present an aesthetics of virtual reality media. It situates virtual reality media in terms of the philosophy of the arts, comparing them to more familiar media such as painting, film and photography. When philosophers have approached virtual reality, they have almost always done so through the lens of metaphysics, asking questions about the reality of virtual items and worlds, about the value of such things, and indeed, about how they may reshape our understanding of the "real" world. Grant Tavinor finds that approach to be fundamentally mistaken, and that to really account for virtual reality, we must focus on the medium and its uses, and not the hypothetical and speculative instances that are typically the focus of earlier works. He also argues that much of the cultural and metaphysical hype around virtual reality is undeserved. But this does not mean that virtual reality is illusory or uninteresting; on the contrary, it is significant for the altogether different reason that it overturns much of our understanding of how representational media can function and what we can use them to achieve. The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of technology, metaphysics, and game studies.
The Aesthetics of Wine
by Ole M. Skilleas Douglas BurnhamThe Aesthetics of Wine shows that discussing wine within the framework of aesthetics both benefits our understanding of wine as a phenomenon, while also challenging some of the basic assumptions of the tradition of aesthetics.Analyzes the appreciation of wine as an aesthetic practice. Tackles prejudices against bodily senses, showing how they distort traditional aesthetic theory Represents the beginnings of a reformulation of general aesthetics
The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Ridvan Askin Catherine Diederich Aline BieriSoccer has long been known as 'the beautiful game'. This multi-disciplinary volume explores soccer, soccer culture, and the representation of soccer in art, film, and literature, using the critical tools of aesthetics, poetics, and rhetoric. Including international contributions from scholars of philosophy, literary and cultural studies, linguistics, art history, and the creative arts, this book begins by investigating the relationship between beauty and soccer and asks what criteria should be used to judge the sport’s aesthetic value. Covering topics as diverse as humor, national identity, style, celebrity, and social media, its chapters examine the nature of fandom, the role of language, and the significance of soccer in contemporary popular culture. It also discusses what one might call the ‘stylistics’ of soccer, analyzing how players, fans, and commentators communicate on and off the pitch, in the press, on social media, and in wider public discourse. The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer makes for fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, culture, literature, philosophy, linguistics, and society.
The Affected Teacher: Psychosocial Perspectives on Professional Experience and Policy Resistance
by Alex MooreAt a time when teaching and learning policy too often presents itself in a simplistic input-output language of measurable targets and objectives, The Affected Teacher explores the role played by emotionality in how professional life is experienced by school teachers. The book argues that, in the very highly organised and structured social spaces of public institutions, emotionality - or, more precisely, all that is included in the concept of ‘affect’ - needs to be recognised and validated, rather than ignored or pathologised. It explores how neoliberal education policy seeks to mould professional subjectivities, relationships and practices; how teachers experience and ‘manage’ their feelings; and the role that affect plays in guiding either compliance with or resistance to often unpopular policy directives. Drawing on a rich body of original data comprising formal and informal discussions with a range of teachers, the case is argued for psychoanalytically and politically informed individual and group reflexivity, both as a form of professional and personal development and as a way of keeping alive alternative beliefs and understandings regarding the purposes of education. The Affected Teacher is relevant to practising schoolteachers and to undergraduate and graduate students and academics involved in education related courses such as policy studies, education management and the sociology of education, as well as disciplines related to psychosocial studies and psychoanalysis.
The Affective Core Self: The Role of the Unconscious and Retroactivity in Self-Constitution (Contributions to Phenomenology #130)
by Lajos HorváthThis book extends the contemporary concept of the minimal self by introducing the affective core self. The overall aim is to integrate certain psychoanalytical ideas into the phenomenological investigation of passivity and reformulate the idea of the phenomenological unconscious. This volume contributes to the multidimensional analysis of the self by positioning the affective core self between the layers of the more minimal and the less minimal self. It underscores the importance of the unconscious in the constitution of the affective core self by providing the comparative analysis of the phenomenological and the psychoanalytical unconscious.Furthermore, comparisons are drawn between Freud’s conception of the afterwardsness of trauma and the phenomenological notion of retroactive sense-constitution. The book concludes that retroactive sense-making is a double-sided phenomenon and differentiates between implicit-bodily and conscious-narrative retroactive sense-constitution. In order to bolster the idea of implicit-bodily sense-constitution the volume also examines and utilizes contemporary insights on the nature of body memory. The conclusion claims that the affective core self is constituted in time by means of the underlying processes of the two-sided retroactive sense-constitution. This text appeals to students and researchers working in phenomenology and philosophy of mind.
The Affective Intensities of Masculinity in Shaping Gendered Experience: From Little Boys, Big Boys Grow
by Amanda KeddieThis book tells a story of masculinity through the experiences of one boy, ‘Adam’. From four different studies and time periods, it tracks moments of significance in his life over a period of 20 years. These moments highlight the ways in which Adam is both drawn towards and away from a hegemonic masculinity of physical toughness, domination, competition and an opposition to ‘the feminine’. The book is set against the backdrop of a long history of contentious gender politics in Australia and globally but particularly responds to the renewed attention to the social construction of masculinities in the current #MeToo climate. Against this backdrop, nuanced and longitudinal accounts of boys’ and men’s experiences of masculinity are significant because they can offer insight into the complex bodily, social, economic, and historical forces that configure masculinities. Such understandings are important in our endeavours as those who educate, support and work with boys and men to transform gender inequalities.
The Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)
by Christopher Lloyd Hilary EmmettThe Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies considers the ways in which teachers and students are affected by our encounters with literature and other cultural texts in the higher education classroom. The essays consider the range of emotions and affects elicited by teaching settings and practices: those moments when we in the university are caught off-guard and made uncomfortable, or experience joy, anger, boredom, and surprise. Featuring writing by teachers at different stages in their career, institutions, and national or cultural settings, the book is an innovative and necessary addition to both the study of affect, theories of learning and teaching, and the fields of literary and cultural studies.
The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism
by Bernard ReginsterAmong all the great thinkers of the past two hundred years, Nietzsche continues to occupy a special place--not only for a broad range of academics but also for members of a wider public, who find some of their most pressing existential concerns addressed in his works. Central among these concerns is the question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, at a time when the traditional responses inspired by Christianity are increasingly losing their credibility. While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of this fundamental issue, Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life brings it sharply into focus. Reginster identifies overcoming nihilism as a central objective of Nietzsche's philosophical project, and shows how this concern systematically animates all of his main ideas. In particular, Reginster's work develops an original and elegant interpretation of the will to power, which convincingly explains how Nietzsche uses this doctrine to mount a critique of the dominant Christian values, to overcome the nihilistic despair they produce, and to determine the conditions of a new affirmation of life. Thus, Reginster attributes to Nietzsche a compelling substantive ethical outlook based on the notions of challenge and creativity--an outlook that involves a radical reevaluation of the role and significance of suffering in human existence. Replete with deeply original insights on many familiar--and frequently misunderstood--Nietzschean concepts, Reginster's book will be essential to anyone approaching this towering figure of Western intellectual history.
The Affirmative Action Debate
by Steven M. CahnThis book is an essential guide to the full range of arguments surrounding affirmative action. Following the debate, as no other collection does, from all the early foundational articles to up-to-date selections, the book presents the strongest contributions from both sides of this highly charged issue. For students and general readers seeking to understand the controversy, this book offers a unique guide to the main lines of argument in the discussion. The contributors include most of the major contributors to the debate: Anita L. Allen, Robert Amdur, Michael D;. Bayles, Tom L. Beauchamp, Barbara R. Bergmann, Derek Bok, William G. Bowen, Carl Cohen, J. L. Cowan, Ronald Dworkin, Robert K. Fullinwider, Alan H. Goldman, Sidney Hook, James W. Nickel, William A. Nunn III, George Sher, Robert Simon, Paul W. Taylor, Abigail Thernstrom, Stephen Thernstrom, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Celia Wolf-Devine, and Paul Woodruff.
The Affordable Care Act Decision: Philosophical and Legal Implications (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)
by Mark Hall Fritz AllhoffInterest in NFIB v. Sebelius has been extraordinarily high, from as soon as the legislation was passed, through lower court rulings, the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari, and the decision itself, both for its substantive holdings and the purported behind-the-scene dynamics. Legal blogs exploded with analysis, bioethicists opined on our collective responsibilities, and philosophers tackled concepts like ‘coercion’ and the activity/inactivity distinction. This volume aims to bring together scholars from disparate fields to analyze various features of the decision. It comprises over twenty essays from a range of academic disciplines, namely law, philosophy, and political science. Essays are divided into five units: context and history, analyzing the opinions, individual liberty, Medicaid, and future implications.
The Afghan Patchwork State: Political Ideology, Infrastructural Power, and the Critical Juncture of 1929 (Politics of South Asia)
by Ryan S. BrasherThis book provides a theoretically grounded and empirically fine-grained analysis of uneven state development in Afghanistan beginning in the early 20th Century. Based on archival research, the book shows that after Amanullah Shah’s abortive modernist authoritarian experiment and Habibullah Kalakani’s brief rule, a newly empowered Musahiban dynasty charted a patrimonial absolutist course. The new regime delegated considerable authority to traditional tribal areas in the southeastern and eastern part of the country, while pursuing a coercive strategy in other parts of the country that usurped traditional leadership at the regional and local levels. Previous explanations of the weakness of the Afghan state tend to emphasize structural determinants such as difficult geography, acephalous tribal organization, ethnic heterogeneity, as well as colonial interventions. Others have focused only on events after the Soviet or NATO interventions, pointing out faulty external decision-making, corrupt government officials and warlords, neighboring insurgent safe havens, or the international aid-fueled rentier economy. This book proposes an intermediate explanation for the patchwork nature of the Afghan state rooted in institutional choices made by a new ruling elite that took over in 1929. The year represents one critical juncture in Afghan history, where individual agency based on certain ideological preferences set in motion a path-dependent process that shaped its politics well into the latter half of the century.
The African American Challenge to Just War Theory
by Ryan P. CummingIn this innovative treatment of the ethics of war, Ryan P. Cumming brings classical sources of just war theory into conversation with African American voices. The result is a new direction in just war thought that challenges dominant interpretations of just war theory by looking to the perspectives of those on the underside of history and politics.
The African Mood Perspective on God and the Problem of Evil (Elements in Global Philosophy of Religion)
by Ada AgadaThis Element concisely and critically explores the African limited God perspective that denies that the categories of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence are applicable to the God of African Traditional Religion (ATR). The Element teases out the intricate conceptual nuances in the limitation thesis and interrogates the divergent stances of proponents of the limited God view, with special focus on the mood perspective of the philosophy of consolationism. Proponents of the limitation thesis may be limited God theists who accept that the limited God is a creator-deity or, at least, a world-designer, or limited God non-theists who deny the limited God personality and agency. The Element expands the frontiers of research in African philosophy of religion by showing that the limitation thesis raises the question of a limited God's moral responsibility for some of the evil in the world in his capacity as a world-creator or world-designer.
The African Philosophy Reader
by P. H. Coetzee A.P.J. RouxDivided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.
The Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom: Connecting Culture to Learning
by Joyce E. King Ellen E. SwartzThe Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom explains and illustrates how an African worldview, as a platform for culture-based teaching and learning, helps educators to retrieve African heritage and cultural knowledge which have been historically discounted and decoupled from teaching and learning. The book has three objectives: To exemplify how each of the emancipatory pedagogies it delineates and demonstrates is supported by African worldview concepts and parallel knowledge, general understandings, values, and claims that are produced by that worldview To make African Diasporan cultural connections visible in the curriculum through numerous examples of cultural continuities––seen in the actions of Diasporan groups and individuals––that consistently exhibit an African worldview or cultural framework To provide teachers with content drawn from Africa’s legacy to humanity as a model for locating all students––and the cultures and groups they represent––as subjects in the curriculum and pedagogy of schooling This book expands the Afrocentric praxis presented in the authors’ "Re-membering" History in Teacher and Student Learning by combining "re-membered" (democratized) historical content with emancipatory pedagogies that are connected to an African cultural platform.
The After Iraq: The Imperiled American Imperium
by Charles W. Kegley Gregory A. RaymondAs the year 2001 unfolded, the United States stood at the apex of global power, possessing unrivaled military capabilities, a vibrant economy, and-most of all-great self-confidence in its sense of national security. However, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 shattered those illusions of invincibility, the world's sole superpower embarked on a revolutionary new national strategy based on preventive uses of military force. Although this aggressive approach was formulated to enhance U.S. security, it has actually created new perils for the next generation of Americans.
The Afterlife of Idealism
by Admir SkodoThis book examinesthe legacy of philosophical idealism in twentieth century British historicaland political thought. It demonstrates that the absolute idealism of thenineteenth century was radically transformed by R. G. Collingwood, MichaelOakeshott, and Benedetto Croce. These new idealists developed a new philosophyof history with an emphasis on the study of human agency, and historicisthumanism. This study unearths the impact of the new idealism on the thought ofa group of prominent revisionist historians in the welfare state period,focusing on E. H. Carr, Isaiah Berlin, G. R. Elton, Peter Laslett, and GeorgeKitson Clark. It shows that these historians used the new idealism to restatethe nature of history and to revise modern English history against the backdropof the intellectual, social and political problems of the welfare state period,thus making new idealist revisionism a key tradition in early postwarhistoriography.
The Afterlife of Moses: Exile, Democracy, Renewal (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Michael SteinbergIn this elegant and personal new work, Michael P. Steinberg reflects on the story of Moses and the Exodus as a foundational myth of politics—of the formation not of a nation but of a political community grounded in universal law. Modern renderings of the story of Moses, from Michelangelo to Spinoza to Freud to Schoenberg to Derrida, have seized on the story's ambivalences, its critical and self-critical power. These literal returns form the first level of the afterlife of Moses. They spin a persistent critical and self-critical thread of European and transatlantic art and argument. And they enable the second strand of Steinberg's argument, namely the depersonalization of the Moses and Exodus story, its evolving abstraction and modulation into a varied modern history of political beginnings. Beginnings, as distinct from origins, are human and historical, writes Steinberg. Political constitutions, as a form of beginning, imply the eventuality of their own renewals and their own reconstitutions. Motivated in part by recent reactionary insurgencies in the US, Europe, and Israel, this astute work of intellectual history posits the critique of myths of origin as a key principle of democratic government, affect, and citizenship, of their endurance as well as their fragility.
The Afterlife of Texts in Translation: Understanding the Messianic in Literature
by Edmund ChapmanThe Afterlife of Texts in Translation: Understanding the Messianic in Literature reads Walter Benjamin’s and Jacques Derrida’s writings on translation as suggesting that texts exist within a process of continual translation. Understanding Benjamin’s and Derrida’s concept of ‘afterlife’ as ‘overliving’, this book proposes that reading Benjamin’s and Derrida’s writings on translation in terms of their wider thought on language and history suggests that textuality itself possesses a ‘messianic’ quality. Developing this idea in relation to the many rewritings and translations of Don Quijote, particularly the multiple rewritings by Jorge Luis Borges, Edmund Chapman asserts that texts consist of a structure of potential for endless translation that continually promises the overcoming of language, history and textuality itself.