Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art - Softcover

Shusterman Author Of Surface And Depth: Dialectics Of Criticism And Culture, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0847697657 ISBN 13: 9780847697656

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000

Synopsis

This much acclaimed book has emerged as neopragmatism's most significant contribution to contemporary aesthetics. By articulating a deeply embodied notion of aesthetic experience and the art of living, and by providing a compellingly rigorous defense of popular artcrowned by a pioneer study of hip hopRichard Shusterman reorients aesthetics towards a fresher, more relevant , and socially progressive agenda. The second edition contains an introduction where Shusterman responds to his critics, and it concludes with an added chapter that formulates his novel notion of somaesthetics.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Pragmatism is experiencing a powerful revival. But the new pragmatism has not yet expressed itself in a new aesthetic, and not since Dewey's Art as Experience (1934) has there been a comprehensive pragmatist treatment of this field. Shusterman's bold and lively book fills the gap by proposing a pragmatist aesthetics for our current postmodern condition.

Pragmatist Aesthetics treats the traditionally central topics of aesthetics: the definition of art, aesthetic experience and value, form and unity, interpretation, and the cognitive and moral worth of art. But it also directs philosophical aesthetics towards a much wider and more socially pertinent agenda by considering such contemporary issues as the institutionalization and cultural oppression of art, the aesthetic legitimacy of popular culture, and the ethical art of living beauty through the stylization of conduct and the aesthetic construction of the self. Gracefully but vigorously argued, Pragmatist Aesthetics is an important book which breaks new ground and liberates new areas and directions for philosophical inquiry. Its wide-ranging breadth and accessible style will appeal to all readers with an interest in contemporary philosophy, aesthetics and cultural studies.

About the Author:

Richard Shusterman is Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0847697657
• ISBN 13: 9780847697656
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 368