An Introduction to Kant's Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems - Hardcover

Wenzel, Christian Helmut; Wenzel, Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1405130350 ISBN 13: 9781405130356

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005

Synopsis

In An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics, Christian Wenzel discusses and demystifies Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, guiding the reader each step of the way and placing key points of discussion in the context of Kant's other work.

• Explains difficult concepts in plain language, using numerous examples and a helpful glossary.
• Proceeds in the same order as Kant's text for ease of reference and comprehension.
• Includes an illuminating foreword by Henry E. Allison.
• Offers twenty-six further-reading sections, commenting briefly on books and articles from the English, German, and French, that are relevant for each topic
• Provides an extensive bibliography and a chapter summarizing Kant's main points.

About this title

About the Author

Christian Helmut Wenzel is Associate Professor at the National Chi Nan University in Taiwan. He is the author of The Problem of Subjective Universality of the Judgment of Taste in Kant,published in German (2000).

From the Back Cover

Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment is one of the most important and enduring contributions to philosophical aesthetics. It is also notoriously difficult. In An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics, Christian Wenzel discusses and demystifies this seminal work, guiding the reader each step of the way, placing key points of discussion in the context of Kant’s other work.

The starting point of Kant’s aesthetics, and Wenzel’s treatment, is the observation that aesthetic judgments seem to hover uneasily between subjective and objective domains. On the one hand, there appear to be standards of taste, such that aesthetic judgments demand some kind of consensus; on the other hand, there simultaneously seem to exist no specific rules governing what is beautiful. Beginning with this premise, Kant delineates four moments of aesthetic judgment, considers the question of the beautiful, the sublime, and the ugly, and from this groundwork creates a new philosophical theory that reveals the essence of taste, and much else, about human nature besides.

Wenzel artfully guides readers through Kant’s work with thoroughness and clarity, making Kant’s aesthetics accessible to newcomers and more rewarding for those returning to the subject.

The starting point of Kant’s aesthetics, and Wenzel’s treatment, is the observation that aesthetic judgments seem to hover uneasily between subjective and objective domains. On the one hand, there appear to be standards of taste, such that aesthetic judgments demand some kind of consensus; on the other hand, there simultaneously seem to exist no specific rules governing what is beautiful. Beginning with this premise, Kant delineates four moments of aesthetic judgment, considers the question of the beautiful, the sublime, and the ugly, and from this groundwork creates a new philosophical theory that reveals the essence of taste, and much else, about human nature besides.

Wenzel artfully guides readers through Kant’s work with thoroughness and clarity, making Kant’s aesthetics accessible to newcomers and more rewarding for those returning to the subject.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1405130350
• ISBN 13: 9781405130356
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208