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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Reflections On The Aesthetics Of Violence, Arnold Berleant
Reflections On The Aesthetics Of Violence, Arnold Berleant
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Violence has long been a factor in human life and has been widely depicted in the arts. This essay explores how the artistic and appreciative responses to violence have been practiced, understood, and valued. It emphasizes the difference between the aesthetics of distant, disinterested appreciation and the engaged appreciative experience of violence in the arts, and insists on the relevance of their behavioral and ethical implications.
Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, And Moving Images, Robert Sinnerbrink
Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, And Moving Images, Robert Sinnerbrink
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Some of the most innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics in recent years has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives. This trend reflects a welcome re-engagement with cinema as a medium with the potential for ethical transformation, that is, with the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience. This paper explores the phenomenological turn in film theory, emphasizing the ethical implications of phenomenological approaches to affect and empathy, emotion, and evaluation. I argue that the oft-criticized subjectivism of phenomenological theories can be supplemented by cognitivist approaches that highlight the complex forms of affective response, emotional engagement, and …
Macabre Fascination And Moral Propriety: The Attraction Of Horror, Marius A. Pascale
Macabre Fascination And Moral Propriety: The Attraction Of Horror, Marius A. Pascale
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Why does the horror genre serve as a source of pleasure, given its aim to induce fear in the audience? I examine two general solutions to this phenomenon, referred to as the paradox of horror, which differ based upon their position regarding the possibility of deriving pleasure from fear. Each of the possible solutions contains significant flaws. I argue that, by adjusting a meta-theory originally proposed by Susan Feagin, it is possible to craft a solution that addresses the paradox while preserving the idea that, at times, fear can be enjoyed. The article concludes by considering the moral status of …
The Aesthetic And Its Resonances: A Reply To Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, And Mariana Ortega, Monique Roelofs
The Aesthetic And Its Resonances: A Reply To Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, And Mariana Ortega, Monique Roelofs
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This essay offers replies to the critical commentaries on The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic presented by Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Mariana Ortega. The essay shows how the probing questions and criticisms that the three commentators raise bring out details in the framework of relationality, address, and promises through which the book theorizes the aesthetic.
Judgment, Justice, And Art Criticism, Jolanta Nowak
Judgment, Justice, And Art Criticism, Jolanta Nowak
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The purpose of this article is to expose a gap in the current academic discussion of visual art criticism: the lack of serious attention to the role of ethical judgment. Critics tend either to avoid discussing the judgment of art or they dismiss it as a contemporary impossibility. However, ethical criticism is nonetheless practiced, albeit only occasionally and in an under-theorized manner. This paper calls for a reconceptualization of ethical judgment in art criticism, a reconceptualization that brings art into explicit relation with ethics.
Philosophical Hermeneutics And The Ethical Function Of Architecture, Paul Kidder
Philosophical Hermeneutics And The Ethical Function Of Architecture, Paul Kidder
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Karsten Harries’ book, The Ethical Function of Architecture, raises the question of how architecture can be interpretive of and for our time. Part of Harries’ pursuit of this question is done in dialogue with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, whose evocatively expressed ontology of building and dwelling recovered, in philosophical and poetic terms, the power of buildings to symbolize and interpret the most fundamental truths of being and human existence. The present essay identifies contributions to this hermeneutic and ontological approach to architecture drawn from the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, emphasizing Gadamer’s notions of play (Spiel), symbol, and the …
Aesthetic Appreciation, Ethics, And 9/11, Emmanouil Aretoulakis
Aesthetic Appreciation, Ethics, And 9/11, Emmanouil Aretoulakis
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
There have been numerous critical articles on what really happened on the otherwise beautiful morning of 11 September 2001. Beyond doubt, the bulk of the critical responses to the terrorist attacks focused on the ethical and humanitarian, or rather the unethical and inhumane implications of the atrocious act, leaving no room for any philosophical reflection on the potential assessment or reception of the event from the perspective of art and aesthetics. The few years that have gone by since 2001 have provided us with some a sense of emotional detachment from the horror of that day, a detachment that may …
Carrying The Jade Tablet: A Consideration Of Confucian Artistry, Eric C. Mullis
Carrying The Jade Tablet: A Consideration Of Confucian Artistry, Eric C. Mullis
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this paper I discuss the aesthetic dimension of ritual action. In order to demonstrate how the rites render action aesthetically expressive, I draw on the notion of an "art of context" and further detail the Confucian understanding of artistic practice as an essential component for moral cultivation. In turn, I use John Dewey's account of aesthetic form in order to support and further demonstrate the ability of the rituals and arts to organize action and to thereby render it aesthetically significant. However, Dewey's account entails that we question either conceptual or institutional limitations of aesthetic form as such limitations …