Philosophical Aesthetics
What is a work of art? How can we judge the aesthetic quality of something? How is the artistic character of something related to its aesthetic quality? In order to answer these and related questions we need a theory of aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience is a particular kind of understanding. It can be characterized and distinguished from cognition and other kinds of understanding with the help of a semiotic analysis. The course will first deal with basic semiotics, studying selected writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Nelson Goodman. It will then analyse aesthetic experience and attempt answers to the above mentioned questions concerning art and aesthetic quality.
Reading List
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Malcolm Budd
Budd, Malcolm: How Pictures Look, 1993. Oxford. In: D. Knowles u. J. Skorupski (Eds.): Virtue and Taste. Essays on Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics. , S. 154?75. (C).
Arthur Danto
Danto, Arthur C.: The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. A Philosophy of Art., 1981. Cambridge/Mass. et al. . chapter 6 (A).
Nelson Goodman
Goodman, Nelson: Languages of Art. An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, 1981. Brighton. (B).
Charles Sanders Peirce
Peirce, Charles Sanders: Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man, In: Peirce, CP 5.213?5.263 . Available on the web. http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm.
Peirce, Charles Sanders: Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, ISBN:?In: Peirce, CP 5.264?5.317. Available on the web. http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm.
Peirce, Charles Sanders: What is a sign?, Available on the web.. http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm.
Ferdinand de Saussure
Saussure, Ferdinand de: Cours de Linguistique Générale, 1922. Publié par Charles Bally et Albert Seche-haye, avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. Paris ; english translation: Course in general linguistics; translated and annotated by Roy Harris, London : Duckworth, 1983, part I, chapter 1 and part II, chapters 2 ? 6. (A).
Further Readings (for those with further interests)
Bourdieu, Pierre: Distinktionen: en sociologisk kritik af d?mmekraften, 1995. Frederiksberg: Det lille forlag. Norsk overs?ttelse ved Annick Prieur og Theo Barth (efterordet) ; indledning ved Dag ?sterberg., . [English: Distinction : a social critique of the judgement of taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.].
Danto, Arthur C.: After the End of Art. Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, 1997. Princeton/New Jersey.
Fricke, Christel: Zeichenprozess und aesthetische Erfahrung, 2001. Muenchen, (Fink Verlag). Chapters 7, 8, 9. (available only in German).
Fricke, Christel: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 1995. In: Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress. Memphis , Vol. I, Part 2, Memphis 1995, S. 793-802.
Fricke, Christel: Kants Theorie der sch?nen Kunst., 1998. Berlin, New York. In: Herman Parret (Hg.): Kants ?sthetik / Kant's Aesthetics / L'esthétique de Kant. , S. 674-689. (available only in German).
Goodman, Nelson: Notes on the Well Made World, 1983. In: Erkenntnis 19, S. 99?106.
Goodman, Nelson: Of Mind and Other Matters, 1984. Cambridge/Mass. et al. .
Goodman, Nelson: On Likeness of Meaning, In: Analysis VIII?X, 1947?1950, Reprinted 1967, S. 1?7. (Goodman 1967a).
Goodman, Nelson: On Some Differences about Meaning, In: Analysis XIII?XIV, 1952?1954, reprinted 1967, S. 90?96. (Goodman 1967b).
Goodman, Nelson: On Starmaking, In: Synthese 45, 1980, S. 211?215.
Goodman, Nelson: Some Notes on Languages of Art, In: The Journal of Philosophy 67, 1970, S. 563?573.
Goodman, Nelson: The Structure of Appearance, 1977. Dordrecht et al.. 3. Aufl. . .
Goodman, Nelson: Ways of Worldmaking, 1978. Indianapolis et al.
Goodman, Nelson u. Elgin, Catherine Z.: Reconceptions in Philosophy and other Arts and Sciences, 1988. London.
Peirce, Charles Sanders: Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (CP), 1931ff. Cambridge/Mass.. Vols. I?VIII. Eds. Charles Hart-shorne a. Paul Weiss (Vols. I?VI) u. Arthur W. Burks (Vols. VII?VIII) .
Wicks, Robert: Foucault, 2002. London a. New York. In: Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.).