Philosophy | Aesthetics

Motivation and the Primacy of Perception
Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Knowledge
By Peter Antich

Bridging phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, Peter Antich asserts that the latter has long been hampered by an inadequate phenomenology of knowledge. However, a careful description of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenon of motivation can offer compelling new ways to think about knowledge and longstanding epistemological questions.

Merleau-Ponty
Space, Place, Architecture
Edited by Patricia M. Locke and Rachel McCann

Phenomenology has played a decisive role in the emergence of the discourse of place, and the contribution of Merleau-Ponty to architectural theory and practice is well established. This collection of essays by 12 eminent scholars is the first devoted specifically to developing his contribution to our understanding of place and architecture.

Time, Memory, Institution
Merleau-Ponty's New Ontology of Self
Edited by David Morris and Kym Maclaren

This is the first investigation of the relation between time and memory in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s thought as a whole and the first to explore in depth the significance of his concept of institution. It brings his views on the self and ontology into contemporary focus, arguing that the self is not a self-contained or self-determining identity.

The Madness of Vision
On Baroque Aesthetics
By Christine Buci-Glucksmann
· Translation by Dorothy Z. Baker

In The Madness of Vision, Buci-Glucksmann asserts the important of embodied vision in nine studies of paintings, sculptures, and images. She integrates the work of Merleau-Ponty with Lacanian psychoanalysis, Renaissance studies in optics, and twentieth-century mathematics to make the case for the pervasive influence of the baroque.

The Madness of Vision
On Baroque Aesthetics
By Christine Buci-Glucksmann
· Translation by Dorothy Z. Baker

In The Madness of Vision, Buci-Glucksmann asserts the important of embodied vision in nine studies of paintings, sculptures, and images. She integrates the work of Merleau-Ponty with Lacanian psychoanalysis, Renaissance studies in optics, and twentieth-century mathematics to make the case for the pervasive influence of the baroque.

Art in Context
Understanding Aesthetic Value
By David E. W. Fenner

The various lenses—ethical, political, sexual, religious, andso forth—through which we may view art are often instrumental ingiving us an appreciation of the work. In Art in Context: UnderstandingAesthetic Value, philosopher David Fenner presents a straightforward,accessible overview of the arguments about the importance of considering therelevant context in determining the true merit of a work of art.Art

Placing Aesthetics
Reflections on the Philosophic Tradition
By Robert E. Wood

Examining select high points in the speculative tradition from Plato and Aristotle through the Middle Ages and German tradition to Dewey and Heidegger, Placing Aesthetics seeks to locate the aesthetic concern within the larger framework of each thinker’s philosophy.In Professor Robert Wood’s study, aesthetics is not peripheral but rather central to the speculative tradition and to human existence as such. In Dewey’s terms, aesthetics is “experience in its integrity.”

The Thinker as Artist
From Homer To Plato and Aristotle
By George Anastaplo

Drawing upon a series of classical authors ranging from Homer and Sappho to Plato and Aristotle, George Anastaplo examines issues relating to chance, art, nature, and divinity present in the artful works of philosophers and other thinkers.