Philosophy's Artful Conversation

Philosophy's Artful Conversation PDF

Author: D. N. Rodowick

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674416678

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Theory—an embattled discourse for decades—faces a new challenge from those who want to model the methods of all scholarly disciplines on the sciences. What is urgently needed, says D. N. Rodowick, is a revitalized concept of theory that can assess the limits of scientific explanation and defend the unique character of humanistic understanding.

What Philosophy Wants from Images

What Philosophy Wants from Images PDF

Author: D. N. Rodowick

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-01-08

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 022651322X

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In recent decades, contemporary art has displayed an ever increasing and complicated fascination with the cinema—or, perhaps more accurately, as D. N. Rodowick shows, a certain memory of cinema. Contemporary works of film, video, and moving image installation mine a vast and virtual archive of cultural experience through elliptical and discontinuous fragments of remembered images, even as the lived experience of film and photography recedes into the past, supplanted by the digital. Rodowick here explores work by artists such as Ken Jacobs, Ernie Gehr, Victor Burgin, Harun Farocki, and others—artists who are creating forms that express a new historical consciousness of images. These forms acknowledge a complex relationship to the disappearing past even as they point toward new media that will challenge viewers’ confidence in what the images they see are or are becoming. What philosophy wants from images, Rodowick shows, is to renew itself conceptually through deep engagement with new forms of aesthetic experience.

What Matters Most

What Matters Most PDF

Author: Anthony Morgan

Publisher: Agenda Publishing

Published: 2023-05-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781788216241

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The ancient Greek philosopher Plotinus insisted that philosophy should be concerned with nothing less than τo τιμιώτατον (to timiotaton), generally translated as "what matters most". This collection of philosophical conversations by many of the world's leading thinkers seeks to honour Plotinus' vision by addressing questions related to the art of living. When thinking about the art of living, we may conjure up ideas of therapy, meditation, peace, happiness, and so on. However, this collection aims to expand the scope of this idea, foregrounding social and political questions, alongside more traditional existential ones. How are we to think about the art of living together, of living with technology, of living under oppression, of living in the end times? These engaging and urgent conversations invite us to think anew about the complexities and challenges involved in living a good life in a world characterized by uncertainty and change.

The Philosophy of Art

The Philosophy of Art PDF

Author: Stephen Davies

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-05-05

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1119091772

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Now available in a fully revised and updated second edition, this accessible and insightful introduction outlines the central theories and ongoing debates in the philosophy of art. Covers a wide range of topics, including the definition and interpretation of art, the connections between artistic and ethical judgment, and the expression and elicitation of emotions through art Includes discussion of prehistoric, non-Western, and popular mass arts, extending the philosophical conversation beyond the realm of Fine Art Details concrete applications of complex theoretical concepts Poses thought-provoking questions and offers fully updated annotated reading lists at the end of each chapter to encourage and enable further research

Elegy for Theory

Elegy for Theory PDF

Author: D. N. Rodowick

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-01-06

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0674727010

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Rhetorically charged debates over theory have divided scholars of the humanities for decades. In Elegy for Theory, D. N. Rodowick steps back from well-rehearsed arguments pro and con to assess why theory has become such a deeply contested concept. Far from lobbying for a return to the "high theory" of the 1970s and 1980s, he calls for a vigorous dialogue on what should constitute a new, ethically inflected philosophy of the humanities. Rodowick develops an ambitiously cross-disciplinary critique of theory as an academic discourse, tracing its historical displacements from ancient concepts of theoria through late modern concepts of the aesthetic and into the twentieth century. The genealogy of theory, he argues, is constituted by two main lines of descent—one that goes back to philosophy and the other rooted instead in the history of positivism and the rise of the empirical sciences. Giving literature, philosophy, and aesthetics their due, Rodowick asserts that the mid-twentieth-century rise of theory within the academy cannot be understood apart from the emergence of cinema and visual studies. To ask the question, "What is cinema?" is to also open up in new ways the broader question of what is art. At a moment when university curriculums are everywhere being driven by scientism and market forces, Elegy for Theory advances a rigorous argument for the importance of the arts and humanities as transformative, self-renewing cultural legacies.

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics PDF

Author: Hans Maes

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-01-26

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 019254554X

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What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art? Can we learn anything from literature, film or opera? What is sentimentality? What is irony? How to think philosophically about architecture, dance, or sculpture? What makes something a great portrait? Is music representational or abstract? Why do we feel terrified when we watch a horror movie even though we know it to be fictional? In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art: Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.

Philosophical Conversations

Philosophical Conversations PDF

Author: Robert M. Martin

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2005-11-08

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1551116499

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Philosophical Conversations is a light, informal, and contemporary introduction to the study of philosophy. Using a dialogue format, Robert M. Martin delves into the traditional questions of philosophy in a manner that readers will find engaging. These substantive yet entertaining conversations emphasize that philosophical questions are contested and open-ended. The characters in each dialogue advocate different answers to questions on religion, ethics, personal identity, and other topics equitably and without naming any clear winners. Philosophic positions are presented with maximum clarity and persuasiveness, so that readers can appreciate all sides of an issue and make their own choices. An excellent tool for newcomers to philosophy, Philosophical Conversations provides the necessary background for further study while vividly portraying the back-and-forth argument that is essential to the philosophical method.

Marx, Engels and the Philosophy of Science

Marx, Engels and the Philosophy of Science PDF

Author: David Bedford

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-31

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1000789519

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This book expounds the dialectical conception of science largely implicit in the writings of Marx and Engels, offering a sympathetic reconstruction of a philosophy of science commensurate with Marx’s thought. Drawing on a reading of dialectics found in Plato and Hegel, it recasts Marx’s implicit ontology in terms of dialectical conceptions of the world, as these conceptions have responded to the growing sophistication of modern science. It thus deepens our understanding of materialist philosophy as it relates to science and draws out Marx’s logic of science in light of continuing discussions. As such, it will appeal to philosophers with interests in the nature and development of science and Marxist thought.

Philosophy Between the Lines

Philosophy Between the Lines PDF

Author: Arthur M. Melzer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 022617509X

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"Philosophical esotericism--the practice of communicating one's unorthodox thoughts 'between the lines'--was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others'. Despite this long and well-documented history, however, esotericism is often dismissed today as a rare occurrence. But by ignoring esotericism, we risk cutting ourselves off from a full understanding of Western philosophical thought ... Philosophy Between the Lines is the first comprehensive, book-length study of the history and theoretical basis of philosophical esotericism, and it provides a crucial guide to how many major writings--philosophical, but also theological, political, and literary--were composed prior to the nineteenth century."--Publisher's Web site.

An Education in Judgment

An Education in Judgment PDF

Author: D. N. Rodowick

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 022678035X

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Rodowick takes after the theories of Hannah Arendt and argues that thinking is an art we practice with and for each other in our communities. In An Education in Judgment, philosopher D. N. Rodowick makes the definitive case for a philosophical humanistic education aimed at the cultivation of a life guided by both self-reflection and interpersonal exchange. Such a life is an education in judgment, the moral capacity to draw conclusions alone and with others, and letting one’s own judgments be answerable to the potentially contrasting judgments of others. Thinking, for Rodowick, is an art we practice with and learn from each other on a daily basis. In taking this approach, Rodowick follows the lead of Hannah Arendt, who made judgment the cornerstone of her conception of community. What is important for Rodowick, as for Arendt, is the cultivation of “free relations,” in which we allow our judgments to be affected and transformed by those of others, creating “an ever-widening fabric of intersubjective moral consideration.” That is a fragile fabric, certainly, but one that Rodowick argues is worth pursuing, caring for, and preserving. This original work thinks with and beyond Arendt about the importance of the humanities and what “the humanities” amounts to beyond the walls of the university.