Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art

Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art

by RichardShusterman (Author)

Synopsis

Pragmatism is experiencing a powerful revival. But the new pragmatism has not yet expressed itself in a new aesthetic, and not since Dewey's Art as Experience (1934) has there been a comprehensive pragmatist treatment of this field. This book seeks to fill the gap by proposing a pragmatist aesthetics for our current postmodern condition. Pragmatist Aesthetics treats the traditionally central topics of aesthetics - the definition of art, aesthetic experience and value, form and unity, interpretation and the cognitive and moral worth of art. But it also directs philosophical aesthetics towards a wider and more socially pertinent agenda by considering such contemporary issues as the institutionalization and cultural oppression of art, the aesthetic legitimacy of popular culture and the ethical art of living beauty through the stylization of conduct and the aesthetic construction of the self.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Wiley–Blackwell
Published: 09 Jan 1992

ISBN 10: 0631182365
ISBN 13: 9780631182368

Media Reviews
Through a generous and inspired reinterpretation of John Dewey, Richard Shusterman establishes a theory of aesthetics that is liberated from the traditional dualisms and capable of reconciling art and the political. Pierre Bourdieu

A spirited, generous, powerful, and stylish essay in which the acuity of analytical philosophy is cross-bred to the vision of continental theory to produce a work that no one interested in philosophy of art - and philosophy of life - can afford to ignore. It is clear, eloquent, fair, and urgent. Arthur Danto

A must for everyone engaged in current aesthetic debate, both for its lucid and penetrating criticisms of the dominant positions and for its reconsideration of Dewey within a contemporary cultural context. Choice

Shusterman's achievement in these essays is considerable, and that my admiration of them is real; they reward careful study, and they point in new directions for the philosophy of art. Mind

This work is one that no one interested in philosophy of art -- or philosophy of life -- can afford to ignore. Society for American Philosophy Newsletter

Shusterman's writing is exceptionally clear, fair, and well-argued. A first-rate contribution to the ongoing renaissance of pragmatism. Philosophy and Literature

Author Bio
Richard Shusterman, author of The Object of Literary Criticism (1984) and T. S. Eliot and the Philosophy of Criticism (1988), is also editor of Analytic Aesthetics (1989) and co-editor of The Interpretive Turn: Philosophy, Science, Culture (1991).