The paper asks for the preconditions and the consequences of the emergence of aesthetics in and for philosophy. The question is: what does it mean for philosophy to engage the question of the aesthetic? My answer will be: it means nothing less than putting philosophy in question. Or, more precisely: by engaging the question of the aesthetic, philosophy puts itself in question. In order to show this, I will refer to a brief passage in the (...) Phenomenology of the Spirit and then attempt to turn it against what I take it to be Hegel’s own intention. The paper attempts to sketch this argument in three brisk moves by (1) distinguishing a philosophy of the “poetic” from a philosophy of the “aesthetic”; (2) describing the aesthetic as “regressive” and “(self-)reflexive”; and (3) sketching the paradoxical place of aesthetics within philosophy.  . (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to (...) be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Poetics is the first philosophical account of an art form and is the foundational text in the history of aesthetics. The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Poetics is an accessible guide to this often dense and cryptic work. Angela Curran introduces and assesses: Aristotle’s life and the background to the Poetics the ideas and text of the Poetics , including mimēsis ; poetic technē; the definition of tragedy; the elements of poetic composition; the Poetics’ recommendations (...) for tragic plot patterns; catharsis ; epic and comedy; the nature of our emotional response to drama; the proper pleasure of tragedy; and the role that art plays in a human life the relevance of Aristotle’s work in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophical psychology to the Poetics a comparison of Plato and Aristotle on the value of mimetic art the continuing importance of Aristotle’s Poetics to contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of film. (shrink)

Edited by Richard McKeon, with an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle—constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years—has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this edition includes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, (...) The Short Physical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, On Generation and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 28.1 (2004) 218-220 [Access article in PDF] The German Aesthetic Tradition, by Kai Hammermeister; xv & 259 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, $22 paper. In some ways, aesthetic theory has become a thing of the past. With the exception of a kind of fascination with works such as T. W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, aesthetics, as a project or tradition, has surrendered its once (...) monolithic and grandiose position as the philosophical contemplation of art and the notion of artistic beauty to more diminutive fields such as literary theory, poetics, and cultural studies. In some ways, this is due to the very function of aesthetics: the philosophical investigation not simply of what is beautiful, but the formulation of prescriptive ideas about works of art and the judgment them according to these prescriptive ideas. This, in turn, has been looked upon with a certain degree of scorn with the rise of a more pluralistic art world, and the bold denial that art needs the guidance of philosophy let alone have any prescriptive function or be able to be classified as "good" or "bad."However, Kai Hammermeister's The German Aesthetic Tradition takes a very different view. A bold and difficult project, Hammermeister traces the complex and often abstruse contours of German aesthetic philosophy from its inception with Baumgarten in the eighteenth century through Adorno in the twentieth. In the process, he not only provides us with an excellent historical-philosophical account of the development of German aesthetic philosophy, he also implicitly argues for the relevance of aesthetics as a way not only of comprehending art, but of understanding the cohesive links between art, society, culture, and philosophy.The German aesthetic tradition, as Hammermeister refers to it, was a prolonged intellectual argumentation with classical conceptions of art and beauty inherited from classical Greek thought during the eighteenth century. Classical aesthetics was dominated by two opposing conceptions of art and its function. For Plato, art mirrored the outside world (mimesis) and the judgement of good works of art was based on how well this mirroring of the objective world was carried out. Aristotle's idea was that art served a purgatory function (katharsis), cleansing the emotions of the individual through the identification of the observer with the work of art. All of the thinkers in the German tradition [End Page 218] wrestle with this dual conception of art, in some form privileging one over the other—or, more often than not, combining them and extending their explanatory reach. But as in any tradition, they also struggle with the ideas and philosophies of previous thinkers within the tradition itself, making Hammermeister's task more complex. Yet it is one that he handles with adroitness and precision.The book's overarching argument and structure is triadic. Hammermeister sees the eighteenth century through German Idealism and Romanticism as articulating a set of different paradigms for interpreting art. These are subsequently attacked in post-Hegelian philosophy, and are then revived in different ways in the twentieth century as a reaction to Nietzsche's aestheticization of philosophy. Two paradigms emerge as central for the subsequent unfolding of the tradition. First, there is Immanuel Kant's conception of art as a wholly separate from epistemology and from morality. For Kant, the work of art is centered in the experience of the subject and, in terms of form, exists outside its social context. This Hammermeister calls the "first strong paradigm of aesthetics" (p. 40). Next, there is the position of Friedrich Schiller who sees a connection between the work of art and culture, thought, and morality. Schiller writes that, "the culture of beauty demonstrates the freedom of man to turn himself into whatever being he envisions while remaining under the law of morality" (p. 57). For Schiller, there exists a kind of spillover effect of art into other domains of human thought and action—specifically in morality and politics—and this represents a crucial deviation from Kant's paradigm, and another tendency within the tradition of German aesthetics; that is, the aestheticization of other domains of human existence.Schelling and Hegel represent two other... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 478-480 [Access article in PDF] The German Aesthetic Tradition,by Kai Hammermeister; xv & 259 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; $60.00 cloth; $22.00 paper. In some ways, aesthetic theory has become a thing of the past. With the exception of a kind of fascination with works such as T. W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, as a project, as a tradition, aesthetics has surrendered (...) its once monolithic and grandiose position as the philosophical contemplation of art and the notion of artistic beauty to more diminutive fields such as literary theory, poetics and cultural studies. In some ways, this is due to the very function of aesthetics: the philosophical investigation not simply of what is beautiful, but the formulation of prescriptive ideas about works of art and the judgement them according to these prescriptive ideas. This, in turn, has been looked upon with a certain degree of scorn with the rise of a more pluralistic art world and the bold denial that art needs the guidance of philosophy let alone have any prescriptive function or be able to be classified as "good" or "bad."But Kai Hammermeister's The German Aesthetic Tradition takes a very different view. A bold and difficult project, Hammermeister traces the complex and oftentimes abstruse contours of German aesthetic philosophy from its inception with Baumgarten in the eighteenth century through Adorno in the twentieth. In the process, he not only provides us with an excellent historical-philosophical account of the development of German aesthetic philosophy, he also implicitly argues for the relevance of aesthetics as a way not only of comprehending art, but of understanding the cohesive links between art, society, culture and philosophy.The German aesthetic tradition, as Hammermeister refers to it, was a prolonged intellectual argumentation with classical conceptions of art and beauty inherited from classical Greek thought during the eighteenth century. Classical aesthetics was dominated by two opposing conceptions of art and its function. For Plato, art mirrored the outside world (mimesis) and the judgement of good works of art was based on how well this mirroring of the objective world was carried out. Aristotle's idea was that art served a purgatory function (katharsis), cleansing the emotions of the individual through the identification of the observer with the work of art. All of the thinkers in the German tradition wrestle with this dual conception of art in some form privileging one over the other or, more often than not, combining them and extending their explanatory reach. But as in any tradition, they also struggle with the ideas and philosophies of previous thinkers within the tradition itself making Hammermeister's task more complex, one that he handles with adroitness and precision.The book's overarching argument and structure is triadic. Hammermeister sees the eighteenth century through German Idealism and Romanticism as [End Page 478] articulating a set of different paradigms for interpreting art. These are subsequently attacked in post-Hegelian philosophy and are then revived in different ways in the twentieth century as a reaction to Nietzsche's aestheticization of philosophy. Two paradigms emerge as central for the subsequent unfolding of the tradition. First, there is Immanuel Kant's conception of art as wholly separate from epistemology and from morality. For Kant, the work of art is centered in the experience of the subject and, in terms of form, exists outside its social context. This Hammermeister calls the "first strong paradigm of aesthetics" (p. 40). Next, there is the position of Friedrich Schiller who sees a connection between the work of art with culture, thought and morality. "[T]he culture of beauty demonstrates the freedom of man to turn himself into whatever being he envisions while remaining under the law of morality" (p. 57). For Schiller, there exists a kind of spillover effect of art into other domains of human thought and action—specifically in morality and politics—and this represents a crucial deviation from Kant's paradigm and another tendency within the tradition of German aesthetics, i.e., the aestheticization of other domains of human existence.Schelling and Hegel represent two other... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Conflict and Reconciliation in Hegel’s Theory of the TragicJ. G. FinlaysonἊϱης Ἂϱει ξυμβαλεῖ, Δίϰᾳ Διϰα. (Κοεφοϱοι 461)this article has two related aims: to expound and defend Hegel’s theory of the tragic; and to clarify Hegel’s concept of reconciliation. These two aims are related in that a widespread, but misleading, conception of the tragic and a common, but mistaken, understanding of Hegel’s concept of reconciliation can seem to offer mutual (...) support. According to the misleading conception, the tragic consists in the defeat of human lives and projects that arises from irresolvable conflict. Goethe is the most notable exponent of this view. In 1824 Goethe writes that “everything tragic rests on irresolvable opposition. As soon as resolution enters or becomes possible the tragic vanishes.”1 The mistaken understanding of Hegel’s concept of reconciliation is that it consists in a triumphal and wholly affirmative resolution of contradiction through the attainment of harmony. It is easy to see how the two views support one another. For Hegel presents the tragic as a dialectic of conflict and reconciliation in human action, a dialectic in which the moment of reconciliation is ineliminable. So, if one conceives reconciliation as an harmonious resolution of conflict and one also subscribes to Goethe’s view that the tragic rests on irreconcilable opposition, one is not likely to take Hegel’s theory of the tragic very seriously. If, however, we keep in mind what Hegel means by ‘reconciliation, ’ then we can begin both to understand and to defend his theory of the tragic. [End Page 493]1. TRAGEDY AND THE TRAGICLet us begin with a preliminary delineation and defense of the concept of the tragic. Hegel does not have a theory of tragedy, he has a theory of the tragic. A theory of tragedy would be genre-specific, a theory about tragedies, the works of theater and not the pitiable and terrifying events they represent.2 Aristotle’s Poetics is a theory of tragedy. It is a theory about the composition of tragic poems, about their parts and their function. One can call a theory of tragedy loosely an ‘aesthetic’ theory, to the extent that it is a theory of the experience of a work of tragedy, indeed for the ancient Greeks, an experience not just of beholding but of participating in the performance of a tragedy. By contrast, a theory of the tragic is not a theory about tragedies. It is not genre specific, for not only tragedies are tragic. And neither is it an ‘aesthetic’ theory about the experience of a work of tragedy. Rather, it is a theory about what makes a work of theater into a tragedy, about what it is to be a tragedy. True, the essence of tragedy has to do with experience, but it has to do primarily with the experience of the tragic hero, not the experience of the actor or the spectator.Furthermore, whereas a theory of tragedy tells us something about tragedies, a theory of the tragic tells us something about human experience, human actions and the ethical-life of a community in which the actions are played out.3 The tragic arises from the way in which institutions, customs, and practices within which we become what we are, shape our actions on the one hand, and take shape through our actions on the other. Hence the question of the tragic enjoys a certain priority over the question of tragedy. The works of theater we call tragedies exist because of the tragic, not vice versa.There is another reason why we should grant that the question of the tragic as such is interesting and relevant. Tragedy is not a vague term; historically at least the matter of classification has been settled. It is not as if, in significant instances, it is impossible to decide whether a work of ancient drama is or is not a tragedy. Lebeck may argue, rather unconvincingly that the trial scene in the Eumenides is a parody of Athenian litigation; but she does not dispute that it is a tragedy.4 Steiner may claim that “tragedies end badly,” in flagrant disregard of the evidence, (the Eumenides of Aeschylus, and Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Oedipus at... (shrink)

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

The influence of Greek sources on the Arab philosophers is both obvious and important. What is less clear is how the quality of the translations from which the philosophers worked affected their understanding of the points that the Greek writers were making. This article investigates one small but self-contained topic from within the field of translation literature, covering the translations of poetic quotations in the Rhetoric of Aristotle in its Arabic translation, together with an analysis of the types of (...) mistakes to be found there. In itself this is of no more than curiosity value, but an application of the lessons to be learnt here to a linguistic study of Arabic philosophical commentaries, and, by extension, to philosophical theory, will be of clear importance. (shrink)

What is it about the nature of "soul" that makes it so difficult to adequately capture its complexity in a strictly discursive account? Why do some of the most profound human experiences elude our attempts to theorize them? How can a written document do justice to the dynamic activity of thinking, as opposed to merely presenting a collection of thoughts-as-artifacts? Finally, what can we learn about the activity of philosophizing, and about the human soul, by reflecting on the possibilities and (...) limitations of writing? These concerns, in various forms and in different registers, have preoccupied Michael Davis throughout his distinguished career. This volume is in honor of, and in dialogue with, Davis's work, which spans ancient philosophy and literature, continental philosophy and political philosophy. It includes original essays by numerous distinguished scholars in the fields of philosophy and political science. The remarkable range and caliber of the contributions attest to the breadth and depth of Davis's influence. The essays in Part I of the volume explore the nature of soul through the lens of tragedy. Part II consists of three essays that explore the human longing for perfect knowledge and completion--and the obstacles to the fulfilment of that longing--in relation to the divine. In Part III, the essays address the distinctive challenges of the political sphere and philosophy's relation to it. And while the relationship between philosophy and poetry is an implicit theme throughout the volume, the essays in Part IV focus directly on philosophy's aestheticizing tendencies. Many different philosophical and literary works are discussed throughout these chapters, including ancient works such as Plato's Republic, Euthydemus and Laws, Homer's Iliad, and Euripides' Trojan Women, as well as works by modern philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. In addition, three essays analyze some of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the thought of Plato and Machiavelli. All of the essays are thematically linked by a common thread as they attend to the poetic dimension of philosophical thinking. Michael Davis is Professor of Philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College, where he has taught since 1977 and has been the Sarah Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence (2003-2005). He has also taught on the graduate faculty at Fordham University and the New School for Social Research. He is the author of numerous articles and books, which include: Ancient Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Science; The Poetry of Philosophy: On Aristotle's Poetics; The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle's Politics; The Autobiography of Philosophy; Rousseau's The Reveries of the Solitary Walker; Wonderlust: Ruminations on Liberal Education; and The Soul of the Greeks: An Inquiry. He is also co-translator (with Seth Benardete) of Aristotle's On Poetics. Contributors include: Abraham Anderson, Jonathan Badger, Robert Berman, Ronna Burger, Kenneth DeLuca, Gwenda-lin Grewal, Scott Hemmenway, Paul Kirkland, Mary Nichols, Denise Schaeffer, Paul Stern, Richard Velkley, Lisa Pace Vetter, Ann Ward, Lee Ward, Catherine Zuckert and Michael Zuckert. About the Editor: Denise Schaeffer is Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of Rousseau on Education, Freedom and Judgment and contributing co-editor (with Christopher Dustin) of Socratic Philosophy and Its Others. She is co-editor (with Gregory McBrayer and Mary P. Nichols) of the Focus Philosophical Library edition of Plato's Euthydemus, for which she authored the Introduction and co-authored the Interpretive Essay. (shrink)

A complete translation of Aristotle's classic that is both faithful and readable, along with an introduction that provides the modern reader with a means of understanding this seminal work and its impact on our culture. In this volume, Joe Sachs (translator of Aristotle's _Physics, Metaphysics,_ and the _Nicomachean Ethics _)also supplements his excellent translation with well-chosen notes and glossary of important terms. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a (...) glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Aristotle’s immediate audience. (shrink)

vol. I. Logic: Categoriae. De interpretatione. Analytica priora. Analytica posteriora.--vol. II. Natural philosophy: Physica. De caelo. De generatione et corruptione.--vol. III. Psychology: De anima. Parva Naturalia.--vol. IV. Metaphysics: Metaphysica.--vol. V. Ethics: Ethica Nicomachea.--vol. VI. Politics and poetics: Politica. De poetica.

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there ; subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343?2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son (...) Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda. They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics ; Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics ; On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics ; Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes. (shrink)

Poetic Interaction presents an original approach to the history of philosophy in order to elaborate a fresh theory that accounts for the place freedom in the Western philosophical tradition. In his thorough analysis of the aesthetic theories of Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant, John McCumber shows that the interactionist perspective recently put forth by Jürgen Habermas was in fact already present in some form in the German Enlightenment and in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology. McCumber's historical placement of the interactionist perspective runs (...) counter to both Habermas's own views and to those of scholars who would locate the origin of these developments in American pragmatism. From the metaphysical approaches of Plato and Aristotle to the interactionist approaches of Habermas and Albrecht Wellmer, McCumber provides an original narrative of the history of philosophy that focuses on the ways that each thinker has formulated the relationships between language, truth, and freedom. Finally, McCumber presents his critical demarcation of various forms of freedom to reveal that the interactionist approach has to be expanded and enlarged to include all that is understood by "poetic interaction." For McCumber, freedom is inherently pluralistic. Poetic Interaction will be invaluable to political philosophers, historians of philosophy, philosophers of language, and scholars of legal criticism. (shrink)

Volume 1 -- Unit 1: Tragedy as an independent art of musical drama. Chapter 1: Plato's well-educated men, the dancers: Harmonia kai rhuthmos as "music and dance" -- Chapter 2: Tragedy as a necessarily performed "musical" art in the Poetics -- Chapter 3: The irreducibility of tragedy to literature -- Chapter 4: Harmonia kai rhuthmos as "music and dance" in Politics VIII.

G.W.F. Hegel's aesthetics, or philosophy of art, forms part of the extraordinarily rich German aesthetic tradition that stretches from J.J. Winckelmann's Thoughts on the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks and G.E. Lessing's Laocoon through Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment and Friedrich Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man to Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Martin Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art and T.W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. Hegel was (...) influenced in particular by Winckelmann, Kant and Schiller, and his own thesis of the “end of art” has itself been the focus of close attention by Heidegger and Adorno. Hegel's philosophy of art is a wide ranging account of beauty in art, the historical development of art, and the individual arts of architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry. It contains distinctive and influential analyses of Egyptian art, Greek sculpture, and ancient and modern tragedy, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest aesthetic theories to have been produced since Aristotle's Poetics. (shrink)

The history of political philosophy is marked by a conception of politics as inherently tragic. As such, it has hardly ever been systematically contrasted with the other model of dramatic art, comedy. In this article, I explore the relation between Hegel's twofold notion of drama as an ordered genre of disorder – what he considers to be the highest form of self-reflective art – and the post-foundational concept of radical democracy. After outlining the interplay between order and disorder in (...) post-foundationalist theories of political difference, I summarize the way in which the steps of Hegel's poetics consecutively build on each other and elaborate the role of the dramatic genres. By means of a genealogical reconstruction of the respective concepts of democracy and drama, I demonstrate the extent to which these two methodologies correspond to poetic and political order formation in a structural homology. This conceptualization concludes with the assertion of a constitutive dramatization of political modernity which does not, however, culminate in the concept of political tragedy but points towards a still-to-be-realized, comically ordered democracy. (shrink)

Includes selections from Metaphysics, Logic, Physics, Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and Poetics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 (2002) 550-551 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Hegel and Aristotle Alfredo Ferrarin. Hegel and Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxii + 442. Cloth, $64.95. This is an important book which should be read by anyone interested in either of the two philosophers. Ferrarin demonstrates that the structure and detail of Hegel's executed project owe more to Aristotle (...) than to Kant or any other philosopher. He also shows that Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is profound and worth careful study, even if it is in some ways mistaken. With the exception of the Poetics and Aesthetics, Ferrarin discusses all the relevant primary texts, and he judiciously uses secondary literature. To my knowledge, aside from his Italian dissertation (published in 1990 and here revised and greatly expanded), this is the first monograph which is exclusively devoted to comparing the executed projects of the two philosophers. He most thoroughly compares the Metaphysics with the Science of Logic and On the Soul with the Organics and Subjective Spirit sections of the Encyclopedia. This latter comparison forms the center of the book, and all scholars of Aristotle and Hegel will benefit from it. Ferrarin does not simply present and praise or criticize Hegel's interpretations of Aristotle; he also investigates Hegel's appropriation of Aristotle for the execution of his own project. Quite significant effort and insight went into the writing of this book, which is densely argued but only very rarely unclear.Ferrarin bases all comparisons on the understanding of energeia. Aside from God, all processes for Aristotle involve not only energeia but also dunamis. For Aristotle, the ends of processes are energeiai, but a process is either an activity (exercising a habit whose end is this exercising) or a motion (expending a power whose end is other than the expending) (cf. 22-5, 266, 270). Accomplishment of the end terminates the motile expending of power but not the active exercise of habit. For both philosophers, activity and motion are the two main types of intelligible. Ferrarin shows that Hegel, in part because of his accurate reliance on Erasmus's superseded edition, misinterprets Aristotle's God as involving both energeia and dunamis.Ferrarin excellently shows that for Aristotle nous (mediated by a dialectical consideration of endoxa) attains a noetic (rather than dianoetic) identity with an intelligible. Ferrarin also asserts that Hegel (supposedly following Leibniz) "efface[s] all notion of rest and coming to a stand from Aristotelian energeia" (229; cf. 20, 399) and "does not see... that... [the exercised habit of] nous finds rest in the discontinuous intellection of indivisibles" (320). However, Aristotle claims that "not everything which is motionless may be at rest but only that which is deprived of motion but can by nature be moved" (Physics 221b12-13, Apostle translation), so since habits cannot be moved by nature, neither unexercised nor exercised habits can be said to be at rest (even though the natural body without which the habits could not be can in some respects be said to be at rest). Therefore, Hegel does not diverge from but rather advances Aristotle's insight when he treats that noetic identity [End Page 550] as a moment of energizing the otherwise static intelligible to entail a further intelligible, so that these intelligibles and this entailing are part of a continuously intellected logos (but cf. 51, 318-9). Contra Ferrarin (98, 194), this is not to assert that some sort of supposedly hubristic modern nous thereby produces the further intelligible.Analogously to how a compulsion to examine one's past can lead one to enact a different future, Hegel claims that some already entailed, posterior intelligibles of this logos are sufficient (once energized by nous) to entail the prior intelligibles which entailed them and that by entailing these prior intelligibles the posterior intelligibles thereby also entail previously unentailed, posterior intelligibles of the logos. Ferrarin erroneously (albeit not without some textual basis) interprets this claim as the assertion that some as yet unentailed posterior intelligibles entail prior intelligibles (77, 251-3)—as the analog of... (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to (...) be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to (...) be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the problematic of "care of the self" in the unpublished later work of Michel Foucault. In his major published works, Foucault studied how subjects are fabricated within relations of power and knowledge. He revealed that modern political power is a "bio-power." Its legitimacy derives from its capacity to nurture individual life. It does this by forging individuals whose bodies, capacities, pleasures, comforts, desires, etc., are intrinsically integrated into the state's productive force. One of the main techniques (...) for bringing about this integration is to incite individuals to talk about their desire, to think of themselves as subjects of desire. This practice of reflecting on oneself in order to acquire and express self-knowledge is "hermeneutic" in nature. It uncovers the hidden truth of the individual. Through this hermeneutic practice individuals fashion their subjectivity around the discovery, expression, liberation and fulfillment of their true desire. Foucault shows that this subject of desire first emerges within the confessional practices and spiritual exercises of Christian ethics. However, his work also revealed that prior to the formation of Christian practices a whole range of possible experiences of ethical subjectivity was to be found in ancient philosophy---relations and practices which were not hermeneutic. ;I argue that Foucault's genealogy seeks to historicize our particular formulation of self-knowledge as a hermeneutic of desire. He finds in ancient philosophy an experience of subjectivity that was "aesthetic" and "poetic" rather than hermeneutic. The foundation of ancient philosophy was the practice of "care of the self" in a philosophical life. This dissertation shows that in his lectures at the College de France from 1982--1984, Foucault develops an ethics of care of the self as a response to modern bio-power and the hermeneutics of desire. His genealogy of philosophy reveals a multiplicity of practices of care of the self and self-knowledge. Rather than being an effect of bio-power, or a true desire, the self of care is a material to be formed and a task to be accomplished. (shrink)

In Books VIII and IX of his masterpiece of moral philosophy, the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives perhaps the most famous of all philosophical discussions of friendship. Michael Pakaluk presents the first systematic study in English of these books, showing how important Aristotle's treatment of friendship is to his ethics as a whole. Pakaluk's fresh and scrupulously accurate translation is accompanied by a detailed philosophical commentary which reveals the remarkably coherent structure of the books and unfolds with lucidity the various (...) arguments contained within Aristotle's terse and compressed text. Pakaluk looks at the logical form of Aristotle's analysis of friendship, at his subtle view of the relationship between friendship and justice, at the role of reciprocity in friendship, at civic friendship and its relation to the family, and at the development of friendship out of self-love and reflexive consciousness. This volume will be a valuable tool for anyone studying Aristotle's ethics, especially readers with no Greek. (shrink)

James H. Wilkinson - Hegel and Aristotle - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 550-551 Book Review Hegel and Aristotle Alfredo Ferrarin. Hegel and Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxii + 442. Cloth, $64.95. This is an important book which should be read by anyone interested in either of the two philosophers. Ferrarin demonstrates that the structure and detail of Hegel's executed project owe more to Aristotle than (...) to Kant or any other philosopher. He also shows that Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is profound and worth careful study, even if it is in some ways mistaken. With the exception of the Poetics and Aesthetics, Ferrarin discusses all the relevant primary texts, and he.. (shrink)

Metaphysics -- Parts of animals -- Ethics -- Politics -- Poetics.

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Poems are not the only things we sometimes call poetic. We experience as poetic also prose passages, as well as films, music, visual art, and even occurrences in daily life. But what is it exactly for something to be poetic in this wider sense? Discussion of the poetic in this sense is virtually nonexistent in the extant analytic literature. The aim of this article is to get a start on trying to come to grips with this phenomenon—the poetic as an (...) aesthetic category that outruns poetry as an art form. It proposes an initial sketch of an account in terms of the fittingness of certain affective reactions to artworks and other things, reactions featuring notably elements of tenderness and elevation. (shrink)

Contains the _Poetics _ and the first twelve chapters of the_ Rhetoric_, Book III.

In his Aesthetics Hegel gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. He surveys the history of art from ancient India, Egypt, and Greece through to the Romantic movement of his own time, criticizes major works, and probes their meaning and significance; his rich array of examples gives broad scope for his judgement and makes vivid his exposition of his theory. The substantial Introduction is Hegel's best exposition of his general philosophy of art, and provides the ideal (...) way into his Aesthetics. In Part I he considers the general nature of art: he distinguishes art, as a spiritual experience, from religion and philosophy; he discusses the beauty of art and differentiates it from the beauty of nature; and he examines artistic genius and originality. Part II provides a sort of history of art, divded into three periods called Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. Part III deals individually with architecture, scuplture, painting, music, and literature. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This is a new translation, with running commentary, of what is perhaps the most important short piece of Hegel's writing. The Preface to Hegel's first major work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, lays the groundwork for all his other writing by explaining what is most innovative about Hegel's philosophy.This new translation combines readability with maximum precision, breaking Hegel's long sentences and simplifying their often complex structure. At the same time, it is more faithful to the original than any previous translation.The (...) heart of the book is the detailed commentary, supported by an introductory essay. Together they offer a lucid and elegant explanation of the text and elucidate difficult issues in Hegel, making his claims and intentions intelligible to the beginner while offering interesting and original insights to the scholar and advanced student. The commentary often goes beyond the particular phrase in the text to provide systematic context and explain related topics in Hegel and his predecessors.The commentator refrains from playing down those aspects of Hegel's thought that are less acceptable in our time, and abstains from mixing his own philosophical preferences with his reading of Hegel's text. His approach is faithful to the historical Hegel while reconstructing Hegel's ideas within their own context. (shrink)

Why these lectures? -- Hegel between the ancients and the moderns -- Divisions and topics in philosophy of subjective spirit -- Anthropology : slumbering spirit -- Animal magnetism and clairvoyance -- Dementia -- Phenomenology of spirit -- Reciprocal recognition, spirit, and the concept of right -- Recognition and self-actualization -- Psychology : theoretical spirit -- Spirit for itself : from the found to the posited -- Imagination, sign, memory -- Mechanical memory and transcendental deduction -- Psychology : practical spirit (...) : the synthesis of Kant and Aristotle -- The formalism of the psychology -- Unresolved issues : the unity of the philosophy of spirit -- Notes on the text and translation -- Introduction -- Anthropology -- Natural soul -- The dreaming soul -- Sentience -- Self-feeling -- Habit -- Actual soul -- Phenomenology of spirit -- Consciousness as such -- Self-consciousness -- Reason -- Psychology -- Theoretical spirit -- Intuition -- Representation -- Thought -- Practical spirit. (shrink)

In _The Poetics of Political Thinking_ Davide Panagia focuses on the role that aesthetic sensibilities play in theorists’ evaluations of political arguments. Examining works by thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Jacques Rancière, Panagia shows how each one invokes aesthetic concepts and devices, such as metaphor, mimesis, imagination, beauty, and the sublime. He argues that it is important to recognize and acknowledge these poetic forms of representation because they provide evaluative standards that theorists use in appraising the value of ideas—ideas about (...) justice, politics, and democratic life. An investigation into the intertwined histories of aesthetic and political accounts of representation—such as Panagia presents here—sheds light on how modes of poetic thinking delimit the questions of unity and diversity that continue to animate contemporary political theory. Panagia not only illuminates the structure of much contemporary political theory but also shows why understanding the poetics of political thinking is vital to contemporary society. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s critique of negation and his privileging of paradox as the source of political thought, Panagia suggests that a non-teleological concept of difference might generate insight into pressing questions about foreignness and citizenship. Turning to the liberal/poststructural debate that dominates contemporary political theory, he compares John Rawls’s concept of justice to Rancière’s ideas about political disagreement in order to demonstrate how, despite their differences, both thinkers comprehend aesthetic and moral reasoning as part and parcel of political writing. Considering the writings of William Hazlitt and Jürgen Habermas, he describes how the essay has become the exemplary genre of what is considered rational political argument. _The Poetics of Political Thinking_ is a compelling reappraisal of the role of representation within political thought. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was not only a great philosopher but a great historian of philosophy. He invented the idea of the philosophical tradition as a discussion among philosophers extending over centuries centering on a few main philosophical problems. The conceptual scheme, widely accepted in histories of philosophy, emerged in Hegel's lectures at the same time as German idealism itself. This new abridgment of a well-known edition makes the main insights of Hegel's famous Lectures on the History of (...) Philosophy widely available in an inexpensive edition. In this student-oriented text, Professor Tom Rockmore selects the most significant material in a one-volume abridgment. A short introduction explains the purpose and principles of the selections and assesses the continued importance of the work. This is followed by selections that include parts of the introduction to the discussion of Greek philosophy, as well as the sections on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the introduction to modern philosophy; and then the sections on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and the "Final Result.". (shrink)

This new translation of the first volume of Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy is a welcome and valuable addition to the new translations of Hegel's works, and now appears in paperback for the first time. Hegel's History of Philosophy has been described as perhaps one of his greatest achievements, and also as the first systematic history of philosophy since Aristotle. The translation included material from lecture notes taken by Hegel's pupils in 1923-4, 1925-6, and 1927-8. (...) This material was not available to Haldane and Simson when they made their translation nearly 100 years ago. The present volume, which supersedes that earlier one, besides being indispensable for the professional student, will also introduce those unfamiliar with Hegel to his conception of philosophy. (shrink)

In his Aesthetics Hegel gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. He surveys the history of art from ancient India, Egypt, and Greece through to the Romantic movement of his own time, criticizes major works, and probes their meaning and significance; his rich array of examples gives broad scope for his judgement and makes vivid his exposition of his theory. The substantial Introduction is Hegel's best exposition of his general philosophy of art, and provides the ideal (...) way into his Aesthetics. In Part I he considers the general nature of art: he distinguishes art, as a spiritual experience, from religion and philosophy; he discusses the beauty of art and differentiates it from the beauty of nature; and he examines artistic genius and originality. Part II provides a sort of history of art, divded into three periods called Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. Part III deals individually with architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

While Hegel’s infamous “end of art” thesis states that art is “for us, a thing of the past” he insists that philosophy and, to a degree that is often underestimated by contemporary readers, religion endure within the structure of modern life. In this paper I aim to demonstrate how by focusing on Hegel’s claim that religion meets no end, we can come to a better understanding of how and why he thinks art does end. This will lead us (...) away from common, but false, picture of Hegel as being indifferent (or even hostile) to art’s sensuous mode of intelligibility. Inasmuch as religion remains both necessarily sensuous and a component of social life that realizes freedom and divinity within modernity, the “problem” with art cannot be its sensuousness per se. What art ultimately finds itself unable to do, and what religion can do, is find a way to reconcile the destabilizing force of individual, subjective freedom with a jointly-held representation of who and what we are and what we value most, what Hegel calls “divinity” (das Göttliche). By countenancing the vital role of religion in Hegel’s thought, we can therefore better understand one of his most famous, and least understood philosophical claims. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle reflects the lively international character of Aristotelian studies, drawing contributors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Japan; it also, appropriately, includes a preponderance of authors from the University of Oxford, which has been a center of Aristotelian studies for many centuries. The volume equally reflects the broad range of activity Aristotelian studies comprise today: such activity ranges from the primarily textual and philological to the application of broadly Aristotelian (...) themes to contemporary problems irrespective of their narrow textual fidelity. In between these extremes one finds the core of Aristotelian scholarship as it is practiced today, and as it is primarily represented in this Handbook: textual exegesis and criticism. Even within this more limited core activity, one witnesses a rich range of pursuits, with some scholars seeking primarily to understand Aristotle in his own philosophical milieu and others seeking rather to place him into direct conversation with contemporary philosophers and their present-day concerns. No one of these enterprises exhausts the field. On the contrary, one of the most welcome and enlivening features of the contemporary Aristotelian scene is precisely the cross-fertilization these mutually beneficial and complementary activities offer one another. The volume, prefaced with an introduction to Aristotle's life and works by the editor, covers the main areas of Aristotelian philosophy and intellectual enquiry: ethics, metaphysics, politics, logic, language, psychology, rhetoric, poetics, theology, physical and biological investigation, and philosophical method. It also, and distinctively, looks both backwards and forwards: two chapters recount Aristotle's treatment of earlier philosophers, who proved formative to his own orientations and methods, and another three chapters chart the long afterlife of Aristotle's philosophy, in Late Antiquity, in the Islamic World, and in the Latin West. (shrink)