This new Reader offers an important new resource, combining classic accounts of the nature of aesthetics with the latests methods of approaching the subject. With its valuable multicultural approach, not confined to the consideration of fine art, it focuses on questions that examine why art and the aesthetic matter to us and how perceivers participate in and contribute to the experience of appreciating a work of art. Why have people thought it important to separate out a group of objects and call them `art'? Is it inappropriate to think of something as art when its creator would not have considered it in that way? Are the concepts of art and the aesthetic elitist? Can we ever understand an artwork or be objective about it? Including articles ranging from Aristotle and Xie-He to Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Michael Baxandall and Susan Sontag, this Reader is unique in providing both Western and non-Western responses to aesthetics.

About the Author
Susan L. Feagin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, specializing in aesthetics. She has been on the board of trustees for the American Society for Aesthetics, and president of the Central States Philosophical Association in 1996. Contributor to the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature, Philosophical Studies, and The American Philosophical Quarterly. Patrick Maynard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, where he teaches aesthetics and the history of philosophy at all levels. He is guest editor for the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Contributor to the TLS, LRB, and Current Anthropology.


Book Information
ISBN 9780192892751
Author Susan L. Feagin
Format Paperback
Page Count 432
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 644g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 24mm