This original and wide-ranging book, now available in paperback, is a major contribution to contemporary philosophy. Bernstein focuses on the work of four key thinkers - Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and Adorno - and provides a powerful new interpretation of their writings on art, aesthetics and politics.

Bernstein argues that our experience of art today is conditioned by the loss of the truth-function of art: with the growth of modern science and technological reason, art is relegated to a separate and autonomous domain of the aesthetic. This condition of 'aesthetic alienation' - the raging discord between art and truth - is one of the most perspicuous signs of the fragmentation of modernity.

Aesthetic alienation is challenged in differing ways by modern Continental philosophers like Heidegger, Derrida and Adorno. Bernstein shows how each of these philosophers uses the experience of art and the discourse of aesthetics to criticize the fragmentation of modernity. He examines in detail their responses to aesthetic alienation and raises a range of fundamental questions concerning the relations between art, philosophy and politics in modern societies.

About the Author
At the time of writing this book Jay Bernstein worked in the Philosophy Department of the University of Essex and had already written several other books in the field of philosophy and its relation to culture.

Reviews
'Bernstein has made a much-needed attempt to place art and its relationship to aesthetics back in the foreground of philosophical historical and political debate.' British Journal of Aesthetics



Book Information
ISBN 9780745612416
Author J. M. Bernstein
Format Paperback
Page Count 302
Imprint Polity Press
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 425g
Dimensions(mm) 250mm * 200mm * 15mm