Michael Fried and Philosophy

Mathew Abbott is Lecturer in Philosophy at Federation University Australia. Drawing on modern European and post-Wittgensteinian thought, his research is concerned with intersections of aesthetics, politics, and ethics. He is the author of Abbas Kiarostami and Film-Philosophy and The Figure of This World: Agamben and the Question of Political Ontology.

• Introduction: Michael Fried and PhilosophyMathew Abbott1. Modernism and the Discovery of FinitudeMathew Abbott2. "When I raise my arm": Michael Fried’s Theory of ActionWalter Benn Michaels3. Why Does Photography Matter as Art Now, as Never Before? On Fried and IntentionRobert Pippin4. Schiller, Schopenhauer, FriedDavid Wellbery5. Deep Relationality and the Hinge-like Structure of History: Michael Fried’s PhotographsStephen Mulhall6. Becoming MediumStephen Melville7. Formulism and the Appearance of NatureRichard Moran8. Michael Fried, Theatricality, and the Threat of SkepticismPaul J. Gudel9. Michael Fried’s IntentionalityRex Butler10. On the (So-Called) Problem of Detail: Michael Fried, Roland Barthes, and Roger Scruton on Photography and IntentionalityDiarmuid Costello11. The Aesthetics of AbsorbtionMagdalena Ostas12. Grace and Equality, Fried and Rancière (and Kant)Knox Peden13. Diderot’s Conception of Aesthetic Subjectivity and the Possibility of ArtAndrew Kern14. The Promise of the Present: Michael Fried’s Poetry NowJennifer Ashton15. Constantin Constantius Goes to the TheaterMichael Fried

"This exemplary collection brings together philosophers, art historians, and literary scholars to shed light on the vast range of work by Michael Fried, and the relevance of Fried's work to philosophy . . . [It] opens an authentic, valuable dialogue between art and philosophy. Summing Up: Essential." – CHOICE Reviews"This is a superb set of essays on the writing of Michael Fried . . . Every essay is lucid, scholarly, meticulously crafted, detailed and acute in a way worthy of Fried's virtuoso and philosophically subtle approach to the history of art." – Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews