Philosophy of the Arts

GORDON GRAHAM is Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

• Chapter One Art and Pleasure Hume on taste and tragedy – Collingwood on art as amusement – Mill on higher and lower pleasures – the nature of pleasure Chapter Two Art and Beauty Beauty and pleasure – Kant on beauty -- the aesthetic attitude and the sublime – art and the aesthetic -- Gadamer and art as play – art and sport – summary Chapter Three Art and Emotion Tolstoy and everyday expressivism – Aristotle and katharsis -- expression and imagination -- Croce and 'intuition' -- Collingwood's expressivism - expression versus expressiveness – summary Chapter Four Art and Understanding Hegel, art and mind – art, science and knowledge - aesthetic cognitivism, for and against - imagination and experience - the objects of imagination - art and the world - understanding as a norm – art and human nature -- summary Chapter Five Music and Sonic Art Music and pleasure - music and emotion - music as language - music and representation - musical vocabulary and musical grammar - the uniqueness of music - music and beauty - music as the exploration of sound – sonic art and digital technology – summary Chapter Six The Visual Arts What is representation? - representation and artistic value - art and the visual - visual art and the non-visual - film as art - montage versus longshot - talkies - the 'auteur' in film - summary Chapter Seven The Literary Arts Poetry and prose -- the unity of form and content - figures of speech - expressive language - poetic devices - narrative and fiction - literature and understanding - summary Chapter Eight The Performing Arts Artist, audience and performer – painting as the paradigm of art – Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy – performance and participation – the art of the actor -- summary Chapter Nine Architecture as an Art The peculiarities of architecture - form and function and ‘the decorated shed’ - façade, deception and the 'Zeitgeist' - functionalism - formalism and 'space' – resumé --architectural expression -- architecture

'The new edition of Philosophy of the Arts provides one of the most comprehensive and pellucid introductions to aesthetics on the market.' - Andy Hamilton, Durham University, UKPraise for the second edition:'Graham's introduction to aesthetics informs, illuminates and should elicit lively discussion on any courses that utilize it.' - British Journal of Aesthetics