Philosophy 110

This course will explore topics in the philosophy of art. What is art? What does art reveal about human nature? What does art tell us about the mind? What is the role and meaning of avant-garde phenomena in the arts? What is the potential of art to foster enlivened forms of experience and new possibilities of thought and talk? Is art inherently subversive? How are we to conceive the creativity of the artist and the sensitivity of the appreciating public? We will reflect on these and other questions through a diversity of perspectives: from canonical texts by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, through ancient Indian Rasa Theory, to more critical contemporary work by Maria Lugones, bell hooks, and Yuriko Saito. Drawing mostly on selected examples from artistic movements of the 19th through 21st centuries, we will assess both the promise and the danger latent in art.