1st Edition
Aesthetics and Material Beauty Aesthetics Naturalized
By Jennifer McMahon
Copyright 2008
244 Pages
by
Routledge
244 Pages
by
Routledge
242 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
In Aesthetics and Material Beauty , Jennifer A. McMahon develops a new aesthetic theory she terms Critical Aesthetic Realism - taking Kantian aesthetics as a starting point and drawing upon contemporary theories of mind from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. The creative process does not proceed by a set of rules. Yet the fact that its objects can be understood or appreciated by... Read more
1. Introduction: Formalism and the Problem of Beauty 2. Universality and Subjectivity 3. Objectivity and Autonomy 4. Critical Aesthetic Realism 5. Beauty and Truth 6. Natural Generativity and Systematicity 7. The Ubiquity of Beauty 8. Ugliness 9. Conclusion: An Ontology of Art
Biography
Jennifer A. McMahon is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
"The book is highly recommended, not because its findings on beauty are definitive (the study of the brain and its functions is still an evolving field), but because its reading may spur a novel understanding of one of life's most fundamental experiences, beauty....It is a virtuoso performance." --Dan Vaillancourt, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
