Aims
This course aims to:
• introduce you to the history of European aesthetics
• enable you to consider the question of ‘beauty’ in context
• learn how to use existing aesthetic theories and concept in order to substantiate your own viewpoint in a discussion
Content
There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of the experience of beauty. We feel strongly, sometimes passionately, that others should agree with us on the matter of what is beautiful; yet the question ‘What is beautiful?’ never ceases to spur debates. Is beauty merely a subjective feeling? Or are there rules of beauty which would guarantee a common experience? In other words, is a landscape, a song, or a painting only beautiful for me, or is it beautiful in its own rights (for instance, by way of its composition)?
We have all experienced a moment in which we have disagreed about beauty – with friends, family, or in institutional settings like a museum. This course takes this common experience as a starting point to consider how philosophical answers to these timeless questions have varied across time periods in the European context. We will survey aesthetic theories from the Antiquity to the present to gain in-depth understanding on how beauty has been defined historically. This course will provide you with the theoretical background and the methodological tools to think critically about the question ‘What is beautiful?’ and will encourage you to develop your own set of answers based on specific examples taken from the history of art that we will look at together.
Presentation of the course
This course will take place in a classroom setting. It will alternate lecture content, close-reading of key texts, small group discussions and joint analyses of artworks, with the aim to foster lively critical debate in the class.
Course sessions
1. Introduction
We will use this first session as a workshop in which we will share experiences of beauty, and discuss specific examples based on PowerPoint slides. We will compile a list of potential criteria of beauty, as well as explore the hypothesis that beauty might be wholly subjective and escape rules altogether.
2. Greek and Roman Aesthetics
In this session we will consider early attempts at understanding experiences of beauty in the work of Plato, Aristotle and Longinus, as well as the emergence of other aesthetics categories alongside beauty, such as the ‘sublime’.
3. Rationalist and Empiricist Aesthetics
In this session, we will consider the evolution from 17th century rationalist aesthetics, for whom beauty was to be defined objectively, to 18th century empiricist aesthetics, for whom beauty was to be understood subjectively. We will focus on David Hume’s theory of taste as a key example of empiricist aesthetics based on the consensus of experts.
4. German Aesthetics
This session will focus on the emergence of aesthetics as a discipline in 18th century Germany, and specifically on Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic theory. Could Kant’s definition of beauty as ‘universally subjective’ provide a viable answer to the dilemma that opposed rationalist and empiricist aesthetics?
5. After Beauty: Contemporary Questions
In this final session, we will consider the rise of Anglo-American aesthetics in the 20th century. Taking examples from modern and contemporary art, we will ask, following Thierry De Duve, what happens to beauty “after Duchamp”.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• gain familiarity with the history of aesthetics in a Western context
• gain confidence in elaborating arguments related to topics of taste and art criticism
• learn how to use existing aesthetic theories and concept in order to substantiate your own viewpoint in a discussion
Required reading
All required readings will be provided in the Course Reader, which will be made available to the students ahead of the course. Required readings will comprise selected extracts from key texts.
