PHIL 306: AESTHETICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART

The Concepts of Aesthetics: From Plato to the Overcoming of Platonism

Time: TBA Dr. Abdullah Basaran

Place: TBA [email protected]
Office Hours: By appointment

Course Description
As an introduction to the aesthetic theory, this course historically surveys the five phases of it:
the reign of mimesis, the paradigm shift in aesthetics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the
modern-postmodern controversy. These various approaches to the aesthetic objects or the works
of art will not only allow us to discern the salient patterns of the development of the aesthetic
theory in the history of philosophy, but also impel us to single out the fundamental concepts of
the aesthetic experience, such as beautiful, good, truth, representation, sublime, taste,
perception, reception, reproduction, aura, simulacra, sign, affect, and so on. Thus, in order to
follow both historical and conceptual trails of the aesthetic theory, we will face the music of a
burdensome journey: from Plato’s banishment of poets to the modern/postmodern attempts of
an overcoming of Platonism, another extensive narrative of philosophy will be read with a focus
on concepts and questioned with a critical approach. Although we will inevitably exclude some
major figures (such as Aristotle, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Croce, Danto, and many others), they will
nevertheless remain parergal to our conversations.

Class Sessions
● Interpretation of A Painting: Each session will begin with a phenomenological
description of a painting assigned for that week. You do not have to relate your
interpretation to that week’s philosophical baggage. What you need to do is to spend a
valuable time on the painting before the class, come prepared for possible “readings” of
it, and have a discussion with others.
● Summary of the Previous Week: After the reading of a painting, we will restart the class
with the summary of what was discussed in the previous session. Each student is
responsible for at least one summary.
● Questioning the Questionability of the Subject Matter (i.e., the Concepts of the Aesthetic
Experience): You are expected to read every text assigned for the week and come
prepared to discuss the readings. The core of this course is “your” focus on the
philosophical concepts based on the aesthetic experience. That means, while reading the
assignments, you need to draw all your attention to “how” the philosopher regards the
aesthetic concepts in his/her own particular way and reflect on the different approaches
to the aesthetic problems. That also means, you have to highlight and “formulate” the
questions given or anticipated in the texts you are reading. This inquiry on the concepts
will help you conduct a philosophical investigation on the matters we (i.e., the
participants) discuss. In class sessions, students will show their own way of questioning
and responding to each other. This is a discourse-intensive class.
Course Principles
● Read all the materials before the class and come prepared for the requirements of the
course.
● Reading schedule is already loaded with enough materials. Thus, having recourse to
other materials is not recommended. The primary texts are primary because they will be
our main concentration. If you still need secondary readings, the recommendations are
listed below. You can also consult Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
● Cameras are always on and microphones muted if you are not speaking.
● Please do not dare plagiarize or copy from another’s writings (and do not use the
Internet sources). There is no tolerance for such an attempt.
● Another n0-tolerance issue is racism and sexism. Each student has to respect the other,
i.e., the main constituent of any discourse.
● For the indefinite pronouns: “she/her” is preferred; or secondarily, “they/them/their”
● Attendance is required. We will follow the university’s failure policy.

Course Requirements and Grading

Class participation %30
● Interpretation of Paintings - Class Summary - Active Discourse
Mid-term short paper/proposal %10
● A short paper OR a writing proposal for the final paper (4-5 pages long)
Week XII-XIII reader-responses %20
● One presentation and one response to another’s presentation (Two weeks)
Final paper %40
● 15-20 pages long, double space, Chicago or APA (just be consistent), due date: TBA

Required Texts
● Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns (eds.), Philosophy of Art and Beauty: Selected
Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger (Chicago: The University of Chicago,
1976).
● Clive Cazeaux (ed.), The Continental Aesthetics Reader, 2nd Edition (London & New
York: Routledge, 2011).
● J.M. Bernstein, Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003).
● Hal Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend:
Bay Press, 1983).

Recommended Texts
● Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 2002).
● Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and
Painting, tr. and ed. Galen A. Johnson and Michael B. Smith (Evanston: Northwestern
University, 1993).
● Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, tr. Edward S. Casey
(Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973).
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, tr. Robert
Bernasconi (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986).
● Jean-Fronçois Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime, tr. Elizabeth Rottenberg
(Stanford: Stanford University, 1994).
● Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, tr. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago
& London: The University of Chicago, 1987).
Schedule of Readings

0. INTRODUCTION
The Fundamental Concepts of Aesthetic Experience

WEEK I
● Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, tr. Edward S.
Casey (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973), xlv-lxvii, “Introduction:
Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Object.”

1. THE REIGN OF MIMESIS: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL TIMES

Mimesis, Representation, Beauty, Good, Truth

WEEK II
● Plato, The Republic X, Sophist, The Laws (From Philosophy of Art and Beauty,
8-52)
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, tr.
Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986), 116-122: “Poetry
and Mimesis”

WEEK III
● Plato, Symposium (From Philosophy of Art and Beauty, 68-77)
● Plotinus, Enneads I.6, V.8 (From Philosophy of Art and Beauty, 141-64)
● Titus Burckhardt, The Essential Titus Burckhardt: Reflections on Sacred Art,
Faiths, and Civilizations, ed. William Stoddart (Indiana: World Wisdom, 2003),
87-93, 112-57

2. THE PARADIGM SHIFT OF AESTHETICS

Judgment, Taste, Beautiful, Sublime, Genius, Part-Whole, Nature, Irony

WEEK IV
● Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, selections

WEEK V
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part I, selections

WEEK VI
● Friedrich Schleiermacher, “The Hermeneutics: Outline of the 1819 Lectures”, tr.
Jan Wojcik and Roland Haas, in The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to
 Ricoeur, ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and Alan D. Schrift (Albany: SUNY, 1990),
85-100.
● Friedrich von Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (From Classic and
Romantic German Aesthetics)
● Friedrich Hölderlin, poems
● Novalis, selections (From Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics)
● Friedrich Schlegel, selections (From Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics)

3. PHENOMENOLOGICAL AESTHETICS
Noesis-Noema, Perception, Reception, Activity/Passivity, Style

WEEK VII
● Edmund Husserl, Ideas I, selections
● Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, tr. Donald Landes
(London & New York: Routledge, 2012), lxx-lxxxv, “Preface.”
● Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind”, in The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics
Reader: Philosophy and Painting, tr. and ed. Galen A. Johnson and Michael B.
Smith (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1993), 121-149.
● Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Cézanne’s Doubt”, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics
Reader: Philosophy and Painting, tr. and ed. Galen A. Johnson and Michael B.
Smith (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1993), 59-75.

WEEK VIII
● Roman Ingarden, “On Philosophical Aesthetics” and “Phenomenological
Aesthetics: An Attempt at Defining Its Range”, in Selected Papers in Aesthetics,
ed. Peter J. McCormick (Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1985),
17-44.
● Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, tr. Edward S.
Casey (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973), selections

4. AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS

Truth, Work of Art, Self-Fulfilling, Interpretation, Experience

WEEK IX
● Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art” (From The Continental
Aesthetics Reader, 79-122)
● Meyer Schapiro, “The Still Life as a Personal Object. A Note on Heidegger and
van Gogh”, in Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society (Selected
Papers) (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 135-51.
 ● Hagi Kenaan, “What Philosophy Owes a Work of Art. Rethinking the Debate
Between Heidegger and Schapiro”
● Babette Babich, “The Work of Art and the Museum: Heidegger, Schapiro,
Gadamer”, in Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry, Music and
Eros in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger (Albaby: SUNY, 2006), 199-226.

WEEK X
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Aesthetics and Hermeneutics” (From The Continental
Aesthetics Reader, 186-94)
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Image and Word in the Artword”, in The Gadamer
Reader: A Bouquet of the Later Writings, ed. Richard E. Palmer (Evanston:
Northwestern University, 2007), 192-224.
● Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, tr.
Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986), 1-56: “The
Relevance of the Beautiful”

5. MODERNITY-POSTMODERNITY-PHILOSOPHY NOW
Truth, Tragedy, Irony, Difference and Repetition, Avant-garde, Aura, Reproduction,
Simulacra, Virtual, Sign, Affect, Sexual Difference

WEEK XI
● Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense” (From The
Continental Aesthetics Reader, 62-76)
● Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (From Philosophy of Art and Beauty,
498-554)
● Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, Ch. 1: “Difference in Itself”

WEEK XII
(Select one for presentation, one for response)
● Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”
● Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
(From The Continental Aesthetics Reader, 429-50)
● Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity versus Postmodernity” (From The Continental
Aesthetics Reader, 295-305)
● Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity - An Incomplete Project” (From The
Anti-Aesthetic, 3-15)
● Jean-François Lyotard, “The Sublime and the Avant-Garde (From The
Continental Aesthetics Reader, 585-97)
● Gianni Vattimo, “The Crisis of Subjectivity from Nietzsche to Heidegger”, in
Beyond the Subject: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Hermeneutics, tr. Peter
Carravetta (Albany: SUNY, 2019), 67-82.
● Gianni Vattimo, “Verwindung: Nihilism and the Postmodern in Philosophy”
 ● Jacques Derrida, “The Parergon” (From The Continental Aesthetics Reader,
540-69)
● Michel Foucault & Rene Magritte, This Is Not a Pipe, tr. James Harkness
(Berkeley & Los Angeles & London: University of California, 1983).
● Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” (From The Continental Aesthetics
Reader, 519-24)

WEEK XIII
(Select one for presentation, one for response)
● Hans Robert Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics,
selections
● Jean Baudrillard, “The Evil Demon of Images” (From The Continental Aesthetics
Reader, 477-87)
● Jean-Luc Nancy, “Art, A Fragment” (From The Continental Aesthetics Reader,
657-71)
● Friedric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” (From The
Anti-Aesthetic, 111-25)
● Alain Badiou, “Art and Philosophy” (From The Continental Aesthetics Reader,
686-700)
● Jacques Rancière, “Aesthetics as Politics” (From The Continental Aesthetics
Reader, 701-17)
● Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation”
● Julia Kristeva, “Approaching Abjection” (From The Continental Aesthetics
Reader, 388-408)
● Luce Irigaray, “Così Fan Tutti” (From The Continental Aesthetics Reader,
374-87)
● Hélène Cixous, “The Last Painting or the Portrait of God” (From The Continental
Aesthetics Reader, 596-614)

WEEK XIV
What Has Happened to the Concepts that We Have So Far Seen?
● Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, “Percept, Affect, and Concept” (From The
Continental Aesthetics Reader, 617-42)