HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020
International audienceTable of Contents: - Rethinking Hegel’s last lectures on aesthetics in and ... more International audienceTable of Contents: - Rethinking Hegel’s last lectures on aesthetics in and for the 21st century (Francesca Iannelli, Alain Patrick Olivier, Klaus Vieweg)- Les vertus de l’imparfait(Jacques Rancière)- Noli tangere: On the limits of seeing and touching in Hegel’s philosophy of art (Paul A. Kottman)- Tramonto dell’imitazione e filosofia dell’arte nella Vorlesungsmitschrift di Adolf Heimann (Francesco Valagussa) - Hegel’s “characteristic” (die Charakteristik) in 1828-29(Martin Donougho)- Azione e coscienza in Hegel: tra filosofia dell’arte e filosofia del diritto (Giulia Battistoni) - La concezione hegeliana dell’ironia e il corso berlinese del 1828-29 (Francesco Campana)- Bruno Bauer’s critical theory of art and Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics in 1828-29 (Gabriele Schimmenti
Contents Introduction 000 Part One: Political Theory and the Expropriation of the Scene 1. From T... more Contents Introduction 000 Part One: Political Theory and the Expropriation of the Scene 1. From Theater to Theory 000 2. Plato: Mimesis 000 3. Hobbes or, Politics Without a Scene 000 4. The Image of the Leviathan: Figural Unity at the Limits of Representation 000 Part II: Toward a Politics of the Scene 5. Toward a Politics of the Scene 000 6. Memory, Mimesis, Tragedy: The Scene Before Philosophy 000 7. "Speaking As One Witness to Another:" Hamlet and the "Cunning of the 000 Scene" 000 8. A Scene of Speaking: Convocation and the Suspension of Tragedy in 000 Romeo and Juliet 000 Epilogue: The World-Stage 000 Notes 000 Index 000
Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination EBSCOhost serves thousands of libraries with premium e... more Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination EBSCOhost serves thousands of libraries with premium essays, articles and other content including Tragic
Heller, and others, have grappled with Shakespeare. This is the first volume to bring together th... more Heller, and others, have grappled with Shakespeare. This is the first volume to bring together their engagements with his drama, which are part of an underexplored philosophical tradition. Philosophers on Shakespeare comes at a time when the critical paradigm of Shakespeare studies in the academy is shifting from a historicist and cultural materialist model toward a renewed interest in theoretical readings of the plays. Shakespeare's work is currently being taught and performed more than ever, and there is a proliferation of new critical editions of the plays themselves to which this volume will serve as a timely and much-needed companion. It is useful for the light it sheds on individual plays as well as for its survey of literary criticism, aesthetic theory, theories of tragedy and dramatic criticism since the mid-eighteenth century.
Hegel's exclusion of touch (and taste and smell) from the purview of fine art, which limits itsel... more Hegel's exclusion of touch (and taste and smell) from the purview of fine art, which limits itself to the "theoretical senses" of sight and hearing, does not mean that touch is not theoretical. Rather, for Hegel, the theoretical significance of touch cannot be grasped artistically; indeed, that is a lesson which art, exclusively, teaches. For this reason, Hegel's philosophy of art offers unique resources for a critique of our contemporary visual culture and its obliviousness to the moral and theoretical implications of how human beings are touched, or touch one another.
This chapter aims to rethink Lessing’s Laocoon by reassessing its fundamental aesthetic contribut... more This chapter aims to rethink Lessing’s Laocoon by reassessing its fundamental aesthetic contribution. The essay proceeds in three parts. First, it argues that Lessing’s critical practice in Laocoon demonstrates how the amateur’s ‘felt’ responses to an artwork’s aesthetic effect bears on the critic’s judgment concerning both what and how artworks mean. Second, Kottman claims that Lessing’s discussion of medium-specificity is not meant to arrive at any fixed ‘theory’ of different media; rather, it follows from his broader sense of what art does through its solicitation of our imagination. Third, the chapter argues that Lessing’s focus on the ‘limits’ of painting and poetry does not present transcendentally derived criteria according to which different ‘media’ are graspable; rather, Lessing shows how the very view that artworks or practice yield a special understanding of human life, unavailable elsewhere, is earned through the careful consideration of the achievements of specific artw...
This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study o... more This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato’s dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato’s account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato’s deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato’s deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist. Contributors are Shai Biderman, David Calhoun, Michael Forest, Jorge Tomas Garcia, Abraham Jacob Greenstine, Paul A. Kottman, Danielle A. Layne, David McNeill, Erik W. Schmidt, Timothy Secret, Adrian Switzer, and Michael Weinman.
Some contributors have thought it important to refer to a larger range of specialist critical edi... more Some contributors have thought it important to refer to a larger range of specialist critical editions and commentaries (often using the standard abbreviations when referring to these versions). Of these, the most impor tant are the following:
he aim of this introduction is to explain the appearance and significance of a new English editio... more he aim of this introduction is to explain the appearance and significance of a new English edition of Adorno's Notes to Literature, and to provide reasons for devoting your time to it-and to do so in terms other than those arising from the churning of what might, by now, be called the "Adorno Industry, " or the repackaging of philosophical texts within the broader academic Kulturindustrie. 1 By this, I mean not only the publisher's entirely understandable need to sell books but also the broader cultivation of academic-intellectual "needs" that can be satisfied only by the production and circulation of more publications, which in turn contribute to the professional reputation of certain authors. Think, for instance, of the service fees paid nowadays to circulate or publicize academic work on the Internet. A typical way that introductions to academic books achieve this aim is through a brief account of how a book such as this has achieved the status of a "classic" and with what implications. This can be done, for instance, by cataloguing the book's influence in light of debates it has sparked. Allow me to immediately disappoint anyone expecting this approach in the following pages. True enough, Adorno's writings on art and his aesthetic philosophy continue to receive sustained and careful attention. From Notes to Literature alone, "The Essay as Form, " "On Lyric Poetry and Society, " "Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács' Realism in Our Time, " "Commitment, " "Trying to Understand Endgame," and other entries are already regarded as minor classics. 2 Furthermore, there have already appeared a number of helpful reviews and discussions of these very volumes. 3 Indeed, it is precisely because the quality of
Kottman argues, against Stanley Cavell's reading of Othello, that Othello's murder of Des... more Kottman argues, against Stanley Cavell's reading of Othello, that Othello's murder of Desdemona stems from his need to demonstrate Desdemona's independent desire and autonomy – rather than, as Cavell has it, to "avoid" or "deny" that independent vitality. Othello would rather see Desdemona dead at his feet than bent before him on her knees; his own freedom (as he understands it) depends upon Desdemona's freedom, on her not being merely obedient. Kottman also argues that Desdemona herself plays a role in her own undoing; by risking her life to make love to Othello, she gives him the right to destroy her. Under the circumstances, it is the only action she can make sense of as her own. Keywords: Sexual love, Freedom, Stanley Cavell, Skepticism, Othello, Jealousy
A central issue in Hamlet is Hamlet’s attempt to live his life as his—his efforts at discerning a... more A central issue in Hamlet is Hamlet’s attempt to live his life as his—his efforts at discerning a course of action that amounts to “leading” a life, rather than just suffering it. Shakespeare’s play addresses Hamlet’s difficulty in doing this, from two sides. First, Hamlet is framed by the breakdown of the social bonds on which the protagonists depend for the meaning and worth of their lives together. The play shows these bonds to be dissolvable. Second, Hamlet’s predicament does not leave us with a desperate nihilism. On the contrary, the play shows how the meaning of a life as individually lived is best gauged by the way it “bears up” under the collapse of traditional, inherited ways of life. Hamlet is what the testing of a new, radically uncertain practical identity looks like. He cultivates an abiding uncertainty about who he might become, as a mode of self-realization.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020
International audienceTable of Contents: - Rethinking Hegel’s last lectures on aesthetics in and ... more International audienceTable of Contents: - Rethinking Hegel’s last lectures on aesthetics in and for the 21st century (Francesca Iannelli, Alain Patrick Olivier, Klaus Vieweg)- Les vertus de l’imparfait(Jacques Rancière)- Noli tangere: On the limits of seeing and touching in Hegel’s philosophy of art (Paul A. Kottman)- Tramonto dell’imitazione e filosofia dell’arte nella Vorlesungsmitschrift di Adolf Heimann (Francesco Valagussa) - Hegel’s “characteristic” (die Charakteristik) in 1828-29(Martin Donougho)- Azione e coscienza in Hegel: tra filosofia dell’arte e filosofia del diritto (Giulia Battistoni) - La concezione hegeliana dell’ironia e il corso berlinese del 1828-29 (Francesco Campana)- Bruno Bauer’s critical theory of art and Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics in 1828-29 (Gabriele Schimmenti
Contents Introduction 000 Part One: Political Theory and the Expropriation of the Scene 1. From T... more Contents Introduction 000 Part One: Political Theory and the Expropriation of the Scene 1. From Theater to Theory 000 2. Plato: Mimesis 000 3. Hobbes or, Politics Without a Scene 000 4. The Image of the Leviathan: Figural Unity at the Limits of Representation 000 Part II: Toward a Politics of the Scene 5. Toward a Politics of the Scene 000 6. Memory, Mimesis, Tragedy: The Scene Before Philosophy 000 7. "Speaking As One Witness to Another:" Hamlet and the "Cunning of the 000 Scene" 000 8. A Scene of Speaking: Convocation and the Suspension of Tragedy in 000 Romeo and Juliet 000 Epilogue: The World-Stage 000 Notes 000 Index 000
Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination EBSCOhost serves thousands of libraries with premium e... more Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination EBSCOhost serves thousands of libraries with premium essays, articles and other content including Tragic
Heller, and others, have grappled with Shakespeare. This is the first volume to bring together th... more Heller, and others, have grappled with Shakespeare. This is the first volume to bring together their engagements with his drama, which are part of an underexplored philosophical tradition. Philosophers on Shakespeare comes at a time when the critical paradigm of Shakespeare studies in the academy is shifting from a historicist and cultural materialist model toward a renewed interest in theoretical readings of the plays. Shakespeare's work is currently being taught and performed more than ever, and there is a proliferation of new critical editions of the plays themselves to which this volume will serve as a timely and much-needed companion. It is useful for the light it sheds on individual plays as well as for its survey of literary criticism, aesthetic theory, theories of tragedy and dramatic criticism since the mid-eighteenth century.
Hegel's exclusion of touch (and taste and smell) from the purview of fine art, which limits itsel... more Hegel's exclusion of touch (and taste and smell) from the purview of fine art, which limits itself to the "theoretical senses" of sight and hearing, does not mean that touch is not theoretical. Rather, for Hegel, the theoretical significance of touch cannot be grasped artistically; indeed, that is a lesson which art, exclusively, teaches. For this reason, Hegel's philosophy of art offers unique resources for a critique of our contemporary visual culture and its obliviousness to the moral and theoretical implications of how human beings are touched, or touch one another.
This chapter aims to rethink Lessing’s Laocoon by reassessing its fundamental aesthetic contribut... more This chapter aims to rethink Lessing’s Laocoon by reassessing its fundamental aesthetic contribution. The essay proceeds in three parts. First, it argues that Lessing’s critical practice in Laocoon demonstrates how the amateur’s ‘felt’ responses to an artwork’s aesthetic effect bears on the critic’s judgment concerning both what and how artworks mean. Second, Kottman claims that Lessing’s discussion of medium-specificity is not meant to arrive at any fixed ‘theory’ of different media; rather, it follows from his broader sense of what art does through its solicitation of our imagination. Third, the chapter argues that Lessing’s focus on the ‘limits’ of painting and poetry does not present transcendentally derived criteria according to which different ‘media’ are graspable; rather, Lessing shows how the very view that artworks or practice yield a special understanding of human life, unavailable elsewhere, is earned through the careful consideration of the achievements of specific artw...
This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study o... more This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato’s dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato’s account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato’s deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato’s deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist. Contributors are Shai Biderman, David Calhoun, Michael Forest, Jorge Tomas Garcia, Abraham Jacob Greenstine, Paul A. Kottman, Danielle A. Layne, David McNeill, Erik W. Schmidt, Timothy Secret, Adrian Switzer, and Michael Weinman.
Some contributors have thought it important to refer to a larger range of specialist critical edi... more Some contributors have thought it important to refer to a larger range of specialist critical editions and commentaries (often using the standard abbreviations when referring to these versions). Of these, the most impor tant are the following:
he aim of this introduction is to explain the appearance and significance of a new English editio... more he aim of this introduction is to explain the appearance and significance of a new English edition of Adorno's Notes to Literature, and to provide reasons for devoting your time to it-and to do so in terms other than those arising from the churning of what might, by now, be called the "Adorno Industry, " or the repackaging of philosophical texts within the broader academic Kulturindustrie. 1 By this, I mean not only the publisher's entirely understandable need to sell books but also the broader cultivation of academic-intellectual "needs" that can be satisfied only by the production and circulation of more publications, which in turn contribute to the professional reputation of certain authors. Think, for instance, of the service fees paid nowadays to circulate or publicize academic work on the Internet. A typical way that introductions to academic books achieve this aim is through a brief account of how a book such as this has achieved the status of a "classic" and with what implications. This can be done, for instance, by cataloguing the book's influence in light of debates it has sparked. Allow me to immediately disappoint anyone expecting this approach in the following pages. True enough, Adorno's writings on art and his aesthetic philosophy continue to receive sustained and careful attention. From Notes to Literature alone, "The Essay as Form, " "On Lyric Poetry and Society, " "Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács' Realism in Our Time, " "Commitment, " "Trying to Understand Endgame," and other entries are already regarded as minor classics. 2 Furthermore, there have already appeared a number of helpful reviews and discussions of these very volumes. 3 Indeed, it is precisely because the quality of
Kottman argues, against Stanley Cavell's reading of Othello, that Othello's murder of Des... more Kottman argues, against Stanley Cavell's reading of Othello, that Othello's murder of Desdemona stems from his need to demonstrate Desdemona's independent desire and autonomy – rather than, as Cavell has it, to "avoid" or "deny" that independent vitality. Othello would rather see Desdemona dead at his feet than bent before him on her knees; his own freedom (as he understands it) depends upon Desdemona's freedom, on her not being merely obedient. Kottman also argues that Desdemona herself plays a role in her own undoing; by risking her life to make love to Othello, she gives him the right to destroy her. Under the circumstances, it is the only action she can make sense of as her own. Keywords: Sexual love, Freedom, Stanley Cavell, Skepticism, Othello, Jealousy
A central issue in Hamlet is Hamlet’s attempt to live his life as his—his efforts at discerning a... more A central issue in Hamlet is Hamlet’s attempt to live his life as his—his efforts at discerning a course of action that amounts to “leading” a life, rather than just suffering it. Shakespeare’s play addresses Hamlet’s difficulty in doing this, from two sides. First, Hamlet is framed by the breakdown of the social bonds on which the protagonists depend for the meaning and worth of their lives together. The play shows these bonds to be dissolvable. Second, Hamlet’s predicament does not leave us with a desperate nihilism. On the contrary, the play shows how the meaning of a life as individually lived is best gauged by the way it “bears up” under the collapse of traditional, inherited ways of life. Hamlet is what the testing of a new, radically uncertain practical identity looks like. He cultivates an abiding uncertainty about who he might become, as a mode of self-realization.
Review of Blair Hoxby What Was Tragedy? Theory and the Early Modern Canon, Theatre Journal Volume... more Review of Blair Hoxby What Was Tragedy? Theory and the Early Modern Canon, Theatre Journal Volume 70, Number 3, September 2018
Paul A. Kottman, "Hamlet's Self-realization" for Hamlet volume, edited by Tzachi Zamir (Oxford se... more Paul A. Kottman, "Hamlet's Self-realization" for Hamlet volume, edited by Tzachi Zamir (Oxford series, Centers of Reflection: Literature, Philosophy and Thought)
This volume explores one of modernity’s most profound and far-reaching philosophies of art: the V... more This volume explores one of modernity’s most profound and far-reaching philosophies of art: the Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, delivered by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel in the 1820s. The book has two overriding objectives: first, to ask how Hegel’s work illuminates specific periods and artworks in light of contemporary art-historical discussions; second, to explore how art history helps us make better sense and use of Hegelian aesthetics.
In bringing together a range of internationally acclaimed critical voices, the volume establishes an important disciplinary bridge between aesthetics and art history. Given the recent resurgence of interest in ‘global’ art history, and calls for more comparative approaches to ‘visual culture’, contributors ask what role Hegel has played within the field – and what role he could play in the future. What can a historical treatment of art ac- complish? How should we explain the ‘need’ for certain artistic forms at different historical junctures? Has art history been ‘Hegelian’ without fully acknowledging it? Indeed, have art historians shirked some of the funda- mental questions that Hegel raised?
Alberto Siani’s first English-language book, Hegel and the Present of Art’s Past Character, is a ... more Alberto Siani’s first English-language book, Hegel and the Present of Art’s Past Character, is a short but dense book which brings together some recent essays of his: primarily explications of the historical and philosophical background (in Kant and Schiller) of Hegel’s famous declaration about art’s highest vocation persisting as a thing of the past.
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In bringing together a range of internationally acclaimed critical voices, the volume establishes an important disciplinary bridge between aesthetics and art history. Given the recent resurgence of interest in ‘global’ art history, and calls for more comparative approaches to ‘visual culture’, contributors ask what role Hegel has played within the field – and what role he could play in the future. What can a historical treatment of art ac- complish? How should we explain the ‘need’ for certain artistic forms at different historical junctures? Has art history been ‘Hegelian’ without fully acknowledging it? Indeed, have art historians shirked some of the funda- mental questions that Hegel raised?
highest vocation persisting as a thing of the past.