Sublime, the

By Crowther, Paul

The origin of the term ‘the sublime’ is found in ancient philosophy, where, for example, Longinus linked it with a lofty and elevated use of literary language. In ...

Aesthetics

By Budd, Malcolm

Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baumgarten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai, which means perception by means of the senses (see Baumgarten, A.G.). As the ...

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich (1759–1805)

By Reed, T.J.

Schiller was an artist first – a major poet and the leading dramatist of eighteenth-century Germany – and an aesthetician second. At the height of his involvement in ...

Landscape, aesthetics of

Landscapes vary considerably in scale and kind. At one end are landscaped gardens and parks, carefully designed and maintained, at the other are wilderness areas of ice and ...

Nature, aesthetic appreciation of

By Carlson, Allen

In the Western world, aesthetic appreciation of nature and its philosophical investigation came to fruition in the eighteenth century. During that time, aestheticians made nature the ideal object ...

Burke, Edmund (1729–97)

By Hampsher-Monk, Iain

Edmund Burke’s philosophical importance lies in two fields, aesthetics and political theory. His early work on aesthetics, the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the ...

Beauty

By Brown, John H.

On the subject of beauty, theorists generally agree only on rudimentary points about the term: that it commends on aesthetic grounds, has absolute and comparative forms, and so ...

Nature, aesthetic appreciation of

In the Western world, aesthetic appreciation of nature and its philosophical investigation came to maturity in the eighteenth century. During that time, aestheticians found in nature an ideal ...

Nature, aesthetic appreciation of

In the Western world, aesthetic appreciation of nature and its philosophical investigation came to maturity in the eighteenth century. During that time, aestheticians found in nature an ideal ...

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)

By Guyer, Paul

Immanuel Kant was the paradigmatic philosopher of the European Enlightenment. He eradicated the last traces of the medieval worldview from modern philosophy, joined the key ideas of earlier ...

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant was the paradigmatic philosopher of the European Enlightenment. He eradicated the last traces of the medieval worldview from modern philosophy, joined the key ideas of earlier ...

Anti-positivist thought in Latin America

By Weinstein, Michael A.

Anti-positivist philosophy arose in Latin America at the turn of the twentieth century in response to the dominance of closed positivistic systems of historical development in the climate ...

Egyptian cosmology, ancient

By Ray, John D.

Ancient Egypt has left us no systematic philosophy in the modern sense. However, there is abundant evidence that the Egyptians were concerned with all the usual problems of ...

Aesthetic concepts

By Eaton, Marcia

Aesthetic concepts are the concepts associated with the terms that pick out aesthetic properties referred to in descriptions and evaluations of experiences involving artistic and aesthetic objects and ...

Reid, Thomas (1710–1796)

By Gallie, Roger

Thomas Reid, born at Strachan, Aberdeen, was the founder of the Scottish school of Common Sense philosophy. Educated at Marishal College, Aberdeen, he taught at King’s College, Aberdeen ...

Marx, Karl (1818–83)

By Rosen, Michael

Karl Marx was the most important of all theorists of socialism. He was not a professional philosopher, although he completed a doctorate in philosophy. His life was devoted ...

Art as philosophy

By Wiseman, Mary

Why did the response to the exhibition Johannes Vermeer at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 1995 surpass all expectations? Why do paintings of ...

Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb (1714–62)

By Townsend, Dabney

The German philosopher Baumgarten is known primarily for his introduction of the word ‘aesthetics’ to describe the affects of art and nature, which in the course of the ...

Feminist aesthetics

By Korsmeyer, Carolyn

Feminist perspectives in aesthetics and philosophy of art have emerged not only from the discipline of philosophy but also from cognate fields such as literary theory, film studies ...

Beauty

On the subject of beauty, theorists generally agree only on rudimentary points about the term: that it commends on aesthetic grounds, has absolute and comparative forms, applies to ...

Lacan, Jacques (1901–81)

By Brockelman, Thomas

Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and philosopher whose contribution to philosophy derives from his consistent and thoroughgoing reinterpretation of Freud’s writings in the light of Heidegger and ...

Environmental aesthetics

Environmental aesthetics is one of the major new areas of aesthetics to have emerged in the last part of the twentieth century. It focuses on philosophical issues concerning ...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831)

By Horstmann, Rolf-peter
Translated by Michael-Rushmer, Jane

Hegel was the last of the main representatives of a philosophical movement known as German Idealism, which developed towards the end of the eighteenth century primarily as a ...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831)

Hegel was the last of the main representatives of a philosophical movement known as German Idealism, which developed towards the end of the eighteenth century primarily as a ...

Emotion in response to art

By Levinson, Jerrold

The main philosophical questions concerning emotion in response to art are as follows. (1) What kind or type of emotions are had in response to works of art? ...