Introduction to Aesthetics

Catalog description

Painting, music, a rainbow after a storm, the sound of a waterfall, a hovering kestrel, a friend’s outfit—art and beauty appear in our lives in many different ways. This course introduces students to some of the central questions in the philosophy of art and aesthetics: What is art? Why does it matter to us? And how should we attend to the aesthetic aspects of the world? We will read work from a range of thinkers, from classical figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hume to more recent and contemporary philosophers, especially Iris Murdoch. Along the way, we will consider how we recognize something as art, whether art can be defined, how we talk about beauty and taste, and how to make sense of disagreement about artistic value.