Aesthetics: Classic Readings from the Western Tradition
Part I: Classical and Medieval Aesthetics. Plato, Introduction From Republic Book X. Aristotle, from Poetics. Plotinus, Ennead One: Sixth Tractate. Bonaventure, Retracing the Arts to Theology. Dante, Letter Ten. Passages for Discussion. Part II: Modern Aesthetics. Section 1: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Francis Hutcheson, from An Inquiry Into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. David Hume, Of the Standard Taste. Immanuel Kant, from Critique of Judgment. Passages for Discussion. Section 2: The Nineteenth Century. G. W. F. Hegel, from The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Arthur Schopenhauer, from The World as Will and Idea. Friedrich Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy. John Ruskin, from Modern Painters. Leo Tolstoy, from What is Art?. Passages for Discussion. Section 3: The Turn of the Century. Benedetto Croce, From Aesthetic; Edward Bullough, "Physical Distance" as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle. Clive Bell, From Art. Passages for Discussion. Part III: Looking Forward: The Twentieth Century. Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Morris Weitz, The Role of Theory in Aesthetics. George Dickie, The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude. Arthur Danto, The Artworld. Sources. Glossary. Index.