(in Polish) Introduction to Aesthetics

The aim of the seminar is to provide a general introduction to philosophical aesthetics as a field of Western philosophy that has emerged since the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on key texts, the seminar will present and discuss the most important basic concepts, ideas and perspectives, chosen both to provide an overview of the field and to show what constitutes a reference point for contemporary debates.

The aim of the seminar is to provide a general introduction to philosophical aesthetics as a field of Western philosophy that has emerged since the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on key texts, the seminar will present and discuss the most important basic concepts, ideas and perspectives, chosen both to provide an overview of the field and to show what constitutes a reference point for contemporary debates.

The course will introduce the most important classical European and North American authors representing different strands of philosophy. The problems will be discussed in chronological order, and the basis of the discussion will be extracts from texts selected so that they can be used to discuss a particular problem associated with a given author:

1. D. Hume - taste

2. I. Kant - disinterestedness

3. F. Schiller - aesthetic education

4. G.W.F. Hegel - beauty and the ideal

5. F. Nietzsche - aesthetics and existence

6. J. Dewey – art as experience

7. G. Santayana - beauty as feeling

9. Th.W. Adorno - art and the avant-garde

10. R. Ingarden - intentionality of art

10. M. Merleau-Ponty – aesthetics of perception

11. F. Sibley - aesthetic concepts

12. M. Weitz - definition of art

14. G. Dickie - institutional theory of art

- Adorno, Th. W., Aesthetic Theory (1970)

- Dewey J., Art as Experience (1934)

- Dickie G., What is Art?: An Institutional Analysis (1974)

- Hegel G.W.F., Lectures on Aesthetics (1835)

- Hume D., Of the Standard of Taste (1757)

- Ingarden R., Cognition of the Literary Work of Art (1937)

- Kant I., Critique of Judgment (1790)

- Merleau-Ponty M., Eye and Mind (1961)

- Nietzsche F., The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

- Santayana G., The Sense of Beauty (1896)

- Schiller F., On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

- Sibley F., “Aesthetic Concepts” (1959)

- Weitz M., “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” (1956)

Acquired knowledge:

- knowledge of selected research methods and argumentative strategies used in philosophical aesthetics

- knowledge of basic philosophical terminology specific to philosophical aesthetics

- knowledge of specific issues (factual and methodological) and the most important classical and recent developments in philosophical aesthetics

Acquired skills:

- interpreting a philosophical text, commenting on and confronting theses from different texts

- analysing philosophical arguments, identifying the propositions and assumptions on which the arguments are based, identifying logical and argumentative relationships between propositions.

Acquired social skills:

- identification of the knowledge and skills they possess

- identification of gaps in their knowledge and skills and look for ways to fill these gaps

Final essay

Number of absences: 2