Elective
Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (II): From the Modern Era to the 20th century
Course Objectives: The course supplements the winter semester course ‘Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (I): From Antiquity to the Renaissance’. Its objective is to familiarise the students with the main developments in aesthetics from the Enlightenment and German idealism to the beginning of the 20th century. The students will become acquainted with the way in which certain philosophers of early and later modernity (Baumgarten, Locke, Hume, Burke, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche) interpret specific issues in aesthetics and the arts. The course aims to encourage students to realise the degree to which distinct philosophical construals of the arts, since the Enlightenment, have or do not have ethics and politics as a main point of reference.
Learning Outcomes: After the successful completion of the course, the students:
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will have an overall picture of the most significant developments in aesthetics from early modernity to the 20th century.
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will be able to understand, analyse and present the aesthetic theories of major thinkers of that period.
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will be able to compare and evaluate the arguments and the philosophical theses of those thinkers with respect to the relation of art to ethics and politics.
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will be in a position to understand and assess contemporary aesthetic theories.
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having come into contact with specific philosophical texts, they will be capable of consulting them, understanding and analysing them autonomously.