Overview

Wide-ranging in its philosophical scope, Hegel's Theory of Aesthetic Judgment, critically examines the historical and logical foundations of judgments of beauty in G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy of art. Focusing on the traditional belief that beautiful things display ultimate truth, this study begins with an illustration of how Kantian and Post-Kantian theories of beauty gradually recognized the revelatory function of art. Upon this background, the author shows how Hegel's visionary understanding of beauty assumes that beauty is the experience of rational perfection. Bringing Hegel's theory up-to-date, the work concludes by applying the Hegelian style of artistic evaluation within the postmodern cultural environment.

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Reviews

This is a first-rate historical and philosophical introduction to Hegel's aesthetics. Its clear, common-sense approach illuminates the most obscure and technical aspects of Hegel's aesthetics. The most difficult issues are elegantly and perspicuously explained. (Frederick C. Beiser, Yale University) 'Hegel's Theory of Aesthetic Judgment' is an important contribution to Hegel studies and a very welcome contribution to aesthetics and its history. Robert Wicks shows that Hegel maintains an historically informed, systematic, and sophisticated middle ground between Hume's empiricism and Kant's rationalism about aesthetic judgments. Wicks's lucid and engaging style makes this very interesting material accessible to general readers of art theory as well as to students. (Kenneth R. Westphal, University of New Hampshire)

Author Information

The Author: Robert Wicks received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied Hegel's philosophy of art at the Ruhr-Universitaet in Bochum, Germany. Among his publications are essays on contemporary aesthetics, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Nietzsche. Dr. Wicks has taught Philosphy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at The University of Arizona.

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