Aesthetics and Ontology
Code
722031042
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Filosofia
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
João Pardana Constâncio
Weekly hours
3 letivas + 1 tutorial
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. To acquire advanced critical knowledge of fundamental theses and problems of Aesthetics and Ontology.
2. To acquire advanced critical knowledge of how certain fundamental theses and problems of Aesthetics and Ontology fit into the philosophical tradition.
3. To acquire the capacity to reflect on the relationship between the history of Aesthetics and Ontology and the history of Art and Culture.
4. To understand the relevance of the philosophical tradition for the understanding of contemporary issues of Aesthetics and Ontology.
Prerequisites
Not applicable
Subject matter
The course consists in a reflection on the development of European art since the French revolution as a mirror of the evolution of modernity, i.e. of the universalist project of an individual and collective self-determination (or emancipation). Such a reflection tries to establish (a) how should one evaluate today the historical realization of that project, (b) whether we live already in another era, i.e. in a postmodern era either because modernity has failed, or because it has been fully realized as a project (such that we now live after or beyond the end of history) , and (c) how is that visible in art, specifically in painture and other pictorial arts (such that we could already be living after the end of art).
The course will also show how the terms of the whole debate on modernity (and postmodernity) cannot be understood without the study of the history of aesthetics, philosophy of art, and ontology, espcially of such authors as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
Bibliography
-CLARK, T.J., The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999 (revised edition)
-CLARK, T.J., Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1999,
-HARVEY, David, The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990
-PIPPIN, Robert B., Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, Second Edition, Oxford, Blackwell, 1999
-PIPPIN, Robert B., After de Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2014
Teaching method
(a) most classes are \"expositive\", (b) several of them work as a \"seminar\" (with reading, commentary, and analyses of texts), (c) other classes (so-called \"practical\" classes) consist in critical discussions with the students about previously presented themes and problems.
In collaboration with the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the philosophical analyses of works of art will fundamentally focus on examples from the collections of the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and the Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM). Maria João Branco will teach a set of classes on key-works of the CAM and their relevance for the courses themes.
Evaluation method
(a) students are evaluated by a mandatory 12 pages essay; (b) students are also evaluated by an oral presentation of their essay; (c) a positive participation in the classes is valued; (d) the final mark results from the assessment of (a), (b), and (c) (the written essay cannot count less than 70% in this assessment).