Aesthetics and Ontology - 1st semester
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 art and subjecitivity, particularly on modern art as a mirror of the modern project as a universalist project of selfdetermination (or emancipation) of an individual and collective subject.
Such a reflection tries to establish (a) how should one evaluate today the historical realization of that project, (b) whether we live already in a postmodern era where the subject is \"dead\" 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, especially of such authors as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
Bibliography
-Clark, T. J. (1999). The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. Revised Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-Clark, T. J. (1999). Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
-Constâncio, J. (2013). Arte e niilismo: Nietzsche e o enigma do mundo. Lisboa: tinta-da-china.
-Constâncio, J., Branco, M.J.M., & Ryan, B. (Eds.) (2015). Nietzsche and the Problem of Subjectivity. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter.
-Constâncio, J., Branco, M. J M., & Marton, S. (Org.) (2014). Sujeito, décadence, arte: Nietzsche e a modernidade. Lisboa: tinta-da-china.
-Harvey, D. (1990). The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
-Pippin, R. B. (1999). Modernism as a Philosophical Problem. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
-Pippin, R. B. (2014). After the Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Teaching method
(a) most classes are dialogued lectures, (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 of previously presented themes and problems.
Within the context of a protocol signed 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
(d) students are evaluated by a mandatory 12 pages essay (70%);
(e) students are also evaluated by an oral presentation of their essay (20%);
(f) a positive participation in the classes is valued (10%).