Aesthetics - 2nd semester
Code
711031054
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Filosofia
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
João Pardana Constâncio
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. To understand the specificity of Aesthetics within the realm of philosophical reflection, as well as the specificity of its subject-matter and the concepts it uses.
2. To acquire knowledge of the fundamental problems of Aesthetics by reading and analyzing texts that belong either to the tradition or to contemporary authors, including poets and artists in general.
3. To develop a critical method of understanding and analyzing works of art, both literary and non-literary, and either from an historical or a non-historical perspective.
Prerequisites
Not applicable
Subject matter
The course consists in a reflection on the meaning and implications of Kants Aesthetics, i.e. of his critique of aesthetic judgment in the Critique of Judgment. In the first part of the course, this reflection includes the detailed study of the Analytic of the Beautiful and the Analytic of the Sublime, as well as a more generic study of the deduction and the dialectic of aesthetic judgment. The second part of the study consists in an introductory reflection on some of the fundamental problems of post-Kantian Aesthetics, namely: Hegel and the end of art; Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche on tragedy; Nietzsche and the relation between art and nihilism; Heidegger and the relation between art and technology in modernity; Lyotard, the sublime, and the question of post-modernity; Arthur Danto, Thierry de Duve, and the definition of art; form, expression, interpretation, and representation: the post-Kantian critique of mimesis.
Bibliography
-CONSTÂNCIO, J./ BRANCO, M.J.M., (eds.), As the Spider Spins: Essays on Nietzsches Critique and use of Language, Berlin/ Boston, de gruyter, 2012
-CONSTÂNCIO, J., Arte e niilismo. Nietzsche e o enigma do mundo, Lisboa, tinta-da-china, 2013
-CONSTÂNCIO, J./ MARTON, S./ BRANCO, M.J.M. (org.), Sujeito, décadence e arte. Nietzsche e a modernidade, Lisboa e Rio de Janeiro, tinta-da-china, 2014
-KANT, I., Kritik der Urteilskraft, in: Akademie Textausgabe V, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter,1968
-NIETZSCHE, F., Kritische Studienausgabe, Colli, G./ Montinari, M. (ed.), Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1980, 15 vols.
Teaching method
(a) Most classes are dialogued lectures.
(b) Several of them work as a \"seminar\" (with reading, commentary, and analyses of texts projected in pdf format).
(c) Other classes (so-called \"practical\" classes) consist in critical discussions with the students of previously presented themes and problems.
(d) Examples from the arts (e.g. paintings projected in pdf or other similar formar) are constantly used.
Evaluation method
(e) Students are firstly evaluated by an exam that takes place after the first half of the course, which weighs 20% in the final mark;
(f) The crucial element is an exam at the end of the semester (70%);
(g) A positive participation in the classes is valued (10%).