On the Dialogue of Aesthetics and Philosophical Anthropology

Authors

Georgia APOSTOLOPOULOU University of Ioannina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v10i1.197

Keywords:

aesthetics, philosophical anthropology, aesthetics of spatiality, Wolfgang Welsch, Richard Shusterman, Helmuth Plessner, Joseph Margolis, Arnold Berleant

Abstract

After the alleged ‘ends’ of metaphysics, of history, and of art, aesthetics reorganises the field of its enquiry. While retaining the question of the meaning of art for the human as the background justification of its theorising, aesthetics meets philosophical anthropology and enlarges its field. Philosophical anthropology explains that the instability of the human condition demands culture as the artificial stabilisation of the human world as well as of the human in the world. Expressivity, artificiality, and the aesthetic are interweaved with the meaning of the human world. In this context, pictures have priority over concepts and justify art as the eminent pictorial form of meaning. Since the human lives in nature and culture, the stabilisation of its open world is possible through creation of spatial correlates and of objects as well. Thus, aesthetics does need to expand enquiry beyond the discourse on art, so that it includes the issues concerning the aesthetic character of the human world and its spatial correlates. While Wolfgang Welsch and Richard Shusterman argue for a revision of aesthetics, Joseph Margolis and Helmuth Plessner support the stronger dialogue between philosophical anthropology and aesthetics in different ways. Further, Arnold Berleant explores aesthetics of human space.

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Author Biography

Georgia APOSTOLOPOULOU, University of Ioannina

Georgia APOSTOLOPOULOU (Dr. Phil.) is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Ioannina, Greece, Delegate of the Hellenic Society for Aesthetics at the International Association for Aesthetics, Member of the Team of Advisory Editors of WISDOM journal. Her areas of interest include aesthetics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, history of Hellenic philosophy, problems of Continental philosophy. Apostolopoulou is the author of 2 monographs and more than 120 articles, and the editor of 3 philosophical volumes. Recent publications: “Neokantianism and Platonism in Neohellenic Philosophy”, “The Permanence of Philosophical Text”, “Philosophical Anthropology and the Sciences” and “The Beauty of Landscape in Hegel’s Aesthetics”, “Why the Politician needs Philosophy according to Aristotle”

References

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Published

2018-06-25

How to Cite

APOSTOLOPOULOU, G. (2018). On the Dialogue of Aesthetics and Philosophical Anthropology. WISDOM, 10(1), 6–11. https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v10i1.197

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Vol. 10 No. 1 (2018): 1-2018

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Articles

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