Analytic Aesthetics

The so-called analytic approach has dominated Anglo-American philosophical enquiry in aesthetics in this century. The primary aim of this collection is to assess the nature, contribution, and continuing value of this approach. What, if anything, characterizes analytic aesthetics? How has it changed and developed over the years? What has been its special value? How does it differ from rival modes of enquiry? Recent Marxist, post-structuralist, and post-modernistic theories have suggested that we are deep in an age of post-analytic philosophy but supposedly on the threshhold of a post-philosophical culture. This volume not only provides a retrospective assessment of analytic aesthetics, but also indicates ways in which analytic aesthetics can best continue to serve our understanding of art and aesthetics in the future. The contributers are Richard Shusterman, J.O.Urmson, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Charles Altieri, Roger Scruton, Christopher Norris, Anthony Savile, Pierre Bourdieu, Joseph Margolis, Catherine Z.Elgin, Nelson Goodman. This account of aesthetics is aimed at graduates and above.