An anthology of critical essays on aesthetics by Arnold Berleant. Includes citation and DOI for each article.

The idea of aesthetic disinterestedness has been a central concept in aesthetics since the late eighteenth century. This exchange offers a contemporary reconsideration of disinterestedness from different sides of the question.

The notion of disinterestedness became, during the eighteenth century, the central term in modern aesthetics. Developments in the arts since that time, however, have led to its loss of relevance, although it has continued its preeminence in theory. While rejecting disinterestedness and its kindred concepts of contemplation, distance, and…[Read more]

I want to propose a radical re-examination of the foundations of modern aesthetics. This kind of exploration is at the same time a profoundly philosophical act, for philosophical premises lie at the base of modern aesthetics. Exploring these premises, indeed challenging them, can lead us to a new basis for aesthetics derived from aesthetic inquiry…[Read more]

The human presence is unavoidable, not only in the natural world but on the very occasion of beauty. There is little or nothing on this planet that has not been influenced by human action. Not only have people radically altered the earth’s surface, but human practices have affected the atmosphere, the seas, the very climate. Moreover, the…[Read more]

The discipline of aesthetics is generally associated with art and the word ‘aesthetics’ is often taken to connote art that is valued as good or great. What that value is and how to assess it are central questions for aesthetic theory. Despite common usage, however, the word ‘aesthetic’ is not synonymous with ‘beauty’ and has application…[Read more]

ABSTRACT
When I first reflected on the title of this symposium, I thought it could be read as an invitation to critique the academic practice of aesthetics as a scholarly discipline, to identify its limitations, its subservience to fashionable academic ideologies, its alienation from much of what was (and is) being done by artists of all sorts…[Read more]

It might seem strange to propose an aesthetic consideration of the theme park, that artificial bloom in the garden of popular culture. The aesthetic is often considered a minority interest in the modern world, yet it offers a distinctive perspective, even on an activity that has mass appeal, and can provide insights that would otherwise remain…[Read more]

A list of essays by Arnold Berleant on the aesthetics of the social and political. Includes citation and DOI for each article.

We can see how an aesthetic analysis of the mechanisms of mass culture can reveal many of the hidden ways in which sensibility is appropriated and controlled. It may not be too far-fetched to recall Aristotle’s definition of a slave as a living tool. How else should we think of a person whose sensibility has been so taken over that one’s very per…[Read more]

Considering the aesthetics of Disney World through environment.

The arts have always been integrated into their larger culture, responding to shifts in taste and fashion and to changes in the social uses to which they have been put, as much as they have promoted those same changes. Even their alienation reflects a social influence. When this relation between society and the arts is recognized and affirmed, it…[Read more]

Considering the role of art and aesthetics in designing human communities in outer space.

This essay develops the final chapter in my recent book, Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of the Human World (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2010). I acknowledge with appreciation the similitude of my title and subject to Jacques Rancière’s Le partage du sensible; esthétique et politique, although the inquiry here is ind…[Read more]

On political science and social order.

Starting from a suggestion in Schiller’s “On the Aesthetic Education of Man,” this essay develops the rationale of an aesthetic basis for social philosophy or, what we may call a social aesthetics. Social implications can be found in the arts when we consider them from a traditional perspective. However, Schiller’s insight about social harmony g…[Read more]

Aesthetics is fundamentally a theory of sensible experience. Its scope has expanded greatly from centering on the arts and scenic nature to the full range of appreciative experience. Expanding the range of aesthetics raises challenging ques-tions about the experience of appreciation. Traditional accounts are inadequate to identify and illuminate…[Read more]

Music has not been as prominent in philosophy or as influential in aesthetics as the visual arts, at least in the Western tradition. Reflecting on my years of experience as both a philosopher and a musician, I am increasingly intrigued by speculating if and how today’s aesthetic discourse might have taken a different direction if music been its c…[Read more]

This essay considers the powerful influence of dualistic thinking in aesthetics and the capacity of aesthetics to transcend and heal that division. I locate the origins of this influence in a distinctively Western cultural tradition that begins in classical Greek philosophy, especially in Plato, is carried forward in early modern philosophy and…[Read more]

Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic broadening in the scope of aesthetic inquiry. No longer focused exclusively on the arts and natural beauty, the mainstream of aesthetics has entered a delta in which its flow has spread out into many channels before entering the ocean of civilization. Several decades ago, environmental aesthetics began to…[Read more]