The Insistence of Art ─ Aesthetic Philosophy After Early Modernity

Considering the attention paid to artists from the early modern period by philosophers working in what we now recognize as "aesthetics," considering the extent to which artworks and practices of the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries were accompanied by an immense range of discussions about the arts and their relation to one another, and considering above all the sheer breadth and scope of the artistic achievements in the period, it is striking that so little recent effort has been made to understand the connection between early modern artistic practices and the emergence of aesthetics as a branch of philosophy over the course the eighteenth century. Art is more often taken by philosophers and historians as a 'stand-in' for, or reflection of, some other question, historical event or social of significance, rather than as being the phenomena itself. The ten essays in this volume attempt to remedy this.

The essays in The Claim of Art suggest ways in which the artworks and practices of the early modern period show the essentiality of aesthetic experience for philosophical reflection, and in particular for the rise of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline, while also showing art's need for philosophy. Each contribution teaches us by example how we might better grasp central artistic and philosophical preoccupations of the preceding centuries and our own time, by asking after both early modern art's claim on philosophy and philosophical realizations of the claim of art.

Paul Kottman is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of Love as Human Freedom (forthcoming), Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare: Disinheriting the Globe, and A Politics of the Scene.