Art and Its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory (SUNY Series in Philosophy) Second Edition

By Stephen David Ross

Book Overview

Stephen David Ross is Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at State University of New York at Binghamton.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0887066003
• ISBN13: 9780887066009
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 638 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the Two Best Historical Anthologies on Aesthetics

I teach university level aesthetics, and I find myself switching between this text and Hofstadter's "Philosophies of Art and Beauty." Neither does everything I'd like, but they represent the best of the rest. I like the latter (Hofstadter) because of the depth of its selections and because it's not the least bit trendy (it boasts comprehensive selections from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Ficino, Shaftesbury, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Croce, Dewey, and Heidegger--in other words, aside from Hume it includes the seminal texts from virtually every historically essential figure up to 1930 except Tolstoy.) But Hofstadter's book has no contemporary theory at all after Heidegger (and it lacks some critical sections from Kant). Ross' anthology by contrast includes the really important material from Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger (which most other aesthetics anthologies do not), plus it has selections from Hume and Tolstoy and many contemporary figures of import like Bell, Collingwood, Dewey, Langer, Merleau-Ponty, Pepper, Hirsch, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Foucault, Bullough, Danto, Bakhtin, Freud, Jung, Benjamin, Adorno, Marcuse, Lyotard, Irigaray, and others (including some theoretically important artists like Kandinsky and Mandrian). But the early historical selections are much less comprehensive, and Ross includes no medieval or Renaissance writers at all. In short, the Hofstadter has better depth and the Ross has better breadth. The third edition of "Art and Its Significance" is greatly improved over the second edition, mostly because it expanded the Kant section to include essential parts of Kant's third Critique that were puzzlingly absent from the earlier editions (though a few critical sections are still missing), and because it has enlarged the Derrida section to include more critical writings. That has certainly helped address the depth weakness, and perhaps pushes it to the top of the list. But in aiming for breadth in an apparent attempt to please everyone, Ross has included some selections (mostly in the sections on feminist and multi-cultural theories) that aren't nearly as important, influential or finely argued as texts by figures he chose to leave out (like Croce and Schopenhauer). To my mind, he would have done better to include some Bonaventure and Dante, for instance, and a little more material from Plato, Aristotle and Kant--who even now, are more widely read and more cogent than some of the additional writers Ross did include. In sum, if you want an anthology that comes close to covering all the essential writers on the subject (past and present) and doing it fairly well, "Art and Its Significance" is perhaps your best choice despite its nod to trendiness. And it's still one of the most reasonably priced philosophy of art anthologies available.

Excellent anthology

Everyone interested in aesthetic theory, from ancient views through the most contemporary, will find useful material at the very least, and will be led to fuller sources as well.