Preview: / Richard Shusterman interviewed by Crispin Sartwell / In the context of contemporary philosophy, Richard Shusterman occupies a singular position. As one of the most influential figures revitalizing and extending the pragmatist tradition into new domains of aesthetic, somatic, and intercultural inquiry, his work has not only reinvigorated longstanding concerns with embodiment, perception,…

Preview: In various guises and cultures, the theme of elevating, ennobling love is a recurrent topos in the premodern erotic theory my book traces. Freed from Plato’s problematic dualistic denigration of the body as prison of the soul and from the modern aesthetic prejudice of disinterestedness, Ars Erotica recaptures the valuable core of ennobling desire…

Preview: Beyond Baumgarten, the modern field of aesthetics can be seen as an attempt to go beyond the limits of older philosophies of beauty, sublimity, and taste in order to engage a much wider domain of qualities and judgments relating to our pleasurable and meaningful experiences of art and nature. The defining strategy of Hegelian aesthetics (and other…