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: / Sue Spaid interviewed by Mateusz Salwa / MS: Your recent book (Making Values Explicit. On How We Are Moved to Do, Act, Care, and Change, Ethics International Press Ltd: Bradford 2025) is mainly devoted to values. Interestingly, you claim that the very notion of “values” is undervalued in philosophy as it is broad and a bit…
Abstract: This article is a critique of the research perspective that analyzes political myths based on the methods of the study of myths. The author points to the need to supplement this perspective with the Lacanian theory of fantasy, which allows for capture of subjective desire manifested in myths. Theories in the study of myths (of…
Abstract: Military history has to date shown little interest in war periodicity. It will soon witness the confirmation or disproof of a war forecast made over thirty years ago, by a socio-political model of Anglo-American culture that predicted a major civic and war crisis for the 2020s. Extending that model beyond the scope of original authors, Neil…
Abstract: In a critical commentary on the final paragraph of The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht, ¶1067 (1885)) it is argued that Nietzsche ironically presupposes the metaphysics, and even the theology, he putatively eschews and repudiates. Nietzsche’s anti-realism about aesthetics, in its broadest extension, is refuted by showing that the Apollonian is not an illusion but a fundamental…
Abstract: Chairs, cups, books, and utensils populate our everyday lives and are protagonists of much of our ordinary aesthetic experience. It would seem natural, therefore, for the philosophy of design and everyday aesthetics to constitute intersecting fields of inquiry. Yet the contemporary philosophical debate on the aesthetics of design, articulated through three…
Abstract: I will defend a thesis about the proper way to aesthetically appreciate instances of design that incorporate natural elements. My main case studies will be drawn from the work of fashion designer Alexander McQueen, such as a bodice incorporating mussel shells from the Voss collection (Spring/Summer 2001). I will defend a version of cognitivism about the proper aesthetic…
Abstract: This essay proposes a visualist ontological framework for understanding design, rooted fundamentally in the theories of emergent properties and affordances. Opposing functionalist and intentionalist paradigms, the framework underscores design’s visuality and relational engagement as its core ontological elements. The concepts of emergent properties and affordances are presented as deeply interconnected, reflecting their philosophical…
Preview: “The study of aesthetics proceeds along many lines, containing both the theory of beauty and the theory of art, and investigating both aesthetic objects and aesthetic experiences, employing description, prescription, analysis, and explanation.” Thus begins Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s seminal work on the history of aesthetics from antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century, the…