Aesthetics

This is a declaration of war. In the name of our creator, we declare a revolutionary war against both the gods and those titans who were gods before them! In the name of our liberator, we declare a revolutionary war against fatalism and every other form of tyranny....

On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Crawford presents an articulated call for self-reliance....

Art has the power to move us, to spark an unexplainable connection, or to leave us cold. We might focus on small details or take in the entire piece of art, searching for something familiar.

An updated version of the seminal 1994 classic volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Nearly every book with "wabi" or "wabi sabi" in the title is based on the concepts first elucidated in this book....

Ecce homo, "behold the man", are the words Friedrich Nietzsche chose as the title for his literary self-portrait....

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration....

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics....

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Bence Nanay introduces the field of aesthetics, considering both Western and non-Western aesthetic traditions and exploring why it is sometimes misunderstood or considered to be too elitist - by artists, musicians, and even philosophers....

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object beautiful and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely....

Now, for the first time, listeners will be granted access to five decades of Robert M. Pirsig's personal writings in this posthumous collection that illuminates the evolution of his thinking to an unprecedented degree.

Investigates what blackface is, why it occurred, and what its legacies are in the 21st century.

Poststructuralism changes the way we understand the relations between human beings, their culture, and the world. This Very Short Introduction traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture....

Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought....

What part of your beautiful self were you taught to hate? We spend a lot of time trying to improve our 'defects', according to society's ideals of beauty. But these ideals that are often reductive, tyrannical and commercially entangled....

In The Performer, Richard Sennett explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics, and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words.

The idea that a small group of dedicated aspirants could work together to help dissipate the heavy enshrouding glamours which oppress humanity and deflect the light of truth, was initially quite a startling one....

In A Philosophical Enquiry, Edmund Burke sets out to define the nature of beauty and sublimity, and establish an objective criterion for discussing aesthetics....

There is a cause, or a reason, behind everything that happens. This is the fundamental view behind the classical proposition the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which, in 1813, Schopenhauer chose as his subject for further examination in his doctoral dissertation....

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the...

A compelling guide to the fundamental place of humor and comedy within Western culture - by one of its greatest exponents....

The Phaedrus by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues....

A Roman Emperor. A battlefield journal. A timeless code of calm. Discover a full-bodied listening experience crafted to help you lead, persevere, and act with intention in a chaotic world.

Philosopher Alva Noë explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, arguing that we have greatly underestimated what this entangled reality means for understanding human nature....

Rebecca van Laer and her partner purchase a home and move in with their senior cats, Toby and Gus.

This audiobook is devoted only to the first named, and we will not attempt to describe the others at this time, although we will have something to say upon all of these great branches of yoga, in future writings....

Rebecca van Laer and her partner purchase a home and move in with their senior cats, Toby and Gus. Their loved ones see this as a step toward an inevitable future—first comes the house, then a dog, then a child. But what if they are just cat people ? Moving between memoir, philosophy, and pop culture, Cat is a playful and tender meditation on cats and their people.

In the last few decades, restaurants and food culture have achieved extraordinary cultural presence. Chefs are heroes and thought leaders, well-executed entrées go viral, dining out has become theater, plating has become art and ubiquitous Instagram content. It explores the meaning we find in good food and warm hospitality. It shows why the restaurant offers unique opportunities to change the quality of our engagement with others and to create shared meaning across the table.

Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.

Was geschieht, wenn wir Kant nicht mehr als marmornes Denkmal, sondern als lebendigen Menschen lesen? Diese Frage bildet den Kern dieses Buches. Immanuel Kants Philosophie war niemals dazu bestimmt, als unverrückbares Dogma verehrt zu werden. Sie war ein kritisches Projekt, ein Versuch, die Grenzen der Vernunft sichtbar zu machen und Werkzeuge für weiteres Denken zu schaffen.

The pub is an English institution. But its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In this unique book, Philip Howell takes the public house as an object, or rather as a series of objects: he takes the pub apart and examines its constituent elements, from pub signs to the bar staff to the calling of "time." But Pub also explores the hidden features of the pub, such as corporate control, cultural acceptance and exclusion, and the role of the pub in communities.