The Aesthetic Imperative

Writings on Art

Peter Sloterdijk ( Karlsruhe School of Design), Karen Margolis

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English

Polity Press
21 April 2017

Theory of art; Philosophy: aesthetics

In this wide-ranging book, renowned philosopher and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk examines art in all its rich and varied forms: from music to architecture, light to movement, and design to typography. Moving between the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, his analyses span the centuries, from ancient civilizations to contemporary Hollywood. With great verve and insight he considers the key issues that have faced thinkers from Aristotle to Adorno, looking at art in its relation to ethics, metaphysics, society, politics, anthropology and the subject.

Sloterdijk explores a variety of topics, from the Greco-Roman invention of postcards to the rise of the capitalist art market, from the black boxes and white cubes of modernism to the growth of museums and memorial culture. In doing so, he extends his characteristic method of defamiliarization to transform the way we look at works of art and artistic movements. His bold and original approach leads us away from the well-trodden paths of conventional art history to develop a theory of aesthetics which rejects strict categorization, emphasizing instead the crucial importance of individual subjectivity as a counter to the latent dangers of collective culture.

This sustained reflection, at once playful, serious and provocative, goes to the very heart of Sloterdijk’s enduring philosophical preoccupation with the aesthetic. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and aesthetics and will appeal to anyone interested in culture and the arts more generally.

By: Peter Sloterdijk ( Karlsruhe School of Design)
Translated by: Karen Margolis
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 224mm, Width: 147mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 522g
ISBN: 9780745699875
ISBN 10: 0745699871
Pages: 300
Publication Date: 21 April 2017
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Further / Higher Education , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter Sloterdijk is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Karlsruhe School of Design.

Reviews for The Aesthetic Imperative: Writings on Art

The Aesthetic Imperative crystalizes and intensifies the already formidable force of Sloterdijk's corpus. By working through the history of philosophy we discover that the bourgeois subject's capacity to discern the beautiful is at once an art of self-formation and a beautiful form of the self. This is not one more book on the relation between art and politics: it redefines the polity as a singular account of a beauty beyond art, and redefines the aesthetic by way of a subjectivity that is on its way to being political. Claire Colebrook, Penn State University