The Ideology of the Aesthetic

The Ideology of the Aesthetic presents a history and critique of the concept of the aesthetic throughout modern Western thought. As such, this is a critical survey of modern Western philosophy, focusing in particular on the complex relations between aesthetics, ethics and politics. Eagleton provides a brilliant and challenging introduction to these concerns, as characterized in the work of Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Lukacs, Adorno, Habermas, and others.Wide in span, as well as morally and politically committed, this is Terry Eagleton´s major work to date. It forms both an original enquiry and an exemplary introduction

Contents: 1. Free Particulars. 2. The Law of the Heart: Shaftesbury, Hume, Burke. 3. The Kantian Imaginary. 4. Schiller and Hegemony. 5. The World as Artefact: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. 6. The Death of Desire: Arthur Schopenhauer. 7. Absolutte Ironies: Sren Kierkegaard. 8. The Marxist Sublime. 9. True Illusions: Friedrich Nietzshe. 10. The Name of the Father: Sigmund Freud. 11. The Politics of Being: Martin Heidegger. 12. The Marxist Rabbi: Walter Benjamin. 13. Art After Auschwitz: Theodor Adorno. 14. From the Polis to Postmodernism.