Aesthetics and Subjectivity

Introduction: aesthetics and modernity; aesthetics and post-modernity. Part 1 Modern philosophy and the emergence of aesthetic theory - Kant: self-consciousness, knowledge and freedom; the unity of the subject; the unification of nature; the purpose of beauty; the limits of beauty. Part 2 German idealism and early German Romanticism: the "new mythology"; the romantic "new mythology". Part 3 Reflections on the subject - Fichte, Holderlin and Novalis. Part 4 Schelling - art as the "organ of philosophy": the development of consciousness; the structure of the "system of transcendental idealism"; the aesthetic absolute; mythology, art and language; mythology, language and being. Part 5 Hegel - the beginning of aesthetic theory and the end of art: the reflexive absolute; music and the idea; language, consciousness and being; the idea as sensuous appearance; the prose of the modern world; aesthetics and non-identity. Part 6 Schleiermacher - aesthetics and hermeneutics: individuality; immediate self-consciousness; art as free production; interpretation as art; literature and the "musical". Part 7 Music, language and literature: language and music; Hegel and music - the sayable and the unsayable; the presence of music; infinite reflection and music. Part 8 Nietzsche - the divorce of art and reason: Schopenhauer - the world as embodied music; Marx, myth and art; art, myth and music in "The Birth of Tragedy"; myth, music and language; the illusion of truth; music and metaphysics; aesthetics, interpretation and subjectivity. Appendix: the so-called "oldest system-programme of German idealism" (1796).