Everyfan -- Definitions : praise, beauty, athletics -- Discontinuities : demigods, gladiators, knights, ruffians, sportsmen, Olympians, customers -- Fascinations : bodies, suffering, grace, tools, forms, plays, timing -- Gratitude : watching, waste.

Schiller's 1795 essay on the educative function of art is one of the most important contributions to the history of ideas in modern times. This English-German parallel text edition includes a long analytical introduction and extensive notes.

In his Aesthetics Hegel gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. He surveys the history of art from ancient India, Egypt, and Greece through to the Romantic movement of his own time, criticizes major works, and probes their meaning and significance; his rich array of examples gives broad scope for his judgement and makes vivid his exposition of his theory. The substantial Introduction is Hegel's best exposition of his general philosophy of art, and provides the ideal way into (...) his Aesthetics. In Part I he considers the general nature of art: he distinguishes art, as a spiritual experience, from religion and philosophy; he discusses the beauty of art and differentiates it from the beauty of nature; and he examines artistic genius and originality. Part II provides a sort of history of art, divded into three periods called Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. Part III deals individually with architecture, scuplture, painting, music, and literature. (shrink)

On Human Conduct is composed of three connected essays. Each has its own concern: the first with theoretical understanding, and with human conduct in general; the second with an ideal mode of human relationship which the author has called civil association; and the third with that ambiguous, historic association commonly called a modern European state. Running through the work is Professor Oakshott's belief in philosophical reflection as an adventure: the adventure of one who seeks to understand in other terms what (...) he already understands, and where the understanding is sought is a disclosure of the conditions of the understanding enjoyed and not a substitute for it. Its most appropriate expression is an essay, which, he writes, 'does not dissemble the conditionality of the conclusions it throws up and although it may enlighten it does not instruct.'. (shrink)

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language.

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

Compilation of the most important documents and speeches by Pierre de Coubertin on Olympism and the Olympic Games.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the visual representation of dignity, through the particular example of the seventeenth century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. Velázquez works at a point in Western history when modern conceptions of dignity are beginning to be formed. It is argued that Velázquez' portraits of royalty and aristocracy articulate a tension between a feudal conception of majesty and a modern conception of the dignity of merit. On this level, modern conceptions of dignity of merit are (...) understood in terms of a struggle to excel in particular activities, and thus to overcome the risk of failure. More radically, Velázquez' portraits of dwarfs and the mentally disabled are argued to be expressive of dignity, not by finding a positive representation of the sitter's dignity, or to find scales of activities by which they can be positively assessed, but rather by grounding their dignity, negatively, in a protest against indignity and humiliation. Drawing on Honneth's analysis of dignity in terms of a theory of recognition, it is argued that the indignity of the court dwarf lies in the fracturing of their communication with the rest of society. The task of repairing that fractured communication is achieved, not by representing a dignified ideal, but rather by drawing attention to the prejudices that serve to exclude the humiliated from full participation in society. In conclusion, it is suggested that the conceptualisation and representation of the elderly today finds effective exemplars in Velázquez' portraits of court dwarfs, rather than in his portraits of the elderly. (shrink)