1,721,219 research outputs found
Egoismi e incongruenze. Estetiche del riso in età moderna
No full textThrough a line of investigation that, starting from Hobbes, develops in authors such as Addison, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Kant, this essay intends to reconstruct the major theories of laughter in philosophers and art theorists of the modern age. Moreover, it aims at showing the moral, social, psychological, aesthetic and cognitive relevance of a theme still at the center of the contemporary philosophical debate and that was considered in many of its problematic and categorial all through the eighteenth century
Prometeo e la téchne: ovvero, le logiche del genio
No full textThis essay considers the myth of Prometheus as a symbol of creative genius, with reference to the modern and contemporary age, and it investigates the consequences of such a metaphorical assumption. At the beginning of the modern age the artist was at times likened to a «just Prometheus under Jove», but in the following centuries some critics have pointed out the ambiguity of the figure of Prometheus in moral and practical terms: Marcuse, to mention one, sees him as the symbolic origin of the unhappiness and alienation of contemporary man. In fact, this mythical figure embodies both those ancestral characters (deceiver/liberator) and it offers an original point of view – regardless of stereotypes and commonplaces – to survey aspects generally related to the dynamics of creativity and to the duties and responsibilities of the genius
On Cultural Transmission. A Case Study: Condillac and Italy
Get PDFThe period that Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-80) spent in Parma at the court of Philip and Louise Elizabeth (1758-67), as tutor to their son Ferdinand 1 , offers an interesting model for inquiring under what specific assumptions the concept of “cultural migrations”, or intellectual transmission, between different philosophical cultures should be considered. The difficulties for the historian of ideas in formulating hypotheses about the relevance and modes of cultural transmission are evident even in a case such as Condillac’s, whose actual presence in Parma and Italy seems to support the obvious belief that such transmission necessarily occurred through the philosophers direct action: his conversations with local scholars, contacts with other philosophers, intellectual exchanges and so on. However, one may legitimately question this sort of easy conclusion. For the philosophical novelties that the French philosopher introduced and which met with favor in the rest of Europe were sometimes dismissed or neglected in the Duchy of Parma and throughout Italy, even by scholars less conservative and orthodox in their philosophical positions who were more open to novelty. Moreover, the migration of authors does not entail the migration of their ideas. Given such questions, a preliminary analysis of some of the methodological assumptions underlying this type of inquiry is worthwhile
Dire il vero ridendo. Teoria e pratica dell'ironia critica in Francis Hutcheson
No full textThis essay examines Francis Hutcheson's aesthetics of laughter, showing its cognitive and psychological aspects, which in some ways anticipate Sigmund Freud's analysis of wit. It also shows how Hutcheson's Reflections Upon Laughter and his Observations on the Fable of the Bees launched a critical debate in the mid-eighteenth century that played a crucial role in the intellectual history of modernity
Il concetto del sensibile. Idealismo e naturalismo nell'estetica di Diderot
No full textThe interest in the sensible may take heterogeneous forms, focusing on epistemological, metaphysical, gnoseological or other aspects; however, it is above all the relationship between art and reality established by Diderot that is analysed here, taking into account, on the one hand, the direct and privileged link that the etymology itself establishes between perception (aistheton) and aesthetics; on the other hand, in less theoretical terms and more focused on the central role that the concept of the sensible plays in Diderot's reflection on beauty and art
Metafisica e sublime
No full textThis essay reconstructs the history of the aesthetics of the sublime in eighteenth-century Europe, particularly in the work and literary theories of the Italian poet and scholar Giacomo Leopardi
L'arte e i suoi limiti: le fonti inglesi nelle Riflessioni critiche di Du Bos
No full textAnalysis of the relationship between the "continental" aesthetics of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos and the critical theories of the same period in England
Per l'estetica dell'emblema nei Settecento inglese. I frontespizi delle Characteristics di Lord Shaftesbury: la seconda edizione (1714)
No full textAnalysis of the genesis and meaning of the emblems that Lord Shaftesbury placed on the title pages of the essays in the second edition of "Characteristics" (1714), between aesthetics, historiography and iconology
La traduzione come arte
No full textThis paper focuses on the theory of translation by identifying as its guiding principle not the mere and faithful mimesis of the original text but rather its "interpretatio" and "translatio" by way of imagination and free creativity. In order to understand its dynamics and logics it has been considered the practice of translating from an aesthetic point of view, considering if it can be assimilated to the fine arts or artistic practices, and verifying the relationship that it possibly maintains with the iconic genres,of which it represents the linguistic and literary counterpart. At issue is obviously the relationship between truth and beauty: the case of the philosophical translation is exemplary to show how they both are required to find a compromise in order to give way to a translation that might be good - that is, true and correct - as well as beautiful
Fra Apollo e Dioniso. Füssli al bivio
No full textA study on the relationship between theory and artistic practice in the work and aesthetic writings of one of the most important painters of the English Protoromantic artistic milieu, the Swiss Johann Heinrich Füssli
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