The book aims at a new exposition of the basic idea of modern aesthetics by way of a reconstruction of its genesis in the 18th century, between Baumgarten's Aesthetics and Kant's Critique of Judgment. The claim is that the historical invention of aesthetics was not about expanding the range of legitimate objects of philosophical inquiry--these objects all existed before aesthetics. Rather, aesthetics, by introducing the category of the "aesthetic," fundamentally redefined these objects. But most importantly, the reconstruction of the historical genesis of aesthetics shows that the...

This book reconceives modern aesthetics by reconstructing its genesis in the 18th century, between Baumgarten's Aesthetics and Kant's Critique of Judgment.

Force demonstrates that aesthetics, and hence modern philosophy, began twice. On the one hand, Baumgarten's Aesthetics is organized around the new concept of the "subject": as a totality of faculties; an agent defined by capabilities; one who is able. Yet an aesthetics in the Baumgartian manner, as the theory of the sensible faculties of the subject, at once faces a different aesthetics: the aesthetics of...

History is usually thought of as a tale of time, a string of events flowing in a particular chronological order. But as Karl Schlogel shows in this groundbreaking book, the where of history is just as important as the when. Schlogel relishes space the way a writer relishes a good story: on a quest for a type of history that takes full account of place, he explores everything from landscapes to cities, maps to railway timetables. Do you know the origin of the name "Everest"? What can the layout of towns tell us about the American Dream? In Space We Read Time reveals this...