Lecture
Kant's Philosophy Today
Session 3: Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
Kant is considered one of the founders of aesthetics, the study of art. However, his central concepts, like beauty and disinterested contemplation, seem far removed from today’s conceptual and politicised art. Two experts will discuss whether and how Kant’s aesthetics can help us to engage with contemporary art.
Chaired and curated by Stephen Howard (FRIAS, University of Freiburg)In cooperation withThe Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Diarmuid Costello is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His research focuses on aesthetics, philosophy of art, and art history and theory. His books include On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge, 2018) and a re-evaluation of Kant’s theory of art, Aesthetics after Modernism (Oxford University Press, 2024). He is currently working on philosophical approaches to contemporary art.
Fiona Hughes is Senior Lecturer in philosophy at the University of Essex. Her research interests include the relationship between Kants epistemology and aesthetics, Merleau-Ponty’s development of Husserl`s phenomenology, Nietzsche’s critique of the foundations of value, and the relationship between art and philosophy. She is the author of Kant’s Aesthetic Epistemology: Form and World (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement: A Reader’s Guide (Continuum, 2009).
Stephen Howard is a senior postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at KU Leuven, Belgium, and, from October 2024, a fellow at FRIAS, Universität Freiburg, Germany. He specialises in early modern and modern European philosophy, taking a historical approach to issues in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of science. He has recently developed an interest in the philosophy of climate change. His publications includeKant’s Late Philosophy of Nature: The Opus postumum(Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Details
Goethe-Institut London
Library of the Goethe-Institut (1st Floor)
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
London
SW7 2PH
United Kingdom
Part of series Kant's Philosophy Today