History of Modern Aesthetics

The first part of this article reviews a number of recent general approaches to the history of modern aesthetics. Some of the most prominent work on the history of the subject by philosophers working within the paradigm of analytical aesthetics has not had much to say about some historical questions, but instead has taken both the very existence of the field of aesthetics and its post-eighteenth-century identification with the philosophy of art pretty much for granted; such work has generally used interpretations of historical figures, especially from the eighteenth century, to support or...

The first part of this article reviews a number of recent general approaches to the history of modern aesthetics. Some of the most prominent work on the history of the subject by philosophers working within the paradigm of analytical aesthetics has not had much to say about some historical questions, but instead has taken both the very existence of the field of aesthetics and its post-eighteenth-century identification with the philosophy of art pretty much for granted; such work has generally used interpretations of historical figures, especially from the eighteenth century, to support or criticize positions in contemporary aesthetics. The second part of the article is a bibliographical essay listing some of the most important recent work on the major movements and individual figures in aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.