This original and wide-ranging book, now available in paperback, is
a major contribution to contemporary philosophy. Bernstein focuses
on the work of four key thinkers - Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and
Adorno - and provides a powerful new interpretation of their
writings on art, aesthetics and politics.
Bernstein argues that our experience of art today is conditioned
by the loss of the truth-function of art: with the growth of modern
science and technological reason, art is relegated to a separate
and autonomous domain of the aesthetic. This condition of
'aesthetic alienation' - the raging discord between art and truth -
is one of the most perspicuous signs of the fragmentation of
modernity.
Aesthetic alienation is challenged in differing ways by modern
Continental philosophers like Heidegger, Derrida and Adorno.
Bernstein shows how each of these philosophers uses the experience
of art and the discourse of aesthetics to criticize the
fragmentation of modernity. He examines in detail their responses
to aesthetic alienation and raises a range of fundamental questions
concerning the relations between art, philosophy and politics in
modern societies.
a major contribution to contemporary philosophy. Bernstein focuses
on the work of four key thinkers - Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and
Adorno - and provides a powerful new interpretation of their
writings on art, aesthetics and politics.
Bernstein argues that our experience of art today is conditioned
by the loss of the truth-function of art: with the growth of modern
science and technological reason, art is relegated to a separate
and autonomous domain of the aesthetic. This condition of
'aesthetic alienation' - the raging discord between art and truth -
is one of the most perspicuous signs of the fragmentation of
modernity.
Aesthetic alienation is challenged in differing ways by modern
Continental philosophers like Heidegger, Derrida and Adorno.
Bernstein shows how each of these philosophers uses the experience
of art and the discourse of aesthetics to criticize the
fragmentation of modernity. He examines in detail their responses
to aesthetic alienation and raises a range of fundamental questions
concerning the relations between art, philosophy and politics in
modern societies.
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