Why has our preoccupation with concepts, standards, and theories of the beautiful not resulted in a correspondingly comprehensive theoretical treatment of the ugly? Theories of Ugliness remedies this by gathering and scrutinising ideas of the ugly and unsightly from across the history of Western aesthetic and philosophical writing. Taking in ancient, medieval and early modern concepts, all the way through to more recent Anglo-American conceptions, this book reveals the extraordinary preoccupation with ugliness exhibited by some of Germany''s leading philosophers. Fascinating insights into ugliness from dialectical, categorical or purely aesthetic perspectives are found in thinkers such as Hegel, Lessing, Schlegel, Nietzsche, Adorno, Julia Kristeva and most notably Karl Rosenkranz. Whether as a counterpoint to beauty, a target of negation, a literary device, or a victim of humour, ugliness runs throughout the history of Western thought. This compelling study brings that thought together to offer a fresh view that will change the way that scholars think about the ugly.

Autorentext
Mark W. Roche is Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of German Language and Literature and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA.

Klappentext

An engrossing history of how Western philosophers have theorized the ugly from ancient times to the present day.

Inhalt

Introduction
Part One: Early Reflections

1. Plato and Aristotle
2. Medieval Absence
3. Maggi, Rocco, and the Early Modern Era
   Part Two: The German (and European) Tradition
4. Lessing and Early German Thinkers
5. Hegel and the Earliest Hegelians
6. Rosenkranz and Schasler
7. Nietzsche and the Writers
8. The Academic Philosophers
9. Theodor Adorno's Elevation of Ugliness
10. Recent Continental Perspectives
    Part Three: The Anglo-American Tradition
11. From Darwin to the Neo-Hegelians
12. Contemporary Perspectives: Goodman, Sibley, and Danto
    Part Four: A Contemporary Objective Idealist Theory of Ugliness
    Afterward
    Works Cited