Search results for ""Author Derek Matravers""

How can we understand another person's feelings, thoughts, words or behaviour? Through empathy, it is hoped, we might use our imaginations to shift our perspective into another person's, thereby grasping their thoughts and emotions. In this insightful new book, Derek Matravers negotiates the evolution of this fascinating concept. He explores the roots of the term in the work of David Hume and Adam Smith, its re-emergence in a new form in nineteenth-century German philosophy, and its resurgence as something different again in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. In doing so, he explores the important role empathy, in all its forms, has played in the study of the mind, the emotions and aesthetics, and in ethics. Empathy is an ideal introduction to one of the most absorbing contemporary philosophical debates.

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How can we understand another person's feelings, thoughts, words or behaviour? Through empathy, it is hoped, we might use our imaginations to shift our perspective into another person's, thereby grasping their thoughts and emotions. In this insightful new book, Derek Matravers negotiates the evolution of this fascinating concept. He explores the roots of the term in the work of David Hume and Adam Smith, its re-emergence in a new form in nineteenth-century German philosophy, and its resurgence as something different again in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. In doing so, he explores the important role empathy, in all its forms, has played in the study of the mind, the emotions and aesthetics, and in ethics. Empathy is an ideal introduction to one of the most absorbing contemporary philosophical debates.

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In 1797 Friedrich Schlegel wrote that "philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy, or the art." This collection of essays contains both the philosophy and the art. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers to address diverse philosophical issues raised by recent works of art. Each essay engages with a specific artwork and explores the connection between the image and the philosophical content. Thirteen contemporary philosophers demonstrate how philosophy can aid interpretation of the work of ten contemporary artists, including: Jesse Prinz on John Currin Barry C. Smith and Edward Winters on Dexter Dalwood Lydia Goehr and Sam Rose on Tom de Freston Raymond Geuss on Adrian Ghenie and Chantal Joffe Hallvard Lillehammer on Paul Noble M. M. McCabe and Alexis Papazoglou on Ged Quinn Noël Carroll on Paula Rego Simon Blackburn and Jerrold Levinson on George Shaw Sondra Bacharach on Yue Minjun. The discussion ranges over ethical, political, psychological and religious concepts, such as irony, disgust, apathy, inequality, physiognomy and wonder, to historical experiences of war, Marx-inspired political movements and Thatcherism, and standard problems in the philosophy of art, such as expression, style, depiction and ontology of art, as well as major topics in art history, such as vanitas painting, photography, pornography, and Dadaism. Many of the contributors are distinguished in areas of philosophy other than aesthetics and are writing about art for the first time. All show how productive the engagement can be between philosophy, more generally, and art.

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With an Introduction by Derek Matravers. In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal relationship between society and the individual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint for totalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defences of civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker side of political systems.

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