Thinking With Tolstoy and Wittgenstein

Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8101-3170-5
Verlag: Northwestern University Press

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 476 g

In this highly original interdisciplinary study incorporating close readings of literary texts and philosophical argumentation, Henry W. Pickford develops a theory of meaning and expression in art intended to counter the meaning skepticism most commonly associated with the theories of Jacques Derrida.

Pickford arrives at his theory by drawing on the writings of Wittgenstein to develop and modify the insights of Tolstoy’s philosophy of art. Pickford shows how Tolstoy’s encounter with Schopenhauer’s thought on the one hand provided support for his ethical views but on the other hand presented a problem, exemplified in the case of music, for his aesthetic theory, a problem that Tolstoy could not successfully resolve. Wittgenstein’s critical appreciation of Tolstoy’s thinking, however, not only recovers its viability but also constructs a formidable position within contemporary debates concerning theories of emotion, ethics, and aesthetic expression.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pickford, Henry

Über Autor(innen)

Henry W. Pickford is an assistant professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Colorado–Boulder, USA. Previously, he edited and translated Theodor W. Adorno’s Critical Models: Catchwords and Interventions. He is also the author of The Sense of Semblance: Philosophical Analyses of Holocaust Art.