Arts & Ideas
Philosophy 140 (full year) / Philosophy 141 (half year)
Arts & Ideas, Philosophy 140, is a full-year course both for students
entering university and for continuing students interested in exploring
philosophy. It looks at fiction, movies, music, painting, sculpture,
body decoration, dance, and fashion in terms of a series of fascinating
questions: are there universal standards of beauty? Is our enjoyment
of the arts determined by our culture, or is it as natural as eating
— or love? Why do pictures, stories and music give such intense
pleasure? Is art bad for us? The course assumes no background —
it is designed for absolute beginners.
Arts & Ideas begins with Plato’s notorious condemnation of art in the Republic. Aristotle’s theory of drama and entertainment, as relevant to soap operas as to Greek tragedy, comes next, followed by more recent thinkers. Arts & Ideas surveys cross-cultural aesthetics, art vs craft, creativity and genius, kitsch, video, and high vs pop art.
New in the course: Darwinian theories of art. Human beings are hard wired to enjoy sex and death in story-telling, beautiful landscapes for their calendars, and rhythmically intense dance music. Evolution can tell us why.
Students who can only enrol for the first half of the year may do so by signing up for Philosophy 141, Classical Concepts of Beauty. This is the first half of Arts & Ideas marked as a separate, one-semester course.
Lecturer for Arts & Ideas is Denis Dutton of the Department of Philosophy. He edits the scholarly journal Philosophy and Literature and the website Arts & Letters Daily.
Arts & Ideas meets every Wednesday, 10.00 A.M. until 11.40 A.M. Tutorials for the course meet at various times on Thursday and Friday.
Students who want to get a head start on the reading may do so by obtaining any edition of Plato's Republic.
