Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art

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When Don Featherstone's plastic pink flamingos were first advertised in the 1957 Sears catalogue, the instructions were 'place in garden, lawn, to beautify'. The flamingos are placed on the cover of this book for another reason: to start us asking questions. That's where philosophy always begins. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is written to introduce students to a broad array of questions that have occupied philosophers since antiquity, and which continue to bother us today. Grounded in an array of real-world examples, from the classical to the contemporary - and from Marcel Duchamp's signed urinal to The Exorcist to the ugliest animal in the world - each chapter opens with an illustrated guiding case, introducing a number of the issues to be discussed, and serving as a touchstone throughout the chapter. Now expanded and revised, this is the ideal introduction to the major problems, issues, and debates in the philosophy of art and aesthetics