Transfigurements develops a framework for thinking about art through innovative readings of some of the most important philosophical writing on the subject by Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger. Sallis exposes new layers in their texts and theories while also marking their limits. By doing so, his aim is to show that philosophy needs to attend to art directly. Consequently, Sallis also addresses a wide range of works of art, including paintings by Raphael, Monet, and Klee; Shakespeare’s comedies; and the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, and Tan Dun. Through these interpretations, he puts forth a compelling new elaboration of the philosophy of art.

What is the work of art? How does art work as art? Andrew Benjamin contends that the only way to address these questions is by developing a radically new materialist philosophy of art, and by rethinking the history of art from within that perspective. A materialist philosophy of art starts with the contention that meaning is only ever the after effect of the way in which materials work. Starting with the relation between history, materials and work (art’s work), this book opens up a highly original reconfiguration of the philosophy of art. Benjamin undertakes a major project that seeks to develop a set of complex interarticulations between art history and an approach to art’s work that emphasizes art’s material presence. A philosophy of art emerges from the limitations of aesthetics.

This volume of essays on the philosopher John Sallis assesses his wide ranging and genuinely original contribution to philosophy. Along with the response to the essays by Sallis, these essays indicate directions for the future of philosophy.

Despite its foundational role in the history of philosophy, Plato’s famous argument that art does not have access to truth or knowledge is now rarely examined, in part because recent philosophers have assumed that Plato’s challenge was resolved long ago. In Art and Truth after Plato, Tom Rockmore argues that Plato has in fact never been satisfactorily answered—and to demonstrate that, he offers a comprehensive account of Plato’s influence through nearly the whole history of Western aesthetics. Rockmore offers a cogent reading of the post-Platonic aesthetic tradition as a series of responses to Plato’s position, examining a stunning diversity of thinkers and ideas. He visits Aristotle’s Poetics, the medieval Christians, Kant’s Critique of Judgment, Hegel’s phenomenology, Marxism, social realism, Heidegger, and many other works and thinkers, ending with a powerful synthesis that lands on four central aesthetic arguments that philosophers have debated. More than a mere history of aesthetics, Art and Truth after Plato presents a fresh look at an ancient question, bringing it into contemporary relief.

“A landmark achievement in Heidegger scholarship . . . displays a rigorous, thoughtful, and nuanced understanding of the whole of Heidegger’s notebooks.” —Andrew J. Mitchell, author of The Fourfold: Reading the Late Heidegger Engaging the development of Heidegger’s non-public writings on “the event” between 1936 and 1941, Daniela Vallega-Neu reveals what Heidegger’s private writings kept hidden. Vallega-Neu takes readers on a journey through these volumes, which are not philosophical works in the traditional sense as they read more like fragments, collections of notes, reflections, and expositions. In them, Vallega-Neu sees Heidegger searching for a language that does not simply speak about being, but rather allows a sense of being to emerge in his thinking and saying. She focuses on striking shifts in the tone and movement of Heidegger’s thinking during these important years. Skillfully navigating the unorthodox and intimate character of these writings, Vallega-Neu provides critical insights into questions of attunement, language, the body, and historicity in Heidegger’s thinking.