Critical Communities and Aesthetic Practices: Dialogues With Tony Oconnor on Society, Art, and Friendship

Critical Communities and Aesthetic Practices brings together eminent international philosophers to discuss the inter-dependence of critical communities and aesthetic practices. Their contributions share a hermeneutical commitment to dialogue, both as a model for critique and as a generator of community.

Two conclusions emerge: The first is that one’s relationships with others will always be central in determining the social, political, and artistic forms that philosophical self-reflection will take. The second is that our practices of aesthetic judgment are bound up with our efforts as philosophers to adapt ourselves and our objects of interest to the inescapably historical and indeterminate conditions of experience.

The papers collected here address the issue that critical communities and aesthetic practices are never politically neutral and can never be abstracted from their particular contexts. It is for this reason that the contributors investigate the politics, not of laws, parties or state constitutions, but of open, indefinably critical communities such as audiences, peers and friends.

Critical Communities and Aesthetic Practices is distinctive in providing a current selection of prominent positions, written for this volume. Together, these comprise a pluralist, un-homogenized collection that brings into focus contemporary debates on critical and aesthetic practices.

Francis Halsall is lecturer in the history and theory of modern/contemporary art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. His research focuses on theories of art after modernism (and in particular the systems-theoretical approach such as that of Niklas Luhmann). He is the author of Systems of Art (Peter Lang, 2008) and co-editor (with Julia Jansen & Tony O’Connor) of Rediscovering Aesthetics, (Stanford University Press, 2008). Recent articles include: ‘One Sense is Never Enough’ Journal of Visual Art Practice (October, 2004); ‘Art History versus Aesthetics?’ in Elkins, J, (ed.) Art History Versus Aesthetics, (Routledge, 2005); and ‘Chaos, Fractals and the Pedagogical Challenge of Jackson Pollock’s ‘All-Over’ Paintings’, Journal of Aesthetic Education, (2008)

Julia Jansen is lecturer in Philosophy at University College Cork, Ireland. Her current research explores the intersections of Kant’s Philosophy of Mind, Husserlian Phenomenology, Aesthetics, and Cognitive Science. Her recent publications include: "Husserl’s First Philosophy of Phantasy: A Transcendental Phenomenology of Imagination," in: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2005); "Schnittstelle und Brennpunkt: Das ästhetische Erlebnis als Aufgabe für eine Kooperation von Phänomenologie und Neurowissenschaft," in: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven der Phänomenologie, ed. by D. Lohmar und D. Fonfara (Springer, 2006). Currently she is finishing a monograph on imagination and transcendental philosophy in Kant and Husserl. She is the co-editor (with Francis Halsall & Tony O’Connor) of Rediscovering Aesthetics (Stanford University Press, 2008).

Sinéad Murphy lectures in Philosophy at the Newcastle University. Her background is in Aesthetics, Hermeneutics and literary theory, and her current research is into the extent to, and manner in, whichhermeneutic philosophy exemplifies a constructive mode of philosophical practice. She is a regular contributor at the conferences of, for example, the Irish Philosophical Society, the Society for European Philosophy and the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, and has published on Kant’s sublime and on feminist literary theory.