This Strange Idea of the Beautiful

In "This Strange Idea of the Beautiful", Francois Jullien brings together ideas of beauty from both Eastern and Western philosophy in order to challenge the assumptions underlying our commonly agreed upon definition of what is beautiful and offer a new way of beholding art. Jullien argues that the Western concept of beauty was established by Greek philosophy and consequently became embedded within the very structure of European languages. And due to its relationship to language, this concept has determined ways of thinking about beauty that often go unnoticed or unchecked in discussions of Western aesthetics. Moreover, through globalization, Western ideals of beauty have even spread to cultures whose ancient traditions are based upon radically different aesthetic foundations, yet these cultures have adopted such views without question and without recognizing the cultural assumptions they contain. Looking specifically at how Chinese texts have been translated into Western languages, Jullien reveals how the traditional Chinese refusal to isolate or abstract beauty is obscured in translation in order to make the works more understandable to Western readers. Creating an engaging dialogue between Chinese and Western ideas, Jullien reassesses the essence of beauty.

ISBN 0857420100   DEWEY edition DC23 ISBN13 9780857420107 (What's this?)   Pages 302 Publisher Seagull Books London Ltd   Weight (grammes) 666 Imprint Seagull Books London Ltd   Published in Greenford Format Hardback   Height (mm) 250 Publication date 29 May 2013   Width (mm) 150 Translator Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Michael Richardson   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY 111.850951   Academic level Postgraduate

 Be the first to write a customer review