Category Archives: aesthetic experience

The irreducible significance of literature: David Wellbery on Goethe, Cavell and de Man

Posted on 26/12/2017 by lexipenia

David E. Wellbery is LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson Professor at University of Chicago, where he chairs the Department of Germanic Studies and is a member of the Committee on Social Thought. A renowned scholar of the German tradition, … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, aesthetic experience, aesthetics, cognitivism, Goethe, idealism, interviews, literary form, literature, Paul de Man, philosophy, poetry, Stanley Cavell, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

On Beauty

Posted on 26/12/2017 by lexipenia

On 26 April 2017 I participated in a panel discussion on beauty in Berlin. Here’s what I and the others said: The word “beautiful” is used in relation to a loose range of phenomena. When we look for beauty in … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, aesthetic experience, aesthetics, beauty, criticism, ethical criticism, ethics, Kant, philosophy, Stanley Cavell | Leave a comment

The Totality of Facts

Posted on 10/06/2016 by lexipenia

In 2013 I attended the European Quizzing Championship in Liverpool and wrote a piece about it. The original was so long and misshapen it took me two years to get around to editing it. I finally did, and it’s up … Continue reading →

Posted in aesthetic experience, Berlin, criticism, cultural memory, David Markson, essay, ethics, Frances Yates, memory, philosophy, quizzing, Uncategorized, Wittgenstein | Leave a comment

If an artwork is morally dubious, does that make it aesthetically bad?

Posted on 22/06/2014 by lexipenia

This stupid question needlessly dominates so much discourse about the “ethical criticism” of artworks. I wish it could be torpedoed out of sight. The question is stupid because (i) the answer is obviously “no”; (ii) it risks conflating two forms … Continue reading →

Posted in aesthetic experience, aesthetics, criticism, ethical criticism, ethics, philosophy, pointless rants, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Beethoven, Cavell and Talking Nonsense

Posted on 03/04/2014 by lexipenia

In music, film and literature (though not in visual art), grammar is the question of what comes next. The grammar of natural languages imposes restrictions on word order. Functional harmony frowns upon certain progressions of chords. The famous Kushelov Effect suggests … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, Adorno, aesthetic experience, aesthetics, criticism, ethics, form, literature, music, philosophy, pointless rants, Rilke, Stanley Cavell, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Nouveaux dialogues entre littérature et philosophie

Posted on 17/03/2014 by lexipenia

For French readers, I have a review up at Acta fabula discussing questions of form in literature and philosophy. Existe‑t‑il vraiment une distinction précise entre la littérature et la philosophie ? Au moins depuis l’époque poststructuraliste, la tendance des départements … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, aesthetic experience, aesthetics, Cora Diamond, ethics, form, literature, philosophy, publications, reviews, Robert Brandom, work | Leave a comment

A note on Kieślowski

Posted on 21/02/2014 by lexipenia

I recently rewatched Krzysztof Kieślowski’s La double vie de Véronique, a film I first saw around Christmastime 2008. Returning to the film was really an attempt to recover the feeling of inspiration and possibility I experienced when I first saw … Continue reading →

Posted in aesthetic experience, film, Kieślowski, Rilke, tragedy | Leave a comment