ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) Philosophical Seminar 
Prof. Daniel Martin Feige 
(Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design)

June, 3rd at 5 p.m.
Location: Webex

 https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=m7f03bdaf9a6574ff0785e18591ac3356

PW: MVcqVXWm245

Art and Design as Forms of the Aesthetic

In recent discussions in aesthetics there is a rising interest in the philosophy of design. That is mainly due to the reason that design objects are omnipresent in our way of life and have undoubtedly an aesthetic side but nevertheless many of the classical conceptions of the aesthetic  rather seem to be unfitting to conceptualize the aesthetic dimension of these objects (i.e. Kant's disinterestedness or Hegel's idea of art as a reflexive practice). Set the case that design is not just a subcategory of art and art is not just a subcategory of design the question of the talk is the following question: How can we on the one hand relate art and design to each other as both being somehow aesthetic things while on the other hand categorially separate them? A promising conception of the identity and difference of art and design can be derived by transferring recent discussions in neo-aristotelism into the realm of aesthetics: Michael Thompson, John McDowell and others conceptualize the difference between humans and other animals as a difference of form and not content. Using this idea for the conceptualization of the difference between art and design we can say it is not a property that differentiates art and design but it is rather the case that art and design are aesthetic in a formally different way. The talk will elaborate on this idea in two ways. First it will introduce a Hegelian critique of the idea of a mere giveness of different forms in neo-aristotelism (and thus introduce a historical and dialectical perspective in the neoaristotelian framework) thus understanding art and design as formally different kinds of aesthetic practices that are dialectically renegotiated against the background of each other. Second it will develop some basic ideas about what could be the aesthetic point of art in contrast to the aesthetic point of design – while understanding those as part of explaining the formal difference of both practices.

Daniel Martin Feige is Professor for Philosophy and Aesthetic at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. His Research Interests and Publications focus on the border zone between aesthetics and theoretical philosophy. His monographs include “Philosophie des Jazz” [Philosophy of Jazz], “Computerspiele. Eine Ästhetik“ [Video Games. An Aesthetics] and „Design. Eine philosophische Analyse“ [Design. A philosophical analysis] (all books with Suhrkamp/Berlin); his upcoming monographs are “Musik für Designer” [Music for Designers] and “Die Natur des Menschen. Eine dialektische Anthropologie“ [Human Nature. A dialectical Anthropology].

ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) is a periodic philosophical seminar organized by the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the University of Turin and the PhD Program FINO. It is coordinated by Prof. Alessandro Bertinetto.
ART addresses different topics of the contemporary debate in Aesthetics: philosophy of beauty, philosophy of the arts, theory of sensory experience, philosophy of image and imagination, and history of aesthetics.
ART is supported by:
Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sulla Morfologia Francesco Moiso (CIM)
Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale di Logica, Linguaggio e Cognizione (LLC)
Centro Studi Arti della Modernità
Centro Studi Filosofico-religiosi "Luigi Pareyson"
Laboratorio di Ontologia (Labont)

ART is sponsored by: 
Italian Society for Aesthetics (SIE) 
European Society for Aesthetics (ESA)