Introduction to Aesthetics

The course will follow after the development of the main concepts used in the understanding and evaluation of art. In the first part, we will get acquainted with the main concepts formulated in aesthetic thought in the Greek era, mainly those of Plato and Aristotle. Consequently, we will discuss the way in which art was conceived in the classicist era of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, as well as in the 18th century, mainly by Kant. In the second part, we will get to know the major threads of aesthetic thought from the late 19th century up to the second part of the 20th century. As part of that, we will explore the meaning of art in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. This will be followed by a discussion of art from the perspective of phenomenology, formalism, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis.