On Beauty and Being Just

On Beauty and Being Just

PAPERBACK

04 Nov, 2001

Have we become beauty-blind? For two decades or more in the humanities, various political arguments have been put forward against beauty: that it distracts...

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ISBN-10:

0691089590

ISBN-13:

9780691089591

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Dimensions

7.35 X 4.52 X 0.46 inches

Language

English

Description

Have we become beauty-blind? For two decades or more in the humanities, various political arguments have been put forward against beauty: that it distracts us from more important issues; that it is the handmaiden of privilege; and that it masks political interests. In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms.

Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness.

Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.

Product Details

ISBN-10

:0691089590

ISBN-13

:9780691089591

Publisher

:Princeton University Press

Publication date

: 04 Nov, 2001

Category

: Philosophy

Sub-Category

: Aesthetics

Format

:PAPERBACK

Language

:English

Reading Level

: All

No. of Units

:1

Dimension

: 7.35 X 4.52 X 0.46 inches

Weight

:145 g

Editorial Reviews

"Any sophisticated reader not mummified beneath protective layers of irony will find this book not only pleasant to hold in the hand, but valuable to hold in the mind."---Paul J. Johnson, Religious Studies Review

About the Author

Elaine Scarry teaches in the English department at Harvard University, where she is Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value. She is the author of The Body in Pain, Resisting Representation, Dreaming by the Book, and many articles on war and social contract.

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