Michael Shamiyeh Theories of Aesthetic

(THEORY AND HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE)

How do we know what’s “beautiful”? In the course of this seminar we are going to fathom with the help of images and texts, that beauty never is absolutely given or invariable at all, but depending on age and culture it shows different facets. Therefore in this seminar we will concentrate on the basic principals of philosophical aesthetic such as the principal of imitation and its implicit definition of beauty, the terms “genius” and “ideal” as well as the autonomy and the historical function respectively of art and architecture. Furthermore we will study historical positions like, for example, the aesthetic of enlightenment, the critic of power of judgement of Kant, the systematic aesthetic of German Idealism and at least the approaches to aesthetic thinking of Marxism as well as examples for analytical aesthetic. Those different positions will be inspected with regard to their systematic contribution to a present philosophy of culture of architecture.