Things

In Touch with the Past

Carolyn Korsmeyer (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

232 Seiten

2022
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-764959-6 (ISBN)

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Things: In Touch with the Past explores the value of artifacts that have survived from the past and that can be said to "embody" their histories. Such genuine or "real" things afford a particular kind of aesthetic experience--an encounter with the past-despite the fact that genuineness is not a perceptually detectable property. Although it often goes unnoticed, the sense of touch underlies such encounters, even though one is often not permitted literal touch.

Carolyn Korsmeyer begins her account with the claim that wonder or marvel at old things fits within an "experiential" account of the aesthetic. She then presents her main argument regarding the role of touch--both when literal contact is made and when proximity suffices, for touch is a fundamental sense that registers bodily position and location. Correct understanding of the identity of objects is presumed when one values things just because of what they are, and with discovery that a mistake has been made, admiration is often withdrawn. Far from undermining the importance of the genuine, these errors of identification confirm it. Carolyn Korsmeyer elaborates this position with a comparison between valuing artifacts and valuing persons. She also considers the ethical issues of genuineness, for artifacts can be harmed in various ways ranging from vandalism to botched restoration. She examines the differences between a real thing and a replica in detail, making it clear that genuineness comes in degrees. Her final chapter reviews the ontology that best suits an account of persistence over time of things that are valued for being the real thing.

Carolyn Korsmeyer is Research Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo. Her research covers aesthetics, emotion theory, and perception, with a special interest in the senses of taste and touch. Her previous books include Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics, Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy, and Gender and Aesthetics.

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1: Touch and the Genuine
Chapter 2: Tarnished Halos
Chapter 3: Mistaken Identities
Chapter 4: Loss and Rescue, Help and Harm
Chapter 5: Relics, Remnants, and Scrap

Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	21.02.2022
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	132 x 201 mm
Gewicht	295 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
ISBN-10	0-19-764959-9 / 0197649599
ISBN-13	978-0-19-764959-6 / 9780197649596
Zustand	Neuware