The appreciation of art and the pursuit of beauty are fundamental elements of human life, and for almost as long as we have engaged in philosophical inquiry we have been theorizing about aesthetic matters. Covering nearly 2,500 years of theory and analysis, this anthology offers the most comprehensive collection of readings on aesthetics and philosophy of art currently available. From Platos Ion to work by contemporary philosophers of art, Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology showcases classic texts that speak for themselves in showing the development of philosophical thought about art and the aesthetic. Thorough, systematic, and flexible, this volume is an ideal guide to the field and makes an excellent textbook for a variety of courses in philosophical aesthetics.

Part I: Classic sources. Introduction / Paul Oskar Kristeller -- Ion / Plato -- The republic / Plato -- Symposium / Plato -- Poetics / Aristotle -- Ennead I, vi / Plotinus -- De musica / St. Augustine -- On the reduction of the arts to theology / St. Bonaventure -- Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times / Third Earl of Shaftesbury -- An inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue / Francis Hutcheson -- Of the standard of taste / David Hume -- A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful / Edmund Burke -- Laocoon / Gotthold Lessing -- Critique of judgment / Immanuel Kant. Part II: Modern theories. Introduction / Christopher Janaway -- Letter of an aesthetic education of man / Friedrich Schiller -- Philosophy of art / Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling -- The philosophy of fine art / Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -- The world as will and representation / Arthur Schopenhauer -- The beautiful in music / Eduard Hanslick -- The birth of tragedy / Friedrich Nietzsche -- What is art? / Leo Tolstoy -- "Psychical distance" as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle / Edward Bullough -- Art / Clive Bell -- Aesthetics / Benedetto Croce -- The principles of art / R.G. Collingwood -- Art as experience / John Dewey -- Feeling and form / Susanne Langer -- The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction / Walter Benjamin -- The origin of the work of art / Martin Heidegger -- Aesthetic theory / Theodor Adorno -- Truth and method / Hans-Georg Gadamer. Part III: Contemporary aesthetics and philosophy of art. Introduction / Susan L. Feagin and Aaron Meskin -- Aesthetic problems of modern philosophy / Stanley Cavell -- The role of theory in aesthetics / Morris Weitz -- The artworld / Arthur Danto -- What is art? An institutional analysis / George Dickie -- When is art? / Nelson Goodman -- Identifying art / Noël Carroll -- The myth of the aesthetic attitude / George Dickie -- Art and its objects / Richard Wollheim -- What a musical work is / Jerrold Levinson -- Aesthetic concepts / Frank Sibley -- Beauty restored / Mary Mothersill -- Categories of art / Kendall Walton -- Appreciation and the natural environment / Allen Carlson -- The intentional fallacy / W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe Beardsley -- The postulated author: critical Monism as a regulative ideal / Alexander Nehamas -- Art, intention, and conversation / Noël Carroll -- The ethical criticism of art / Berys Gaut -- Expressive properties of art / Guy Sircello -- Style and personality in the literary work / Jenefer Robinson -- Emotions in the music / Peter Kivy -- Fearing fictions / Kendall Walton -- Oppressive texts, resisting readers, and the gendered spectator: the "new" aesthetics / Mary Devereaux.