Surface and Depth: Dialectics of Criticism and Culture

Rating:
Summary: Book Synopsis from the publisher, Cornell University Press.
Review: "A paradox of surface and depth pervades the field of aesthetics. How can art's surface meanings and qualities be properly appreciated without understanding the cultural context that shapes their creation and perception? But exploring such underlying cultural conditions challenges the perception of thosequalities and meanings of aesthetic surface that constitute the captivating power of art. If aesthetics deals with both surface and depth, impassioned immediacy yet also critical distance of judgment, how can this doubleness be held together in one philosophical vision?

In his new book, Richard Shusterman explores the dialectics of surface and depth by examining key issues in the philosophy of art and culture-from the logic of interpretation and evaluation to the roots of taste and convention, from the meanings of aesthetic purity and immediacy to the role of nature, theory, and history in our experience and understanding of art. In treating these topics, Shusterman combines the methods of analytic philosophy, critical theory, and poststructualism to arrive at new positions, displaying the philosophical versatility, originality of vision, and graceful, accessible writing that have become his trademark. Surface and Depth is crowned by a new definition of art as dramatization."

Rating:
Summary: Book Synopsis from the publisher, Cornell University Press.
Review: "A paradox of surface and depth pervades the field of aesthetics. How can art's surface meanings and qualities be properly appreciated without understanding the cultural context that shapes their creation and perception? But exploring such underlying cultural conditions challenges the perception of thosequalities and meanings of aesthetic surface that constitute the captivating power of art. If aesthetics deals with both surface and depth, impassioned immediacy yet also critical distance of judgment, how can this doubleness be held together in one philosophical vision?

In his new book, Richard Shusterman explores the dialectics of surface and depth by examining key issues in the philosophy of art and culture-from the logic of interpretation and evaluation to the roots of taste and convention, from the meanings of aesthetic purity and immediacy to the role of nature, theory, and history in our experience and understanding of art. In treating these topics, Shusterman combines the methods of analytic philosophy, critical theory, and poststructualism to arrive at new positions, displaying the philosophical versatility, originality of vision, and graceful, accessible writing that have become his trademark. Surface and Depth is crowned by a new definition of art as dramatization."

Rating:
Summary: Shusterman practicing pragmatism!!
Review: I believe history will show that Shusterman's Pragmatist Aesthetics (PA) (1992) is one of the most important works in contemporary aesthetics. After this book he has released many new books, but I think he has never matched the level of PA. In this new book Shusterman continues his pragmatist project. It is a collection of old essays, like so many books in philosophy nowadays. It's interesting that the first article "On Analytic Aesthetics" is a new version of an article that he wrote in the eighties, when Shusterman was still clearly an analytic aesthetician, but in this article you can already sense how his pragmatist ideas are developing. The book is less theoretic then PA, because Shusterman applies pragmatism to various topics such as interpretation, popular culture and the nature of modern world. I fully acknowledge that philosophy should take a more active role in culture, but this kind of aplication also creates problems. In away Shusterman seems to take pragmatism's ideas for granted and doesn't consider the criticisms of pragmatism. He only relies on some theorists like Margolis and Wittgenstein and sees that they have done the dirty philosophical groundwork for him. But the nature of reality is still a very contested issue in contemporary philosophy and many philosphers support the idea that reality possesses an invariant structure. So pragmatism is still an "open question".

This kind of active role engenders new problems that need to be delt with. If Shusterman thinks that philosophy should actively participate in improving our culture, then I think he should have somekind of theory on, what improvement is. Another question that is engendered is of course the nature of philosophy

I think Shusterman's theory has some philosophical problems. First of all I dislike his views on language because they are so vague. He considers language as a "form of life", which is changing and conventional in nature. But what does this really say? It sounds neat and very cultural, but I wonder, why Shusterman never considers for example Davidson's critique against these kinds of conventional theories of meaning. In this book there is a whole chapter on Lewis's theory of conventions, but Shusterman never even mentions that Davidson has criticized Lewis' ideas. One can be a reforming pragmatist but this doesn't relieve one from some basic questions of philosophy.

Despite these criticisms, I honour Shusterman in many respects. I especially like his ability to consider philosophers from different traditions and even show similarities between them. I think he is right that analytic aesthetics should also open itself to the questions that are considered in other philosophical traditions. I especially liked the article on Bourdieu, because I knew practically nothing about his ideas before. Also the last article "Art as Dramatization" is very good. Shusterman isn't trying to offer a new real definition of art but in a Wittgensteinian manner to focus our attention to what makes art important. At the same time Shusterman tries to combine naturalistic theories with historicist theories and I think he succeeds quite well.

Maybe Shusterman thinks that he has done the required theoretical work in Pragmatist Aesthetics and now it's time to reform our culture, but I think we should still theorize and I truly hope Shusterman's next book will be much more theoretical, where he would answer some of the criticisms that have been directed against his theory. Philosophy must theorize before it can become pragmatic.