Abstraction Matters
Abstraction Matters

Author: Cristina Baldacci

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2018-11-20

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1527521974

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From the archaic funerary and sacred stones to the most recent three-dimensional objects, sculpture has been determined by a dualistic tension between the urge for imitation of natural forms (mimesis) and the desire to freely shape autonomous configurations (abstraction). Within such a complex history, the second half of the 20th century has been a particularly intense period. Besides their abstract works, many sculptors developed an extraordinarily rich theoretical discourse. This collection of essays presents some of the most eminent protagonists of this crucial historical moment by focusing on the artists’ “own words”. In their analysis, the contributors have followed three key-notions – “Sensation”, “Idea”, and “Language” – that fruitfully collect different artists under a common conceptual arch and show the aesthetic relevance of abstraction in sculpture. This book addresses high-level undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the scholarly community in the fields of aesthetics and art criticism, art history and art theory, visual, cultural and media studies.

Driven to Abstraction
Driven to Abstraction

Author: Rosmarie Waldrop

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9780811218795

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A new poetry collection of startling beauty and thought by a great American poet.

Globalization Matters
Globalization Matters

Author: Manfred B. Steger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-08-08

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1108470793

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By addressing the major contemporary challenges to globalization, this study explains why and how the global continues to matter in our unsettled world.

Aristotle's Theory of Abstraction
Aristotle's Theory of Abstraction

Author: Allan Bäck

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-02

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 3319047590

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This book investigates Aristotle’s views on abstraction and explores how he uses it. In this work, the author follows Aristotle in focusing on the scientific detail first and then approaches the metaphysical claims, and so creates a reconstructed theory that explains many puzzles of Aristotle’s thought. Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals. Some of the features of Aristotle’s theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation; perception and knowledge are types of abstraction; the objects generated by abstractions are relata which can serve as subjects in their own right, whereupon they can appear as items in other categories. The author goes on to look at how Aristotle distinguishes the concrete from the abstract paronym, how induction is a type of abstraction which typically moves from the perceived individuals to universals and how Aristotle’s metaphysical vocabulary is "relational.’ Beyond those features, this work also looks at how of universals, accidents, forms, causes and potentialities have being only as abstract aspects of individual substances. An individual substance is identical to its essence; the essence has universal features but is the singularity making the individual substance what it is. These theories are expounded within this book. One main attraction in working out the details of Aristotle’s views on abstraction lies in understanding his metaphysics of universals as abstract objects. This work reclaims past ground as the main philosophical tradition of abstraction has been ignored in recent times. It gives a modern version of the medieval doctrine of the threefold distinction of essence, made famous by the Islamic philosopher, Avicenna.

The Iconology of Abstraction
The Iconology of Abstraction

Author: Krešimir Purgar

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-15

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0429557574

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This book uncovers how we make meaning of abstraction, both historically and in present times, and examines abstract images as a visual language. The contributors demonstrate that abstraction is not primarily an artistic phenomenon, but rather arises from human beings’ desire to imagine, understand and communicate complex, ineffable concepts in fields ranging from fine art and philosophy to technologies of data visualization, from cartography and medicine to astronomy. The book will be of interest to scholars working in image studies, visual studies, art history, philosophy and aesthetics.

When Formality Works
When Formality Works

Author: Arthur L. Stinchcombe

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2001-09-15

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 0226774961

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Introduction : why is formality so unpopular? -- A redefinition of the concept of formality -- Legal formality and graphical planning languages -- Certainty of the law : reasons, situation-types, analogy, and equilibrium -- The social structure of liquidity : flexibility in markets, states, and organizations / Bruce G. Carruthers, Arthur L. Stinchcombe -- Formalizing rightlessness in immigration law and administration -- Formalizing epistemological stratification of knowledge -- Conclusion : the varieties of formality.

Collected Articles on the Existence of God
Collected Articles on the Existence of God

Author: Gaven Kerr

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2022-10-15

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 3868382712

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The twentieth century witnessed an explosion of scholarly interest in the philosophical thought of St Thomas Aquinas. One of the fruits of that Thomistic revival was an uncovering of St Thomas’s original contributions to many areas of philosophy, not least metaphysics. In the twenty first century, there has been renewed interest in Aquinas’s argumentation for the existence of God. This interest flows from an engagement with the work of the twentieth century scholars in presenting Aquinas’s own characteristic metaphysics. What we have seen is an interpretation and presentation of Aquinas’s proofs for God’s existence in terms of Thomas’s unique insights into the nature of being and the metaphysical structure of reality. Gaven Kerr has been one such author who has contributed in numerous ways to the revival of interest in Aquinas’s argumentation for the existence of God and its metaphysical buttressing. Over the last ten years Kerr has published articles on Aquinas’s various proofs for God’s existence and the metaphysics standing behind those proofs; this volume draws together those articles. Herein are included Kerr’s articles on per se ordered series, existential inertia, the proof in De Ente et Essentia, the argument from motion in the Summa Contra Gentiles, and the five ways themselves. Kerr has also written two new articles for this volume: one on the possibility of demonstrating God’s existence, and the other on how to move from God’s existence to God’s nature. This volume offers an overview of Kerr’s thinking over the last decade on Aquinas’s thought on the existence of God.

Poisoned Abstraction
Poisoned Abstraction

Author: Graham Bader

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0300257082

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A definitive resource, full of fresh insights and new revelations, on one of the most influential interwar artists This richly illustrated book offers a definitive new assessment of the oeuvre of Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), a central figure of the interwar European avant-garde. Active as an artist, designer, publisher, performer, critic, poet, and playwright, Schwitters is best known for intimately scaled, materially rich collages and assemblages made from found objects--often refuse--that the artist described as having lost all contact with their role and history in the world at large. Considering works reaching from Schwitters's earliest collage-based pieces of 1918-19, through his 1920s advertising designs, to his seminal environmental installation the Merzbau, Graham Bader carefully unpacks the meaning behind such projects and sheds new light on the tumultuous historical conditions in which they were made. In the process, he reveals a new Schwitters--aesthetically committed and politically astute--for our time. This authoritative account reframes our understanding of Schwitters's multifaceted artistic practice and explores the complex entwinement of art, politics, and history in the modern period.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9781633451070

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A definitive survey on the Dada participant and pioneer of abstraction between art and craft, spanning her textiles, marionettes, stained glass, paintings and more Accompanying the first retrospective of Taeuber-Arp's work in the United States in 40 years, Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstractionis a comprehensive survey of this multifaceted abstract artist's innovative and wide-ranging body of work. Her background in the applied arts and dance, her involvement in the Zurich Dada movement and her projects for architectural spaces were essential to her development of a uniquely versatile and vibrant abstract vocabulary. Through her artistic output and various professional alliances, Taeuber-Arp consistently challenged the historically constructed boundaries separating fine art from craft and design. This richly illustrated catalog explores the artist's interdisciplinary and cross-pollinating approach to abstraction through some 400 works, including textiles, beadwork, polychrome marionettes, architectural and interior designs, stained glass windows, works on paper, paintings and relief sculptures. It also features 15 essays that examine the full sweep of Taeuber-Arp's career. Arranged into six chapters that follow the exhibition's sections, these essays trace the progression of Taeuber-Arp's creative production both chronologically and thematically. A comprehensive illustrated chronology, the first essay on Taeuber-Arp's materials and techniques, and an exhibition checklist based on new research and analysis detail the expansive nature of Taeuber-Arp's production. Sophie Taeuber-Arpwas born in 1889 in Davos, Switzerland, and trained at the interdisciplinary Debschitz School in Munich. In 1914, she began a successful applied arts practice in Zurich, where she also taught textile design and participated in the Dada movement. Starting in the late 1920s, Taeuber-Arp completed several architectural and interior design projects, most significantly the Aubette entertainment complex in Strasbourg. When she moved to Paris in 1929, she turned her attention to abstract paintings and painted wood reliefs. During the Nazi occupation, Taeuber-Arp spent her final years in the South of France, and died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in 1943.

Berkeley on Abstraction and Abstract Ideas
Berkeley on Abstraction and Abstract Ideas

Author: Willis Doney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-24

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0429633459

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Berkeley’s critique of abstract ideas in the Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge has provoked a great deal of commentary of various sorts. This anthology, first published in 1989, presents a selection of historically important and philosophically interesting discussions on Berkeley’s theories.