Enlightenment Aesthetics and Beyond Conference

The 'Enlightenment Aesthetics and Beyond' conference will bring together scholars in aesthetics and the history of philosophy to explore aesthetic theory in the Enlightenment, the reception of British aesthetic theory in Germany, and the significance of these ideas for contemporary debates in aesthetics and other fields. The conference will address a range of topics, including: taste and judgment; expressivism; the sublime; aesthetics of nature; the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy; rationalist and empiricist approaches to aesthetics; and the theories of Du Bos, Hume, Reid, Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel, among others.

Thursday, December 15th
09:00 – 09:30 Registration
09.30 – 10:30 Jason Gaiger (Oxford University), 'Indeterminacy and ideal form: Herder's theory of landscape depiction'
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee
11:00 – 12:00 James Shelley (Auburn University) 'Hume on Choosing an Author'
12:00 – 13:00 Rachel Zuckert (Northwestern University) 'Reid's Expressivist Aesthetics'
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Keynote: Paul Guyer (University of Pennsylvania), ‘”A Treasure Chamber of the Human Soul”: Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, and Herder’
15:00 – 15:30 Tea
15:30 – 16:30 Jonathan Friday (University of Kent), title tba
17:30 – 19:15 Reception and 'Beholder' art exhibition, Talbot Rice Gallery, Old College
19:30 Conference Dinner

Friday, December 16th
09:30 – 10:30 Keynote: Peter Jones (Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh), Once More Back to the Contexts'
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee
11:00 – 12:00 Alex Neill (University of Southampton), 'Schopenhauer and 18th Century British Philosophy'
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Alison Stone (Lancaster University), 'Early German Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nature'
14:00 – 15:30 Closing discussion
15:30 Conference ends

Saturday, December 17th
09:30 – 11:30 Historic City Tour, Charles Withers, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Edinburgh (registration required)