Building upon her previous work on everyday aesthetics, Yuriko Saito argues in this book that the aesthetic and ethical concerns are intimately connected in our everyday life. Specifically, she shows how aesthetic experience embodies a care relationship with the world and how the ethical relationship with others, whether humans, non-human creatures, environments, or artifacts, is guided by aesthetic sensibility and manifested through aesthetic means.
Weaving together insights gained from philosophy, art, design, and medicine, as well as artistic and cultural practices of Japan, she illuminates the aesthetic dimensions of various forms of care in our management of everyday life. Emphasis is placed on the experience of interacting with others including objects, a departure from the prevailing mode of aesthetic inquiry that is oriented toward judgment-making from a spectator's point of view. Saito shows that when everyday activities, ranging from having a conversation and performing a care act to engaging in self-care and mending an object, are ethically grounded and aesthetically informed and guided, our experiences lead to a good life.
Aesthetics of Care
Yuriko Saito
A highly-enjoyable introductory book on everyday aesthetics that uses familiar examples to show how aesthetics can enrich our engagement with the world, body and mind.Rights Sold
All rights availableBook Details
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date: 11-08-2022
Format: Paperback
232 pagesAbout the Author
Yuriko Saito is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA. She is author of Everyday Aesthetics (2008), Aesthetics of the Familiar (2017) and Editor of the journal Contemporary Aesthetics.
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