Tony O'Connor

Intimations of Postmodernity By Zygmunt Bauman Routledge, 1992. Pp. xxviii + 232. ISBN 0–415–06749–9. £10.99 pbk. The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger By Pierre Bourdieu, translated by Peter Collier Polity Press, 1991. Pp. viii + 138. ISBN: 0–7456–0702–0. £25. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance By L. Jonathan Cohen Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. x + 163. ISBN 0–19–824294–8. £20. Proof, Logic and Formalization Routledge, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–415–06805–3. £35. Proof and Knowledge in Mathematics Routledge, 1992. Pp. 272. ISBN 0–415–02335–1. £35. Edited by Michael Detlefsen Violence, Terrorism, and Justice Edited by R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morriss Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 319. ISBN 0–521–40125–9 (hbk), 0–521–40950–0 (pbk). £35 and £12.95 The Cambridge Companion to Sartre Edited by Christina Howells Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xvi + 387. ISBN 0–521–38812–0. £35 hbk £12.95 pbk. Aristotle on the Perfect Life By Anthony Kenny Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. x + 173. ISBN 0–19–824017–1. £22.50 The Cambridge Companion to Plato Edited by Richard Kraut Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 560. ISBN 0–521–43610–9. £12.95 pbk. Substance and Predication in Aristotle By Frank A. Lewis Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 370. ISBN 0–521–39159–8. £30. Albert Camus: Philosopher and Litterateur (includes the first complete English translation of Camus's Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism) By Joseph McBride St Martins's Press, 1992. Pp. xiii + 224. ISBN 0–312–07597–9. n.p. The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics By A.P. Martinich Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 430. ISBN 0–521–41849–6. £35. The Practical Philosophy of Oswald Schwemmer By Patrick Riordan University Press of America, 1991. Pp. ix + 117. ISBN 0–8191–8180–3. $36.50. Human Morality By Samuel Scheffler Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. 150. ISBN 0–19–507448–3. £13.95. From Morality to Virtue By Michael Slote Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. 320. ISBN 0–19–507562–5. £32.50. Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy By Richard Swinburne Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 236. ISBN 0–19–823968–8. £12.95 pbk.

The Christian God By Richard Swinburne, Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 261. ISBN 0–19–823512–7. £13.95 (pbk). Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne Edited by Alan G. Padgett, Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 362. ISBN 0–19–824042–2. $55.00 (hbk). Philosophers Who Believe Edited by Kelly James Clark, InterVarsity Press, 1993. Pp. 284. ISBN 0–8308–1851–0. $24.99 (hbk). Schopenhauer. On the Character of the World: The Metaphysics of Will By John E. Atwell, University of California Press, 1995. Pp. xii+ 224. ISBN B3148.A892. $35.00. Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre of Philosophy Edited by Constantin V. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski, Routledge, 1994. Pp. 352. ISBN 0–415–90504–4. £40.00. Ethics with Aristotle By Sarah Broadie, Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii and 462. ISBN 0–19–508560–4. £17.95 (pbk). A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises By Stanley Cavell, Harvard University Press, 1994. Pp. xv + 196. ISBN 0–674–66980–0. $26.00. Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida By Stanley Cavell, Blackwell, 1995. Pp. x + 200. ISBN 0–631–19271–9. £10.99 (pbk). Critical Theory By D. Couzens Hoy and T. McCarthy, Blackwell, 1994. Pp. 280. ISBN 1–55786–173–0. £40.00. Aporias By Jacques Derrida. Translated by Thomas Dutoit, Stanford University Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 87. ISBN 0–8047–2233–1. $25. The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, By Theodore Kisiel, University of California Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 608. ISBN 0–520–20159–0. £18.00. Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? By Norman Malcolm, edited with a response by Peter Winch, Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. 192 incl. index. ISBN 0–8014–2978–1. £35.00. Pluralism, Justice and Equality Edited by David Miller and Michael Walzer, Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 297. ISBN 0–19–827937‐X. The Metaphysics of Identity over Time By David S. Oderberg, Macmillan, 1993. Pp. 228. ISBN 0–312–10208–91. £45.00. Morality and Action By Warren Quinn, Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xii + 255. ISBN 0–521–44164–1. $49.95 (hbk). Mental Reality By Galen Strawson, MIT Press, 1994, Pp. 337. ISBN 0–262–19352–3. £24.95.

_Rediscovering Aesthetics_ brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy, and artistic practice to discuss the current role of aesthetics within and across their disciplines. Following a period in which theories and histories of art, art criticism, and artistic practice seemed to focus exclusively on political, social, or empirical interpretations of art, aesthetics is being rediscovered both as a vital arena for discussion and a valid interpretive approach outside its traditional philosophical domain. This volume is distinctive, because it provides a selection of significant but divergent positions. The diversity of the views presented here demonstrates that a critical rethinking of aesthetics can be undertaken in a variety of (possibly incompatible) ways. The contributions open a transdisciplinary debate from which a new field of aesthetics may begin to emerge. Contributors include: Claire Bishop, Diarmuid Costello, Paul Crowther, Arthur Danto, Nicholas Davey, Thierry de Duve, James Elkins, Francis Halsall, Michael Ann Holly, Julia Jansen, Michael Kelly, Robert Morris, Tony O'Connor, Peter Osborne, Adrian Piper, David Raskin, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Shiff, Wolfgang Welsch, and Richard Woodfield.

One of the important aspects of recent aesthetics is its focus on cross-disciplinary approaches. This implies that, although claims to generality and objectivity continue to be made, no single practice, science, or approach is able to provide absolute evidential support for arguments and claims. Aesthetics as a critical enterprise, therefore, is open to a plurality of explanations. As a result, art becomes more than another object of scientific or philosophical inquiry. It becomes a model for philosophical practice that can complement or compete with dominant scientific paradigms. However, such aesthetic practice must respond to at least two grounds for skepticism: that a turn to aesthetics involves withdrawal from either critical and rigorous thinking or from social action and life. By discussing three core themes relevant for recent debates across the fields of philosophy, art history/theory and art pratice we would like to show how these concerns, while serious, can be taken up by aesthetics. These themes are: 1. the issue of validity (motivated by inquiries into the peculiar validity of aesthetic judgments); 2. the issue of subjectivity (motivated by the stipulated ‘special link’ between aesthetics and the human subject); and the political dimension of aesthetics (highlighted by the political implications of pluralist approaches to aesthetics, such as the need for negotiation and appeal).

I shall attempt to do four things in this paper: (1) sketch the influence of two models—one essentialist, the other non-essentialist—on some contemporary ways of categorizing the body; (2) indicate certain tensions that remain because of the dominant influence of the essentialist model; (3) discuss what to my mind is the most sustained attempt by phenomenology to come to terms with the problem of the body by concentrating on Merleau-Ponty's theory of operative intentionality; (4) argue that intentionality and ontological analysis must always be distortive of this issue, and indicate an alternative way of approaching the matter.