Artful Virtue: The Interplay of the Beautiful and the Good in the Scottish Enlightenment

by Leslie Ellen Brown

Overview

During the Scottish Enlightenment the relationship between aesthetics and ethics became deeply ingrained: beauty was the sensible manifestation of virtue; the fine arts represented the actions of a virtuous mind; to deeply understand artful and natural beauty was to identify with moral beauty; and the aesthetic experience was indispensable in making value judgments. This book reveals the history of how the Scots applied the vast landscape of moral philosophy to the specific territories of beauty - in nature, aesthetics and ethics - in the eighteenth century. The author explores a wide variety of sources, from academic lectures and institutional record, to more popular texts such as newspapers and pamphlets, to show how the idea that beauty and art made individuals and society more virtuous was elevated and understood in Scottish society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317178323
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/09/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	284
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Leslie Ellen Brown is Professor Emerita of Music at Ripon College, USA. Her earliest publications were in the field of early eighteenth-century French opera, with her later work concentrating on eighteenth-century Scottish studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Chapter 1 The Senses; Chapter 2 Virtue; Chapter 3 Beauty; Chapter 4 Sentiment; Chapter 5 Taste; Chapter 6 Experience; Chapter 7 Cultivation; Chapter 8 Traditions; Chapter 101 Afterword;