Nature, Artforms, and the World Around Us

This book provides a comprehensive view of the aesthetic realm, placing the various major artforms within the setting of nature and the built environment as they arise within the field of experience. Each chapter displays the regional ontology of the form considered: the comprehensive set of eidetic features that limn the space of the art. It draws upon artists' statements, writings of key figures in the history of philosophy--including Plato, Hegel, Dewey, and Heidegger—and writings from various commentators on art. This volume is unique in its systematic and phenomenological approach, and in how it addresses aesthetics writ large.

Robert E. Wood is professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas, USA.