Figures of Simplicity by Birgit M Kaiser

Figures of Simplicity by Birgit M Kaiser

Figures of Simplicity explores a unique constellation of figures from philosophy and literature--Heinrich von Kleist, Herman Melville, G. W. Leibniz, and Alexander Baumgarten--in an attempt to recover alternative conceptions of aesthetics and dimensions of thinking lost in the disciplinary narration of aesthetics after Kant. This is done primarily by tracing a variety of simpletons that populate the writings of Kleist and Melville. These figures are not entirely ignorant, or stupid, but simple. Their simplicity is a way of thinking; one that author Birgit Mara Kaiser here suggests is affective thinking. Kaiser avers that Kleist and Melville are experimenting in their texts with an affective mode of thinking, and thereby continue, she argues, a key line within eighteenth-century aesthetics: the relation of rationality and sensibility. Through her analyses, she offers an outline of what thinking can look like if we take affectivity into account.

Birgit Mara Kaiser is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781438432298
ISBN 10	1438432291
Title	Figures of Simplicity
Author	Birgit M Kaiser
Series	Suny Series Intersections: Philosophy And Critical Theory
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	State University of New York Press
Year published	2011-01-31
Number of pages	171
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.