Emotion in Aesthetics

This text on aesthetics provides a theory of emotion; application of the cognitive-emotive theory to aesthetics; analysis of the relationship between aesthetics, metaphor and emotion; a full theory of meaning and its application to aesthetics; discussion of the relationship between aesthetics, music and language in terms of phonetics, phonology and intonation; an analysis of humanistic aesthetics; a well-developed naturalistic theory of ethics as applied to aesthetics and emotion. Stress is placed on the views of contemporary philosophers as well as some of the main historical accounts of emotion in aesthetics. Work on emotion has not hitherto been applied to aesthetics. As a result there is still much confusion in aesthetics about aesthetic emotion and related concepts, such as the expression theory of emotion. The aim of this book is to show how the theory can be used to clarify the issue. In addition, the theory presented is useful in relating aesthetics to ethics and humanism.