Aesthetics

Dietrich von Hildebrand understood the centrality of beauty not merely to art but to philosophy, theology, and ethics. In his ambitious and comprehensive Aesthetics, now translated into English for the first time, Hildebrand rehabilitates the concept of beauty as an objective rather than purely subjective phenomenon. His systematic account renews the Classical and Christian vision of beauty as a reliable mode of perception that leads humanity toward the true, the good, and ultimately the divine. --Provided by the publisher.

Volume I translated by Fr. Brian McNeil, edited by John F. Crosby; volume II translated by John F. Crosby, John Henry Crosby, and Fr. Brian McNeil; edited by John F. Crosby and John Henry Crosby.

Volume I. The objectivity of beauty -- The realm of aesthetic values: metaphysical beauty and the beauty of the visible and the audible -- How is metaphysical beauty given in our experience? -- The role of the senses in apprehending beauty -- The beauty of the visible and the audible in its relation to expressed metaphysical beauty -- The riddle of spiritual beauty in the realm of the visible and the audible -- The various way in which the visible and the audible are linked to non-material contents -- Levels of beauty -- The solution to the riddle: the mystery of the immaterial beauty of visible and audible things -- The spiritual plenitude of the beauty of the second power -- The poetic -- The three antitheses to beauty: ugliness, triviality, and boringness -- Thematic and unthematic bearers of beauty -- Beauty in nature -- Beauty in human life -- The aesthetic experience -- The variety of aesthetic values -- Elegance -- The comical -- Beauty and truth -- The bond of beauty with morality and with love -- Volume II. Characteristics common to all the arts, various attitudes toward art -- Architecture -- Sculpture -- Painting -- Literature -- Music.