Search

This volume explores one of modernity’s most profound and far-reaching philosophies of art: the Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, delivered by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel in the 1820s. The book has two overriding objectives: first, to ask how Hegel’s work illuminates specific periods and artworks in light of contemporary art-historical discussions; second, to explore how art history helps us make better sense and use of Hegelian aesthetics. In bringing together a range of internationally acclaimed critical voices, the volume establishes an important disciplinary bridge between aesthetics and art history. Given the recent resurgence of interest in ‘global’ art history, and calls for more comparative approaches to ‘visual culture’, contributors ask what role Hegel has played within the field – and what role he could play in the future. What can a historical treatment of art accomplish? How should we explain the ‘need’ for certain artistic forms at different historical junctures? Has art history been ‘Hegelian’ without fully acknowledging it? Indeed, have art historians shirked some of the fundamental questions that Hegel raised?

I argue that one in particular of Crispin Wright’s attempts to capture our common or intuitive concepts of objectivity, warrant, and other associated notions, relies on an ambiguity between a given constructivist reading of the concepts and at least one other, arguably more ‘ordinary’, version of the notions he tries to accommodate. I do this by focusing on one case in point, and concluding with a brief argument showing how this case generalises. I demonstrate why this ambiguity is unacceptable and also that its resolution undermines the aim it serves: to account for and accommodate our ordinary conception of (at least) objectivity, warrant (or justification) and truth.

[Abstract fehlt], Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften, Vol 34 (1993): Frauenfrage – Frauenpolitik

Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) is since the 1990 a clinically useful anticonvulsant therapy for treatment-resistant epilepsy. Open acute and longer term data suggest the potential clinical utility of VNS as an antidepressant therapy especially in treatment refractory depression. The vagus nerve has connections to the limbic system and other brain structures which modulate affect. PET studies showed functional changes under VNS in such critical areas, which can explain the mechanisms of action of VMS. Ongoing studies will have to better establish its acute and longer-term efficacy, and specific indications in the treatment of depression.

Newsletter, 14(2); 3-4