Noël Carroll

Comprising 45 chapters, written especially for this volume by an international team of leading experts, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture is the first handbook of its kind. The editors have organized the chapters across eight broader sections:ArtformsHistoryQuestions of form, style, and addressArt and scienceComparisons among the artsQuestions of valuePhilosophers of artInstitutional questionsIndividual topics include art and cognitive science, evolutionary origins of art, art and perception, pictorial realism, artistic taste, style, issues of race and gender, art and religion, art and philosophy, and the end of art. The work of selected philosophers is also discussed, including Diderot, Hegel, Ruskin, Gombrich, Goodman, Wollheim, and Danto. With an introduction from the editors and comprehensively indexed, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture serves as a point of entry to the subject for a broad range of students as well as an up-to-date reference for scholars in the field.

Comprising 45 chapters, written especially for this volume by an international team of leading experts, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture is the first handbook of its kind. The editors have organized the chapters across eight broader sections:ArtformsHistoryQuestions of form, style, and addressArt and scienceComparisons among the artsQuestions of valuePhilosophers of artInstitutional questionsIndividual topics include art and cognitive science, evolutionary origins of art, art and perception, pictorial realism, artistic taste, style, issues of race and gender, art and religion, art and philosophy, and the end of art. The work of selected philosophers is also discussed, including Diderot, Hegel, Ruskin, Gombrich, Goodman, Wollheim, and Danto. With an introduction from the editors and comprehensively indexed, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture serves as a point of entry to the subject for a broad range of students as well as an up-to-date reference for scholars in the field.

A wide-ranging, eclectic collection of essays on philosophy and the moving image by a pre-eminent philosopher of art This volume presents a selection of philosopher Noël Carroll's essays-several of which appear in print here for the first time-at the intersection of philosophy, film, and television. The volume begins with broad, foundational issues-what the moving image is, the nature of the medium of film and how we should evaluate it-engaging critically with the most essential problems and puzzles in the field. Carroll then moves to more focused issues in the philosophy of film and television. He reflects on whether ethical defects in fictional characters such as Tony Soprano have an impact on artistic excellence; the role of films in political debates (using the examples of Star Trek and Planet of the Apes); the question of whether film can do philosophy in its own way; and philosophical themes in avant-garde cinema. His analysis touches on a broad range of areas in philosophy including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. The book then concludes with philosophical re-assessments of key figures in the philosophy of the moving image-Sergei Eisenstein, Arthur Danto, Bela Balasz, and Stanley Cavell. A wide-ranging and eclectic collection of work by a major figure in aesthetics and the philosophy of film and television, this volume will appeal to scholars, students, and cinephiles alike.

While Kant is commonly regarded as one of the most austere philosophers of all time, this book provides quite a different perspective of the founder of transcendental philosophy. Kant is often thought of as being boring, methodical, and humorless. Yet the thirty jokes and anecdotes collected and illustrated here for the first time reveal a man and a thinker who was deeply interested in how humor and laughter shape how we think, feel, and communicate with fellow human beings. In addition to a foreword on Kant’s theory of humor by Noël Carroll as well as Clewis’s informative chapters, Kant’s Humorous Writings contains new translations of Kant’s jokes, quips, and anecdotes. Each of the thirty excerpts is illustrated and supplemented by historical commentaries which explain their significance.

While Kant is commonly regarded as one of the most austere philosophers of all time, this book provides quite a different perspective of the founder of transcendental philosophy. Kant is often thought of as being boring, methodical, and humorless. Yet the thirty jokes and anecdotes collected and illustrated here for the first time reveal a man and a thinker who was deeply interested in how humor and laughter shape how we think, feel, and communicate with fellow human beings. In addition to a foreword on Kant’s theory of humor by Noël Carroll as well as Clewis’s informative chapters, Kant’s Humorous Writings contains new translations of Kant’s jokes, quips, and anecdotes. Each of the thirty excerpts is illustrated and supplemented by historical commentaries which explain their significance.

Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in having their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified?

A l'echelle mondiale, Noel Carroll est un theoricien bien connu du champ de l'esthetique et des etudes cinematographiques. Aucun de ses livres, pourtant, n'a ete jusqu'ici traduit en francais. Sans doute l'approche tres rationnelle que propose Carroll de la theorie du cinema detonne-t-elle un peu dans le paysage de l'esthetique francaise, ou le culte de l'intuition et du je-ne-sais-quoi - les betes noires de l'auteur - est encore tres vivace. Pourtant, ce n'est pas un livre de desenchantement que cette Philosophie des films; on pourrait meme dire que l'ineffable, la poesie et l'informulable commencent la ou un travail de categorisation comme celui de Carroll est termine. La cle de voute de ce livre, en effet, est le concept de categorie, et son moteur la volonte d'eclaircir le discours. De quoi parle-t-on exactement lorsqu'on dit qu'un film est plus cinematographique qu'un autre? Ou, plus simplement, et comme cela arrive tous les jours, lorsqu'on dit qu'un film est meilleur qu'un autre? Tout lui est bon pour repondre: pas seulement les chefs-d'oeuvre estampilles du Septieme Art, mais les films du tout-venant, ceux qu'on regarde au quotidien, sur toutes sortes d'ecrans, quelquefois a la sauvette.

Humour has been discovered in every known human culture and thinkers have discussed it for over two thousand years. Humour can serve many functions; it can be used to relieve stress, to promote goodwill among strangers, to dissipate tension within a fractious group, to display intelligence, and some have even claimed that it improves health and fights sickness. In this Very Short Introduction Noel Carroll examines the leading theories of humour including The Superiority Theory and The Incongruity Theory. He considers the relation of humour to emotion and cognition, and explores the value of humour, specifically in its social functions. He argues that humour, and the comic amusement that follows it, has a crucial role to play in the construction of communities, but he also demonstrates that the social aspect of humour raises questions such as 'When is humour immoral?' and 'Is laughing at immoral humour itself immoral?'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Art in Three Dimensions is a collection of essays by one of the most eminent figures in philosophy of art. The animating idea behind Noël Carroll's work is that philosophers of art should eschew the sort of aestheticism that often implicitly -- but sometimes explicitly, as in the case of aesthetic theories of art and of their commitments to the notion of the autonomy of art -- governs their methodology. Instead, Carroll argues that philosophers of art need to refocus their attention on the ways in which art enters the life of culture and the lives of individual audience members. The reference to "three dimensions" in the title refers to Carroll's view that philosophers of art should look at art from multiple angles and treat it as a substantial participant not only in society, but also as a significant influence upon the moral and emotional experiences of audiences.

Art in Three Dimensions is a collection of essays by one of the most eminent figures in philosophy of art. The animating idea behind Noël Carroll's work is that philosophers of art should eschew the sort of aestheticism that often implicitly -- but sometimes explicitly, as in the case of aesthetic theories of art and of their commitments to the notion of the autonomy of art -- governs their methodology. Instead, Carroll argues that philosophers of art need to refocus their attention on the ways in which art enters the life of culture and the lives of individual audience members. The reference to "three dimensions" in the title refers to Carroll's view that philosophers of art should look at art from multiple angles and treat it as a substantial participant not only in society, but also as a significant influence upon the moral and emotional experiences of audiences.

COMEDY INCARNATE COMEDY INCARNATEBuster Keaton, Physical Humor and Bodily Coping “Buster Keaton was an engineer of the comic, a craftsman of gags, a mechanic of humor. While Carroll does not aspire to be as funny as Keaton, he can match (and follow) him in intricate and brilliant analysis, providing a logic of illogic. A book that will change how we think about slapstick and film style.” Tom Gunning, University of Chicago “Comedy Incarnate is a brilliant, inventive and lucid examination of Buster Keaton’s The General. Through close textual analysis, Carroll opens up a wide expanse of historical and theoretical territory – positioning The General in relation to the writings of Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and Poulet, as well as to the films of Chaplin, Lloyd, and Langdon.” Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh “Building on Keaton’s directorial practice as a sort of civil engineer who engaged a mechanical universe, Carroll . . . investigates how Keaton’s emphasis on gags and their intelligibility characterize the film in specific ways. In so doing he opens up an understanding of how Keaton’s comedy of body intelligence works, especially in contrast to contemporaries like Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and he shows how intelligence – the artist’s and the viewer’s – informs laughter.” CHOICE Comedy Incarnate explores the intricacies of Buster Keaton’s unique visual style to discover what provokes laughter in his timeless films, paying special attention to The General. Keaton’s precise body comedy, coupled with his unconventional directorial decisions, suggests a new way of analyzing the film in terms of its visual elements as opposed to its narrative. Written by one of America’s foremost film theorists, this in-depth examination of the comedy of the steam, steel, and railroad era will provide a fresh vantage point for analysis of film and comedy itself.