On beauty and being just / Elaine Scarry.

By:

Scarry, Elaine

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, �1999.Description: 134 pages : illustrations ; 20 cmISBN:

9780691048758
0691048754
9780691089591
0691089590

Other title:

On beauty

Subject(s):

Aesthetics

LOC classification:

BH39 .S322 1999

Contents:

On beauty and being wrong -- On beauty and being fair.

Review: "In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms." "Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness."--Jacket.

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Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 3 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Course reserves
Reserve Materials	John Brown University Library	Reserve	BH39 .S322 1999	Available		39524100447543	Integrated Humanities 2

Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-132).

On beauty and being wrong -- On beauty and being fair.

"In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms." "Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness."--Jacket.