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A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
In A Philosophical Enquiry, Edmund Burke sets out to define the nature of beauty and sublimity, and establish an objective criterion for discussing aesthetics. His definition of beauty as rooted in pleasure and sexuality, and the sublime in pain and survival, aligned him with the empiricists John Locke and David Hume, as he replaced the metaphysics of Plato's aesthetics with a psychological and physiological perspective.
According to Burke, the sublime and the beautiful are experiences that can be explained by biological and sensual factors; thus he proceeds to explain how smooth lines, sweet tastes and middle frequencies of sound can be considered beautiful, and the terror created by high mountains and dark forests can be sublime.
These revolutionary ideas ushered in the age of Romanticism, and the Gothic genre of novels, with their delight in horror and fright, and continue to influence aesthetic theories today.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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'The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.' Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century because his humanistic, atheistic, if pessimistic views chimed with a new secularism that was emerging from a Western society dominated by religion. Despite his rather forbidding image (and a few outdated views), he is one of the most approachable German philosophers, and this is certainly evident in these two key works, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims.
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depressingly hopeful
- By Sebastian huerta on 06-22-17
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The Renaissance
- Studies in Art and Poetry
- By: Walter Pater
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.
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Wanda McCaddon and Pater = 😍
- By Tyler on 02-01-21
By: Walter Pater
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
- By: William James
- Narrated by: Jim Killavey
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field. To quote Wikipedia, "James was most interested in understanding personal religious experience. The importance of James to the psychology of religion - and to psychology more generally - is difficult to overstate. He discussed many essential issues that remain of vital concern today. What makes James writing so special is that he could take a very complex subject and, without watering it down, make it understandable to 'the rest of us.'"
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Profound stuff
- By Empowerment on 09-05-09
By: William James
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Heretics
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Ulf Bjorklund
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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"Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word orthodox. In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law - all these like sheep had gone astray...."
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Like having Steven Hawking read poetry
- By J. Gorton on 02-29-16
By: G. K. Chesterton
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Aristotle's Poetics
- By: Aristotle
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.
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Skips a few sections
- By Dave Wilson on 03-16-19
By: Aristotle
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Nature
- By: Sam Torode - foreword, Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Sam Torode
- Length: 1 hr and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" is perhaps the greatest original work of philosophy written by an American. This specially-prepared edition includes a foreword on the origin and significance the book.
By: Sam Torode - foreword, and others
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The Life of the Mind
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.
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English only please
- By angela cozea on 11-20-19
By: Hannah Arendt
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The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
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Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
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The Coming Race
- By: Edward Bulwer Lytton
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book is ostensibly a work of Science Fiction. It deals with an underground race of advanced beings, masters of Vril energy - a strange power that can both heal and destroy - who intend to leave their subterranean existence and conquer the world. But the book has been seen by many as a barely concealed account of Hidden Wisdom, a theory that has attracted many strange bed-fellows, including the French author Louis Jacolliot, the Polish explorer Ferdinand Ossendowsky, and Adolf Hitler.
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dated - worked to get through it
- By Cat Lover who doesn't work out on 10-10-19
What listeners say about A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Drone Boy
- 05-29-21
Beauty Not in the Eye of the Beholder
This is an excellent reading of Burke's "Enquiry" and, at 6 hours in length, one can listen to it in a day, or in a couple of sittings. Although Burke's ideas about beauty appear both dated and rigidly binary, rigid particularly in terms of gender, his ideas are presented with wonderful candor and force, and they nevertheless seem to explain much about the psychology of representation in Western culture. His theory of the sublime explains much, and it is important to how we have come to relate to the natural world. The "Enquiry" thus forms much more than just a good introduction to aesthetics, or the philosophy of beauty, Indeed, in this audio-book you will also find a theory of depression and how to cure it through strenuous exercise. Much recommended for a long walk on the beach or a climb up a mountain.
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- Easy Rhino
- 06-19-21
Ought to be read more
If Burke were read more in public schools, our society would not be so messed up.
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3 people found this helpful