Mass Society and Its Culture, and Three Essays Concerning Etienne Gilson on Bergson, Christian Philosophy, and Art |
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| Author:
| Gilson, Étienne.
Gouhier, Henri |
| Translator:
| Colbert, James G. |
| ISBN: | 978-1-6667-1794-5 |
| Publication Date: | Jan 2023 |
| Publisher: | Wipf & Stock Publishers
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| Imprint: | Cascade Books |
| Book Format: | Ebook |
| List Price: | Contact Supplier contact
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Book Description:
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A medievalist and defender of the notion of Christian philosophy, Etienne Gilson had a lifelong interest in the philosophy of art. He questioned whether what is reproduced as art in contemporary society is art at all. This is not a simple issue. A cheap version of a novel is still a novel. A picture of a statue is not a statue, nor indeed is a photograph of a painting a painting. Recorded music has particular complications.The organizer of an industrial assembly line is neither an...
More DescriptionA medievalist and defender of the notion of Christian philosophy, Etienne Gilson had a lifelong interest in the philosophy of art. He questioned whether what is reproduced as art in contemporary society is art at all. This is not a simple issue. A cheap version of a novel is still a novel. A picture of a statue is not a statue, nor indeed is a photograph of a painting a painting. Recorded music has particular complications.The organizer of an industrial assembly line is neither an artist nor an artisan. Yet, thanks to such mass production, a much broader population has knowledge of artworks than would otherwise be possible.Religions must minister to mass societies and provide appropriate liturgies. But in the process, there is a danger of misrepresenting complex religious teachings. At the end of his own life, Henri Gouhier, Gilson's first doctoral student, prepared three essays on Gilson. The first, on Bergson, gives a sense of Gilson's formation in early twentieth-century French philosophy. The second reconstructs the development of the notion of Christian philosophy and the heated controversy it provoked. Finally, Gouhier presents Gilson's general philosophy of art and gives a helpful framework to Gilson's comments on art in a mass society.