Course Objectives:

The course constitutes an introduction to the philosophy of art or aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that systematically examines artistic creation and aesthetic experience. The course content aims initially to acquaint the students with the fundamental concepts of aesthetics so that they may be able to understand how specific thinkers approach a series of aesthetic issues. The objective of the course is, first, to help students realise the significance of a philosophical approach to art, insofar as such an approach often influences and orients artistic practice, and second, to highlight the intricate relation of aesthetics to the fields of ethics and politics. Thematically, the course examines Plato’s theory of Forms and the ethical role of art, Aristotle on mimesis and mythos, Plotinus and neoplatonism, medieval aesthetics and the allegorical method of interpretation (Origen, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas), and the Renaissance and the transformation of art into empirical science.
Learning Outcomes:

 After the successful completion of the course, the students:
•    will be familiar with the most significant developments in aesthetics from antiquity to the Renaissance.
•    will be able to understand, to analyse and to present the aesthetic theories of major thinkers of that period.
•    will be able to compare and evaluate the arguments and the philosophical theses of those thinkers with respect to the relation of art to ethics and politics.
•    will be in a position to understand and assess later and contemporary aesthetic theories.
•    having come into contact with specific philosophical texts, they will be capable of consulting them, of understanding and of analysing them autonomously.