Epistemologies of Aesthetics

The idea of art as research and research as art have risen over the past two decades as important critical focuses for the philosophy of media, aesthetics, and art. Of particular interest is how the methodologies of art and science might be merged to create a better conceptual understanding of art-based research. In Epistemologies of Aesthetics, Dieter Mersch deconstructs and displaces the terminology that typically accompanies the question of the relationship between art and scientific truth. Identifying artistic practices as modes of thought that do not make use of language in a way that can easily be translated into scientific discourse, Mersch advocates for an aesthetic mode of thought beyond the linguistic turn, a way of thinking that cannot be substituted by any other disciplinary system.

Dieter Mersch war bis zu seiner Emeritierung Professor fu¨r Ästhetik an der Zu¨rcher Hochschule der Künste und ist Präsident der Deutschen Gesellschaft fu¨r Ästhetik. Studium der Mathematik und Philosophie in Köln, Bochum und Darmstadt. Mitherausgeber des Internationalen Jahrbuchs fu¨r Medienphilosophie. Arbeitsschwerpunkte: Philosophische Ästhetik, Kunsttheorie, Medienphilosophie, Bildtheorie, Musikphilosophie und kontinentale Philosophie des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts.