Enjoyment: From Laughter to Delight in Philosophy, Literature, the Fine Arts, and Aesthetics

· Analecta Husserliana Book 56 · Springer Science & Business Media
Ebook
329
Pages

About this ebook

Philosophy, art criticism and popular opinion all seem to treat the aesthetics of the comic as lightweight, while the tragic seems to be regarded with greater seriousness. Why this favouring of sadness over joy? Can it be justified? What are the criteria by which the significance of comedy can be estimated vis à vis tragedy? Questions such as these underlie the present selection of studies, which casts new light on the comic, the joyful and laughter itself. This challenge to the popular attitude strikes into new territory, relating such matters to the profundity with which we enjoy life and its role in the deployment of the Human Condition. In her Introduction Tymieniecka points out that the tragic and the comic might be complementary in their respective sense-bestowing modes as well as in their dynamic functions; they might both share in the primogenital function of promoting the self-individualising progress of human existence.
For the first time in philosophy, laughter, mirth, joy and the like are revealed as the modalities of the essential enjoyment of life, being brought to bear in an illumination of the human condition.

About the author

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was born in Marianowo, Poland on February 28, 1923. She studied at the University of Krakow, the Sorbonne, and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where she received a Ph.D. in philosophy. She was the founder and president the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning. She was the author of 14 books and the editor of Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research and Phenomenological Inquiry: A Review of Philosophical Ideas and Trends. She died on June 7, 2014 at the age of 91.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.

Continue the series

More by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

Similar ebooks