Understanding Aesthetic Life

According to a powerful tradition inspired by Hume and Kant and running through the 20th century, aesthetic life is the life of an individual in pursuit of valuable experience. The linchpin of this tradition, aesthetic hedonism, stood nearly unchallenged alongside an array of complementary views about how we discuss, pursue, engage with and respond to aesthetic value. In the early twenty-first century, philosophers ramped up their criticisms of, and then began to replace, these traditional views. Nick Riggle has been working at the forefront of this effort, zeroing in on the defects of traditional aesthetics and replacing it with a framework that he argues is more vibrant and truer to aesthetic life.

Understanding Aesthetic Life collects essays that Riggle has published in this ongoing effort, from reflections on the aims and ideals of aesthetic life, to investigations of the personal and social power of aesthetic value. Riggle critiques the traditional emphasis on pleasure, disinterest, individualism, and connoisseurship in favor of a view that centers style, love, community, freedom, and engagement. Together, these conceptually connected essays—along with a newly written introduction—gradually construct, and illustrate the power of, Riggle's distinctively communal theory of aesthetic life built around the social cultivation of aesthetic freedom and individuality.