The Question of Style in Philosophy and the Arts

Essays examining the historical transition in our perception of the arts and philosophy.

The essays in this book examine the historical transition in our perception of the arts and philosophy which occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the foundationalism of Descartes and Spinoza gave way to the idea that alternative styles of enquiry are possible.The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a change in the perception of the arts and of philosophy. In the arts this transition occurred around 1800, with, for instance, the breakdown of Vitruvianism in architecture, while in philosophy the foundationalism of which Descartes and Spinoza were paradigmatic representatives, which presumed that philosophy and the sciences possessed a method of ensuring the demonstration of truths, was undermined by the idea, asserted by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, that there exist alternative styles of enquiry among which a choice is open. The essays in this book examine the circumstances, features, and consequences of this historical transition, exploring in particular new aspects and instances of the inter-relatedness of content and its formal representation in both the arts and philosophy.