The Man Without Content-轻识

In this book, one of Italy's most important and original contemporary philosophers considers the status of art in the modern era. He takes seriously Hegel's claim that art has exhausted its spiritual vocation, that it is no longer through art that Spirit principally comes to knowledge of itself. He argues, however, that Hegel by no means proclaimed the "death of art" (as many still imagine) but proclaimed rather the indefinite continuation of art in what Hegel called a "self-annulling" mode. With astonishing breadth and originality, the author probes the meaning, aesthetics, and historical consequences of that self-annulment. In essence, he argues that the birth of modern aesthetics is the result of a series of schisms--between artist and spectator, genius and taste, and form and matter, for example--that are manifestations of the deeper, self-negating yet self-perpetuating movement of irony. Through this concept of self-annulment, the author offers an imaginative reinterpretation of the history of aesthetic theory from Kant to Heidegger, and he opens up original perspectives on such phenomena as the rise of the modern museum, the link between art and terror, the natural affinity between "good taste" and its perversion, and kitsch as the inevitable destiny of art in the modern era. The final chapter offers a dazzling interpretation of Durer's "Melancholia" in the terms that the book has articulated as its own. "The Man Without Content" will naturally interest those who already prize Agamben's work, but it will also make his name relevant to a whole new audience--those involved with art, art history, the history of aesthetics, and popular culture.

吉奥乔·阿甘本（Giorgio Agamben，1942- ）是欧洲研究生院（EGS）巴鲁赫·德·斯宾诺莎教授，意大利维罗纳大学美学教授，并于巴黎国际哲学学院教授哲学。在攻读博士后阶段，阿甘本参与了弗莱堡由马丁·海德格尔主持的研讨会，并主持了瓦尔特·本雅明意大利译本的翻译工作。阿甘本独特的对文学理论、欧陆哲学、政治思想、宗教研究以及文学和艺术的融会贯通，使他成为我们时代最具挑战性的思想家之一。