Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (OPUS)

Straightforward, concise intro to the philosophy of art

I asked students to use this book for several different college-level courses after I enjoyed reading it myself. It provides a helpful, readable, non-intimidating introduction to a pretty difficult topic. Students seemed very happy with the choice, a result that is often hard to accomplish with textbooks.

Check this out if you're looking for a concise and well-written introduction to the philosophy of art. The author explores why we feel art is so important, what makes 'good' art, and major ideas concerning art as introduced by other philosopher. (...) It's 154-pages, paperback, and has several b&w photos of paintings referred to in the text.

I inherited use of this text as the preferred text for the aesthetics portion of a course on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Since I chose Quine's "Web of Belief" and the Kenny Reader on Wittgenstein for the section on Truth, so that students can engage the contemporary issues associated with truth from an overall perspective and actually do philosophy via the extraordinarily subversive energy of Wittgenstein's questions, the Sheppard text fits perfectly as the text that frames the issues over aesthetics in a way that demonstrates the lessons learned from the first two books. This is also short enough to cover the main issues quickly so that there is time left for goodness at the end of the course!

I read "Aesthetics" when it was assigned for a graduate level course on 'Aesthetics and Critical Judgment'. I was able to read the entire book within a week since Sheppard takes care to lay out her points simply and relate them to common experience. The first half of the book contains visual art examples with black & white plates to refer to, while the second half focuses on literary and some film examples. She attempts to summarize Plato, Tolstoy, Kant, E. D. Hirsch and others' theories regarding aesthetics and judgment, so her book serves as a good overview or introduction to the philosophy of art like the subtitle suggests. Overall, I didn't find the book as interesting as reading other secondary sources on philosophy or even the primary sources. I'm glad I purchased the book Used, because neither it, nor many other 154-page paperbacks are worth the $40+ new price.