JOURNAL ARTICLE

Alcibiades at Criticism: The Symposium and the Eyes of Others.

  • Published In: New Literary History, 2024, v. 55, n. 3/4. P. 407 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Rothfeld, Becca 3 of 3

Abstract

This paper reads Plato's Symposium as an allegory for the practice of criticism—and as a solution to a canonical problem in aesthetics. In his Critique of Judgment , Immanuel Kant proposes that it is impermissible for us to defer to the aesthetic judgment of others, or to accept aesthetic judgments of works we have not directly encountered on the basis of others' testimony. What, then, is the purpose of criticism? I argue that the Symposium is an object lesson in how glimpsing a beautiful object through another's eyes prepares us to appreciate it, thereby readying us to make our own aesthetic judgments of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:New Literary History. 2024/07, Vol. 55, Issue 3/4, p407
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:History
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0028-6087
  • DOI:10.1353/nlh.2024.a953933
  • Accession Number:183810623
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of New Literary History is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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