Allen Carlson

Sheila Lintott

Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty addresses the complex relationships between aesthetic appreciation and environmental issues and emphasizes the valuable contribution that environmental aesthetics can make to environmentalism. Allen Carlson, a pioneer in environmental aesthetics, and Sheila Lintott, who has published widely in aesthetics, combine important historical essays on the appreciation of nature with the best contemporary research in the field. They begin with the scientific, artistic, and aesthetic foundations of current environmental beliefs and attitudes. Then they offer views on the conceptualization of nature and the various debates on how to properly and respectfully appreciate nature. The book introduces positive aesthetics, the belief that everything in nature is essentially beautiful, even the devastation caused by earthquakes or floods, and the essays in the final section explicitly bring together aesthetics, ethics, and environmentalism to explore the ways in which each might affect the others. Book jacket.

From Beauty to Duty

Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism

Arnold Berleant

The Aesthetics of Natural Environments is a collection of essays investigating philosophical and aesthetics issues that arise in our appreciation of natural environments. The introduction gives an historical and conceptual overview of the rapidly developing field of study known as environmental aesthetics. The essays consist of classic pieces as well as new contributions by some of the most prominent individuals now working in the field and range from theoretical to applied approaches. The topics covered include the nature and value of natural beauty, the relationship between art appreciation and nature appreciation, the role of knowledge in the aesthetic appreciation of nature, the importance of environmental participation to the appreciation of environments, and the connections between the aesthetic appreciation of nature and our ethical obligations concerning its maintenance and preservation. This volume is for scholars and students focussed on nature, landscapes, and environments, individuals in areas such as aesthetics, environmental ethics, geography, environmental studies, landscape architecture, landscape ecology, and the planning and design disciplines. It is also for any reader interested in and concerned about the aesthetic quality of the world in which we live.

The Aesthetics of Natural Environments

The roots of environmental aesthetics reach back to the ideas of eighteenth-century thinkers who found nature an ideal source of aesthetic experience. Today, having blossomed into a significant subfield of aesthetics, environmental aesthetics studies and encourages the appreciation of not just natural environments but also human-made and human-modified landscapes. Nature and Landscape is an important introduction to this rapidly growing area of aesthetic understanding and appreciation. Allen Carlson begins by tracing the development of the field's historical background, and then surveys contemporary positions on the aesthetics of nature, such as scientific cognitivism, which holds that certain kinds of scientific knowledge are necessary for a full appreciation of natural environments. Carlson next turns to environments that have been created or changed by humans and the dilemmas that are posed by the appreciation of such landscapes. He examines how to aesthetically appreciate a variety of urban and rural landscapes and concludes with a discussion of whether there is, in general, a correct way to aesthetically experience the environment.

An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics

Nature and Landscape

This books presents fresh and fascinating insights into our interpretation of the environment and shows how our aesthetic experience encompasses nature rather than art.

The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture

Aesthetics and the Environment

This book contends that sovereignty, and more directly the extent to which it creates walls between any given state and other actors in the international system, lies at the core of China’s foreign relations during the reform era. Through a comprehensive survey of both Chinese and English-language sources, the author shows that during this period China’s stance changed in unexpected ways, and argues that such shifts were products of the evolving relationship between deeply entrenched sovereignty-centric values within China, new self-interests created by Deng Xiaoping’s emphasis on reform and opening, and the subsequent set of external pressures for change inadvertently brought to bear on China during the last two decades. The key point of interest for generalists is why the Chinese position evolved as it did and what the implications of this change are for the “new sovereignty” debate. For China watchers the book's findings are compelling, since they challenge the current conventional wisdom in the field. Chinese sovereignty is not as unyielding and monolithic as is commonly asserted.

Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era

Unifying China, Integrating with the World

Xiao Ren

The book presents the views of leading Chinese and American scholars working in the fields of Chinese foreign policy, national security and international political economy. It seeks to challenge the conventional wisdom about China's recent rise, contending it is a much more complex and contested trend than it has often been portrayed to be.

New Frontiers in China's Foreign Relations

Kenneth Lieberthal

Melanie Manion

Mary E. Gallagher

Contemporary Chinese Politics: Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies considers how new and diverse sources and methods are changing the study of Chinese politics. Contributors spanning three generations in China studies place their distinct qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in the framework of the discipline and point to challenges or opportunities (or both) of adapting new sources and methods to the study of contemporary China. How can we more effectively use new sources and methods of data collection? How can we better integrate the study of Chinese politics into the discipline of political science, to the betterment of both? This comprehensive methodological survey will be of immense interest to graduate students heading into the field for the first time and experienced scholars looking to keep abreast of the state of the art in the study of Chinese politics.

New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies

Contemporary Chinese Politics

Glenn Parsons

Functional Beauty is an in-depth philosophical study of the relationship between function and aesthetic value. Breaking with the philosophical tradition of separating aesthetic value from functionality and drawing on recent research on the nature of function in the philosophy of science, Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson explore the ways in which aesthetic value can depend upon function. In so doing, they provide a theory of the aesthetics of functionalobjects, including furniture, tools, and machines. They also shed new light on the aesthetics of the natural environment, architecture, and art.

Functional Beauty

The Aesthetics of Human Environments is a companion volume to Carlson’s and Berleant’s The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Whereas the earlier collection focused on the aesthetic appreciation of nature, The Aesthetics of Human Environments investigates philosophical and aesthetics issues that arise from our engagement with human environments ranging from rural landscapes to urban cityscapes. Our experience of public spaces such as shopping centers, theme parks, and gardens as well as the impact of our personal living spaces on the routine activities of our everyday life are discussed in terms of their aesthetic value and the nature of our aesthetic appreciation. This volume will appeal to any reader concerned about the aesthetic quality of the world in which we live.

Allen Carlson

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