Ethics And The Aesthetics Of Existence

I haven't made it clear how the aesthetics of existence is a form of ethics. Because that is really what I think it is. It is supposed to be about how to live an ethical life.

I'll have to stress the point in IV.4.

I also thought it might be interesting to write about this idea in Foucault's work. I know its been written on already. But Foucault's aesthetics of existence is definitely about ethics. In particular, I wanted to write something about the relationship between The Use Of Pleasure and and essay called "What Is Enlightenment?"

I'll have to do that.

I'm also curious about exploring this idea because of something David Harvey said. He says something about the Reagan administration and the so-called 'aestheticization of politics'. Harvey basically says that the Reagan administration embraced "the shift from ethics to aesthetics as its dominant value system.”He frames aesthetics and ethics as antithetical. But I don't think that is the case. I think that political lying, image-crafting, and manipulation is both unethical and unaesthetic. You could only think aesthetics antithetical with ethics if you mistook art proper for mere representation. This is the main thrust of Collingwood's aesthetics. But I don' know how to work out the details yet. It confuses me. Can genuine aesthetic expression lead to violence on behalf of the artist? I dunno. I don't want that to be the case. But it isn't immediately clear to me if that is or is not the case.

Oh well.

I'm still reading The New Leviathan. Getting interesting. Eager to keep reading.

Once I've finished it I might starting seriously looking at the outline for IV.4. Right now I'm just gonna finish Collingwood's final work.