Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Performative Beauty: A Pragmatist and Somaesthetic Account

Performative Beauty: A Pragmatist and Somaesthetic Account

Heinrich, Falk

Hardcover

Series: Routledge Focus on Philosophy

Philosophy

ISBN10: 1041244460
ISBN13: 9781041244462
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Mar 3 2026
Pages: 106
Weight: 0.61
Height: 0.31 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

This book develops an original theory of performative beauty by reconsidering and reworking Deweyan pragmatic aesthetics through the lens of somaesthetics, contemporary embodiment theories, and philosophies of play.

While philosophical aesthetics has traditionally focused on beauty as a property of external objects, this book explores beauty as an enacted experience that emerges through our own actions and somatic practices. The author draws on his own experiences with Argentine tango and other somatic practices to challenge conventional Western epistemological distinctions between subject and object, agency and patiency, and artist and audience. Through an exploration of concepts such as somaesthetic awareness, unity, aesthetic presence, objectivisation, transaction, playfulness, and consummation, the author constructs a comprehensive framework for understanding beauty as a sentient enactment of playful transactions between the human being and their environment. This pragmatist approach responds to our contemporary moment, where beauty is regaining epistemological, existential, political, and economic value across diverse domains of human experience.

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