History of Theory

Résumé du livre

The role of theory has become an important, if controversial, topic in contemporary aesthetics, art history, literary studies, cultural studies, and many other disciplines related to art and culture. This entry provides the conceptual background for such debates by tracing the history and practice of the concept of theory in general (not just in connection with art) from the Greeks up to the end of the nineteenth century, when theory seems to get displaced (for reasons analyzed here), only to reemerge late in the twentieth century.