Literature, Autonomy, and the Complexity of Aesthetics

Authors

  • Casey Haskins Purchase College, State University of New York

Abstract

In this article Haskins addresses what he calls the autonomy problem in aesthetic theory. The controversy here is, firstly, whether a work of art derives its value from its being art as such or from its instrumental (for example moral) efficacy and, secondly, whether the causes for its existence are autonomistic or heteronomistic. Haskins analyzes (the backgrounds of) the dialectically structured modernist form of this debate and its ramifications for academic politics – the dialectic between "traditional humanistic approaches" and "Theory". He then goes on to show that the issue at hand is insoluble in its traditional form and thus stands in need of a redescription. After discussing Adorno, Foucault and Derrida in this light, he concludes with an account of the potential of complexity theory in the course of reformulating our ideas of the connection between art and the world.

Author Biography

  • Casey Haskins, Purchase College, State University of New York

    Casey Haskins (b. 1954) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purchase College, State University of New York, USA. He is co-editor of Dewey Reconfigured: Essays on Deweyan Pragmatism (State University of New York Press, 1999) and author of numerous articles on the history of aesthetics and on the history of American pragmatism. The present article comes from a book-in-progress on the autonomy debate in modern aesthetics and its implications for current discussions of interdisciplinarity.

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 1 (2007): Engagement

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Haskins, C. (2026). Literature, Autonomy, and the Complexity of Aesthetics. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 20(1). https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27513