A Philosophy of Luxury

- Blurb -

According to the sociologist Max Weber, luxury is the product "of a refusal of utilitarian orientation toward use", and Theodor Adorno that art is luxury without purpose. What is luxury? Would we rather live in a world with or without luxury? Is someone who finds luxury normal experiencing luxury? Can it be attained be attained by anyone? So far, however, luxury has received remarkably little sustained philosophical examination. In this thought-provoking and engaging book Lambert Wiesing explores these questions and more from a philosophical standpoint.Drawing on a fascinating range of examples, Lambert Wiesing argues that luxury is ultimately a form of aesthetic experience dependent on the observer. He explores this idea of luxury with the help of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Martin Heidegger and the novelist Ernst Junger, as well as sociologists such as Thorstein Veblen and Theodor Adorno. He considers questions such as the difference between luxury and ostentation, whether luxury is a matter of ownership and possession, if luxury is a matter of defiance and transgression in common with some artistic movements, and the relationship between luxury, elegance and connoisseurship.A Philosophy of Luxury is will be of great interest to those in aesthetics, art, cultural studies and literature as well as sociology.