On December 18, the second season of “Online Overseas Class”was successfully launched. Prof. Paul Patton of the University of New South Wales in Australia was invited to teach a course on “Philosophy and Aesthetics”. Nearly 200 teachers and students from the School of Foreign Languages attended the class.

Paul Patton is a Professor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities and Languages. His current research interests include Political Philosophy in both Analytic and Continental traditions. He has published widely on French post-structuralist approaches to political philosophy, including the work of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault. He has also published on political liberalism, rights and the rights of Indigenous people.

Before the lecture, Vice dean Fu Jiangtao, on behalf of the School of Foreign Languages, welcomed and thanked Prof. Patton for accepting the invitation, and briefly introduced his research fields and academic achievements. Prof. Patton first made clear the syllabus of the course, then pointed out its aim of helping students better understand European philosophy on art and aesthetics. He also made an introduction of some important philosophical theories related to art, such as those of Plato, Aristotle; Hume, Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, figures from the 18th and 19th century; Arthur Danto, American philosopher and art-critic; Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze, French poststructuralist philosophers. Moreover, Prof. Patton discussed the inner relationship between philosophy and art with the students. He emphasized that art is rather an ongoing and open ended kind of activity, so “art” itself must be considered from an open perspective. Finally, Prof. Patton cited the ideas of many philosophers and artists to elaborate on what art is.

After the lecture, he shared his PowerPoint slides with students for an off-class review.

Contribution: School of Foreign Languages