The Future of Aesthetics: The 1996 Ryle Lectures.

Jay Newman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. He
is the author of Competition in Religious Life, Religion vs. Television:
Competitors in Cultural Context, and Inauthentic Culture and Its
Philosophical Critics.

This book contains four lectures delivered in 1996 by philosopher
Francis Sparshott, long associated with the University of Toronto.
Sparshott has made noteworthy contributions to the field of aesthetics,
which he characterizes as “that part of philosophy that is concerned
with beauty and the arts.” Almost half the book is given over to
notes, many offering sophisticated reflections on issues raised in the
lectures. Sparshott has much to say here not only about aesthetics but
also about philosophy, the university, and civilization. He focuses on
these other phenomena because he sees the future of aesthetics as
integrally dependent on their future. Sparshott does not advance a
provocatively radical proposal, engage in bold speculation, or provide a
great deal of sustained argument. Rather, drawing on his copious
knowledge of the history of ideas and various fine arts, he makes an
impressive number of subtle and illuminating observations and
suggestions about the historical and recent development and the
precarious circumstances of the four cultural phenomena being examined.

This carefully crafted work puts forward many ideas that should be
thought-provoking to someone who has done university studies in the
humanities. Sparshott does not conceal his preferences for particular
themes and methods, such as those of Plato and Aristotle and also of
certain postwar British analytical philosophers, but he pays attention
to a wide range of current intellectual trends. Erudite, witty, and
impeccable in his choice of words, Sparshott gives the reflective reader
much food for thought when he draws attention, for example, to the
importance of empire as the cultural unity of a heterogeneous political
conglomerate. Some readers may feel that Sparshott lacks the moral
conviction of such philosophers of culture as R.G. Collingwood and
George Grant, but while Sparshott has rather little to say about
religious and other higher forms of spirituality and is, perhaps, a
touch distant in his treatment of issues of social injustice and
oppression, he is not an aloof aesthete like Santayana but an earnest
scholar attempting to contribute to the amelioration of communal life,
especially in Canada, to which he makes a number of astute references.