How Art Transforms Us : A Philosophical Inquiry

Does art rely on trickery and deception rather than honest argumentation to get us to upend our lives?How Art Transforms Us uncovers the hidden ways in which works of art can change who we are as people. It shows us how art does not so much inspire us to undergo transformations, as seduce us into undergoing them.Movies, novels, and songs do not actually give us reliable information about what a given experience would be like.But how do they trick us into believing we have received such things from them?Aumann draws on artworks including Ai Weiwei’s political installations, Laura Aguilar’s photographs, Kara Walker’s silhouettes, and novels by Lauren Groff and Rachel Yoder.The goal is to understand exactly how art can get us to abandon who we have been and become someone new.He confronts the role imagination plays and art’s effect on our values to find out how art helps us imagine what it is like to do things we have never done before.The result is a compelling new response to the moral problems posed by the seductive power of art, one that encourages us to open ourselves up to art's influence rather than fight against it.