
Metaphysics and Aesthetics of Decoration
Ornamental Thinking
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 23. January 2026
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-041-14386-4 (ISBN)
Description
This volume offers a fresh and timely contribution to current discussions of ornamentation, repetition, and affect in aesthetics and philosophy. It provides new insights into how ornamentation shapes artistic, philosophical, and social practices, positioning it as a dynamic force in contemporary thought.
Through interdisciplinary essays by leading scholars, the volume interrogates ornamentation's role in structuring metaphysics, aesthetics, and interspecies relations. It challenges the traditional notion that ornament is mere decoration and reframes it as a vital philosophical and cultural concept. Drawing on thinkers like Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, and Foucault, the contributors explore how ornamentation operates as a parergon, a site of affective repetition, or a marker of epistemological shifts. From critiques of Kantian hierarchies in craft to analyses of Baroque aesthetics and animal territoriality, the chapters reveal ornamentation as both a boundary and a bridge - simultaneously peripheral and essential to meaning-making. This volume offers new and unique perspectives on ornamentation's universal and culturally specific dimensions.
Metaphysics and Aesthetics of Decoration will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in aesthetics, metaphysics, continental philosophy, and art theory.
Through interdisciplinary essays by leading scholars, the volume interrogates ornamentation's role in structuring metaphysics, aesthetics, and interspecies relations. It challenges the traditional notion that ornament is mere decoration and reframes it as a vital philosophical and cultural concept. Drawing on thinkers like Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, and Foucault, the contributors explore how ornamentation operates as a parergon, a site of affective repetition, or a marker of epistemological shifts. From critiques of Kantian hierarchies in craft to analyses of Baroque aesthetics and animal territoriality, the chapters reveal ornamentation as both a boundary and a bridge - simultaneously peripheral and essential to meaning-making. This volume offers new and unique perspectives on ornamentation's universal and culturally specific dimensions.
Metaphysics and Aesthetics of Decoration will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in aesthetics, metaphysics, continental philosophy, and art theory.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced
Illustrations
6 s/w Abbildungen, 4 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 2 s/w Zeichnungen, 1 s/w Tabelle
1 Tables, black and white; 2 Line drawings, black and white; 4 Halftones, black and white; 6 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
482 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-041-14386-4 (9781041143864)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2026
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download

E-Book
01/2026
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download
Persons
Michaela Fiserova is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of J. E. Purkyne in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic and researcher at Metropolitan University in Prague. She works in the fields of contemporary philosophy and aesthetics, with specialisation in the problematics of media, arts, politics and animality. She is the author of Sharing the Visible: Rethinking Foucault (2013), Image and Power: Interviews with French Thinkers (2015), Deconstructing Signature (2016), Fragmentary Vision: Ranciere, Derrida, Nancy (2019), and Event of Signature: Jacques Derrida and Repeating of the Unrepeatable (SUNY, 2022).
Jakub Macha is researcher at the Metropolitan University Prague and Professor at the Department of Aesthetics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He has published on philosophy of language and classical German philosophy. He is the author of Wittgenstein on Internal and External Relations: Tracing All the Connections (2015). His co-edited volumes include Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language (2016), Wallace Stevens: Poetry, Philosophy, and Figurative Language (2018), Wittgenstein and Hegel: Reevaluation of Difference (2019), Engaging Kripke with Wittgenstein (2024), and Platonism (2024). His most recent book is The Philosophy of Exemplarity: Singularity, Particularity, and Self-Reference (Routledge, 2023).
Jakub Macha is researcher at the Metropolitan University Prague and Professor at the Department of Aesthetics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He has published on philosophy of language and classical German philosophy. He is the author of Wittgenstein on Internal and External Relations: Tracing All the Connections (2015). His co-edited volumes include Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language (2016), Wallace Stevens: Poetry, Philosophy, and Figurative Language (2018), Wittgenstein and Hegel: Reevaluation of Difference (2019), Engaging Kripke with Wittgenstein (2024), and Platonism (2024). His most recent book is The Philosophy of Exemplarity: Singularity, Particularity, and Self-Reference (Routledge, 2023).
Editor
University of Jan Evangelista in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Content
Introduction: What is Ornament - Michaela Fiserova and Jakub Macha; 1. Truth in Ornament: Aesthetics of Repetition between Derrida and Kierkegaard - Michaela Fiserova; 2. Crafting an Ornament. On Craft Emancipation Myth - Tereza Slukova; 3. Ornamental Play in Deleuze's Aesthetics - Corry Shores; 4. Decorum in Interspecies Cohabitation: Hume, Deleuze, and Becoming-Ornament - Michaela Fiserova; 5. Ornamental Representations: Exploring the Interplay between Aesthetics and Politics - Lenka Lee; 6. Foucault's Baroque - Barry Stocker; 7. Languages of Ornament and Art: Repetition, Norm, and Deviation - Peter Michalovic; 8. Ornaments as Frozen Music - Vanda Bozicevic Metzger; 9. Framing Metaphysics: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Ornamentation of Philosophical Grounding - Jakub Macha.