Images of Thought: Philosophical Interpretations of Carlos Estevez's Art

Is philosophy hopelessly opposed to art? Images of Thought answers negatively, claiming that visual images can be used effectively to grasp complex thoughts, and philosophy can be deployed to deepen our understanding of art. Jorge J. E. Gracia provides philosophical interpretations of seventeen works by the Cuban American artist Carlos Estevez that engage such topics as self-knowledge, the nature of the universe, faith and reason, permanence and change, the self and the other, women and men, freedom and determinism, providence, and predestination. The study's novelty lies both in its use of the interpretation of art to understand traditional philosophical problems and the theory it proposes concerning the nature of interpretation. The clarity of the discussion and an engaging style make it accessible to a wider audience. Book jacket.

Jorge J. E. Gracia is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Chair in Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. He is the author of several books, including Metaphysics and Its Task: The Search for the Categorial Foundation of Knowledge, and the coeditor (with Lynette M. F. Bosch and Isabel Alvarez Borland) of Identity, Memory, and Diaspora: Voices of Cuban-American Artists, Writers, and Philosophers, both also published by SUNY Press.