Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- PREFACE -- ONE Santayana and the Avant-garde: Visual Arts in the Context of Democracy, Norms, Liberty, and Social Progress -- 1. Santayana and the Avant-garde -- 2. Democratic, Although Not Liberal, Character of Modern Artistic Institutions and the Avant-garde "Soviets" -- 3. Vital Liberty and the "Penitent" Arts -- 4. Completion and Perfection vs. Deformation and Fragmentation (in Analytic Cubism) -- 5. Critique of Primitivism and Caricature (in Cubism and Expressionism) -- 6. Criticism of Using Color as a Main Medium of Artistic Expression (Fauvism) -- 7. Classic Harmony vs. Abstractionist Harmony -- 8. Imagination and Naturalism vs. Dreaming and Fiction (Surrealism) -- 9. Penetrating the World Rather Than Experiencing it: Problems with Expression (Expressionism) -- 10. Santayana as a "Self-indulgent Impressionist" -- 11. From the Standpoint of a Theory of Work of Art -- 12. From the Standpoint of the Language of a Work of Art -- 13. Conclusion: Politicization of the "Foreground" and the Idea of Social Progress -- TWO Style as the Tool of Tyranny in Gombrowicz: An Avant-gardist as a Forerunner of Postmodernism -- 1. "I practice a private literature": Mixing up Theory (Objectivity) with Practice (Subjectivity) -- 2. The Avant-gardists Mixing up Reality with Unreality -- 3. Reality and Unreality: Existentialism, Post-structuralism, and Postmodernism in Gombrowicz -- 4. Disintegration, Deformation, and Decay as Somatic Symptoms of the Individual's Suffering from Unreality -- 5. Pathology of Inter-human Bonds: Dialogue as a Duel, Conversation as a Confrontation -- 6. Seduction as Abuse: Erotic Intrigue as an Execution of Power -- 7. Virginity as Unawareness of the Relations of Power ("Virginity").

8. Re-construction and the Re-combination of the World of Objects and Figures in Gombrowicz: Between Dadaism and Postmodernism -- 9. Auto-therapy or Becoming More Real by Means of Literary and Philosophical Creation -- 10. The Political Formlessness and Impotence of the Poles. The Need of Communal Therapy -- 11. Concluding Remarks: In What Way Did Gombrowicz forerun a Postmodern Approach? -- THREE Facial Images as a Way for the Articulation of Values in the Avant-garde's Aesthetics of Deformation. Another Prelude to Postmodernism -- 1. From Form to Formlessness -- 2. What is Aesthetics of Deformation? -- 3. Deformation of Facial Images as a Search for New Values (Munch) -- 4. Deformation of Facial Images as an Attempt at Re-formulation of the World of Values (Cubism) -- 5. Deformation of Facial Images as an Attempt to Undermine the Established Values (Duchamp) -- 6. Deformation of Facial Images as a Search for Freedom (Witkacy) -- 7. Deformation of Facial Images as Social Degradation (Gombrowicz) -- 8. Deformation of Facial Images as though Searching for a Community (Frankenstein) -- 9. A Concluding Remark: Aesthetics of Deformation as a Prelude to Postmodernism -- FOUR The Interrelation between Politics and Aesthetics in Classic American Pragmatism: Democracy and Aesthetic Experience in William James -- 1. The Idea of Liberal Democracy in Dewey's Aesthetics -- 2. Active, Dynamic, and Constructive Character of Aesthetic Experience in Mead -- 3. Democracy and Aesthetic Experience in James -- 4. Democratism as One of the Basic Assumptions of James's Aesthetic Reflection -- 5. Limited Pluralism in Aesthetic Experience -- 6. Varieties of Interpretations -- 7. Instead of a Conclusion: the Potentiality of an Artwork.

FIVE Aesthetic Persuasion and Political Compulsion: Literary Philosophy in Light of Richard Rorty's Ideas of Democratic Liberalism and Cultural Politics -- 1. Cultural Policy and "the Great Books" -- 2. Literary Philosophy and its Persuasive Potentiality -- 3. Where Exactly is Political Compulsion Here? -- 4. Suffering and Self-Creation as Political Themes in Literary Philosophy -- 5. Emerson and Mickiewicz as Great Poets involved in Politics. The Public-Private Divide -- 6. What About Reader? -- 7. A Concluding Remark: Reading Literary Philosophy as a Struggle of Narratives? -- FINAL REMARKS -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- INDEX.