That we moderns expect to be recognized not only as moral persons and credible knowers, but also as aesthetic subjects with a unique sensibility can be shown by empirical observation - but the many implications of this fact were thus far completely unexplored. This pathbreaking study by Jörg Schaub masterfully expounds on the ramifications of aesthetic recognition from all possible angles. Starting with a clarification of his definition of aesthetics, Schaub leads his readers through many stages until they realize how important it is for our democratic freedom to be equally recognized as subjects with distinct capacities for sensual imagination. This book offers the sociologically based aesthetics that critical theory needs to comprehend its own time in thoughts.

Axel Honneth, Jack C. Weinstein Professor for the Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA

By linking the free play of the imagination tightly to our perceptual and emotional capabilities, Modern Aesthetics and Democratic Life cogently re-envisions what it means to recognize human beings and shows how freedom and equality unmistakably are aesthetic conditions. Schaub's fresh account gives aesthetics a key place in contemporary democratic societies.

Monique Roelofs, Professor and Chair of Philosophy of Art & Culture and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This path-breaking book presents a distinctive version of aesthetic practice. And then argues that the ability to exercise aesthetic capacities is essential to a fully satisfactory democratic citizenship. Backed up with convincing case studies of how suppressing aesthetic capacities renders democratic societies unjust. It will transform debates about the relevance of the aesthetic to democracy.

John McGowan, John W. and Anna H. Hanes Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA