Ekel: Theorie und Geschichte einer starken Empfindung

SUNY Series: Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory

by Winfried Menninghaus

German

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

591 pages, Hardcover

First published June 24, 2002

About the author

Winfried Menninghaus teaches at the Freie Universität Berlin and at Yale University.

Reviews

[Philipp Homan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disgust is a charged emotion since it has strong moral implications (see the work by Jonathan Haidt and more recently Simone Schnall). A better understanding of what it is from a historical perspective is urgently needed. And this book, extraordinary in many respects, delivers it. Argues that the history of aesthetics can be (best?) understood from the perspective of what has been avoided. Surprisingly, this is not so much the ugly as it is whatever provokes disgust (although the two may overlap). The readings of Nietzsche, Freud, and Kafka are remarkable and quite original.