This dissertation argues for the reincorporation of William Hogarth into the history of aesthetics, a field of inquiry with eighteenth-century origins. Hogarth is, of course, an established figure in the history of British art. Precisely because of his fame as a graphic satirist, though, Hogarth's 1753 treatise The Analysis of Beauty doesn't feature as prominently as it should when scholars recount the rise of a philosophical theory of taste from the British moralists of the early eighteenth century to Kant's Critique of Judgment in 1792. Hogarth defines beauty as formal property, so his Analysis serves as a primer on how to discern form in nature and art, namely, by means of abstraction (the mental exercise of resolving objects into lines and spatial relationships). For Hogarth, however, abstraction remains grounded in materiality insofar as the activities of manufacture help determine the manifestations of form. Premised on the mutual determination of form and practice, Hogarth's aesthetic theory gives pride of place to technique, which is to say, the modes of perceptual discipline that enable the translation of material object into mental image and, with varying degrees of license, back again.;In "Practical Formalism," I describe how abstraction reconceived as a perceptual technique makes for a revised understanding of aesthetic pleasure, in which the activity of thinking about form is itself the pleasure to which beauty gives rise. I also show how Hogarth's commitment to technique as a kind of thinking supports the democratizing impulse for which he has long been cited. Only when we appreciate the rigor of his formalism, I argue, can we recognize how his politics of inclusion extends along gender as well as class lines. Finally, I show how Hogarth's contribution to the theory of aesthetics bears on the work of his successors, specifically Edmund Burke, Denis Diderot, and Immanuel Kant.
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机译：本论文主张将威廉·霍加斯（William Hogarth）重新纳入美学史，这是一个具有18世纪起源的研究领域。当然，霍加斯是英国艺术史上的知名人物。正是由于他作为图形讽刺作家的名声，霍加斯（Hogarth）1753年的专着《美的分析》（Analysis of Beauty）并未像当学者回顾从18世纪初期的英国道德主义者到康德（Kant's）的品味哲学理论的兴起那样突出。 1792年对评判的批判。霍加斯将美定义为形式财产，因此他的分析作为如何辨别自然和艺术形式的入门，即通过抽象（将物体分解为线条和空间关系的精神锻炼）。但是，对于霍加斯而言，抽象性仍然以实质性为基础，因为制造活动有助于确定形式的表现形式。霍加斯的美学理论以形式和实践的共同决定为前提，使技术引以为傲，这就是说，感知纪律的模式可以将物质对象转换为心理形象，并在不同程度的许可下再次转换。;在“实用形式主义”中，我描述了作为一种感知技术而重新构想的抽象如何使人们对审美愉悦进行了重新认识，其中思考形式的活动本身就是美的产生所带来的愉悦。我还展示了霍加斯对技术作为一种思维的承诺如何支持他长期被引用的民主化冲动。我认为，只有当我们欣赏他的形式主义的严厉时，我们才能认识到他的包容性政治如何沿着性别以及阶级路线延伸。最后，我将展示霍加斯对美学理论的贡献如何影响他的继任者，特别是埃德蒙·伯克（Edmund Burke），丹尼斯·狄德罗（Denis Diderot）和伊曼纽尔·康德（Immanuel Kant）的工作。
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