From Tasteand Beauty toReproducedArt

The seminar

Six weeks Starting early October

A six-week intensive course delving into aesthetics, the philosophy of art. We will discuss the writings of six philosophers and probe their points in relation to some works of art. Topics include taste as a capacity, aesthetic judgment, common sense, and the work of art in relation to society and technological advancements.

Who it’s for

Designers, artists, photographers, writers, architects, and creative directors who want to think more deeply about the judgments they make every day.

Why does one image hold your attention? What makes a work original? How much of your taste is your own—and how much comes from the world around you?

No previous engagement with philosophy is required. Bring a serious interest in the questions and a willingness to engage with difficult texts.

With Pia and the group, you’ll work through philosophical ideas and discuss them in relation to works of art.

The questions

Taste & beauty · Hume, Kant

Is beauty just a matter of taste?

We begin with our own responses to art. What goes into calling something beautiful—and can we expect someone else to agree?

Art & society · Hegel

What does art reveal about a society?

From the individual judgment, we turn to a wider world: how art belongs to a particular time and expresses something about the society that makes it.

Art & technology · Arendt, Heidegger, Benjamin

What changes when art is reproduced?

Film, photography, and mass society change how we encounter works of art. We ask what happens to art when a singular encounter becomes an experience shared by millions.

Your teacher

Pia Schneider

Pia is a philosopher based in Berkeley, California. She has recently finished her PhD at UC Berkeley with a dissertation on Immanuel Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Before coming to California in 2016, she got a BA in German Studies and Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and an MA in Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Pia has presented her academic work at various conferences, including the 2025 Biennial of the North American Kant Society, the 2026 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and the 2026 meeting of the International Simone de Beauvoir Society.

With a one-year hiatus during which she was a visiting student scholar at Harvard, Pia has taught for the last nine years at UC Berkeley both as a Primary Instructor and as a Graduate Student Instructor on a number of topics, including Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Heidegger’s Being and Time, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Aesthetics, Ethics, and Logic. In 2021, she received the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award.

More about Pia