Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art

This volume of essays deals with values and their place in the humanities. As Professor Gombrich writes in the Preface, 'There are moments in the life of an academic when he feels prompted to get up from his university chair and mount the pulpit ...' Ranging in subject from the philosophy of Hegel to wartime propaganda broadcasts, the future of museums and the role of reason and feeling in the study of art, Professor Gombrich consistently argues for the ideals of tolerance and pluralism and against the idols of determinism and relativism that would threaten all culture.