This volume is dedicated to the socio-political role of art and aesthetics, as well as the specific relationship between philosophy and literature. Some of the issues discussed here relate to the ideological use and/or abuse of art, and the question of whether art should be engaged or disengaged. These questions, in turn, lead to the need for a more precise philosophical or aesthetic definition of art, and thus to a renewed clarification of the relationship between art and religion, on the one hand, and between literature and philosophy, on the other.