Karl Axelsson

Forskning

• Early modern philosophy
• Philosophy of religion
• Shaftesbury
• Cambridge Platonism
• Environmental aesthetics

Current Projects

• Chapter in Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3 in Cambridge History of Platonism (5 vols), eds. Douglas Hedley, Charles Taliaferro, and Samuel Kaldas (Cambridge University Press)

• Chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Moses Mendelssohn, eds. Anne Pollok, Corey Dyck, Michah Gottlieb, and Paul Guyer (Oxford University Press)

• Chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Plant Aesthetics, eds. Emily Brady, Marcello di Paola, and Isis Brook (Palgrave Macmillan)

• Swedish translation of Shaftesbury, Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author

Publications (books)

• Shaftesbury, God, and Environmental Aesthetics (under contract, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
• Art and Nature: Environmental Aesthetics in the Age of Global Climate Crisis (under contract, Oslo: Scandinavian University Press), co-editors Charles Ivan Armstrong, Sigurd Tenningen, and Camilla Flodin
• Swedish translation of the third Earl of Shaftesbury, The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody. Being a Recital of Certain Conversations on Natural and Moral Subjects (Stockholm: Thales, 2022)
• Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2021 [paperback 2022]), Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy (co-editors Mattias Pirholt and Camilla Flodin)
• Political Aesthetics: Addison and Shaftesbury on Taste, Morals, and Society (London: Bloomsbury, 2019 [paperback 2021])​​​​​​​
• The Sublime: Precursors and British Eighteenth-Century Conceptions, diss. Uppsala University (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007)
• Tystnad Tagning [on the Regional History of Swedish Cinema, 1919–1968] (Torsby: Heidrun, 2000)

Selected Essays and Reviews

• “The Scottish Enlightenment,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Sublime, eds. Emily Brady, Patrick Cheney, and Philip Hardie (in press, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026)
• Aesthetic Expertise: An Exploration and Defense by Ole Martin Skilleås, review in British Journal of Aesthetics (2025), https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayaf015
• “Nature as a Self: Shaftesbury on the Beauty of Plants and Animals,” in Ästhetische Kommunikation in Europa 1700–1850, eds. Gergely Fórizs, Piroska Balogh, Katalin Bartha-Kovács, and Botond Csuka, Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung Band 74 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025), 7-24
• “Vi lever inte i en ondskefull värld, hävdade den tredje earlen av Shaftesbury,” Dagens Nyheter, 29.11.2024
• “Shaftesbury on Natural Beauty, Science, and Animals,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2024, vol. 32, no. 6, 1421-1427
• “Aesthetics and Politics,” in Aesthetic Theory Across the Disciplines, eds. Max Ryynänen and Zoltán Somhegyi (Washington: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), 75-91
• “Introduction,” to the Swedish translation of the third Earl of Shaftesbury, The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody. Being a Recital of Certain Conversations on Natural and Moral Subjects, ed. and trans. Karl Axelsson (Stockholm: Thales, 2022), vii-xxiv
• “Om vi inte kan förstå ekens skönhet, så kan vi inte förstå oss själva,” Dagens Nyheter, 28.11.2022
• “Introduction,” in Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2021 [paperback 2022]), Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy (co-written with Mattias Pirholt and Camilla Flodin), 1–17
• “Beauty, Nature, and Society in Shaftesbury's The Moralists,” in Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2021 [paperback 2022]), Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, 47–69
• “Shaftesbury om poetisk sanning och det naturliga samhället” [Shaftesbury on poetical truth and natural society], Lychnos: An Annual for History of Ideas and Science (Swedish Society for the History of Science and Ideas), 2017, 11–26
• “Contemplation or Manipulation? Aesthetic Perspectives on Nature and Animals from Shaftesbury to Bio-Art,” International Yearbook of Aesthetics (Santa Cruz, California: International Association for Aesthetics, 2017), 29–41
• “Shaftesbury på svenska: Moralisterna, Richard Hejll och översättandets konst” [Shaftesbury in Swedish: The Moralists, Richard Hejll, and the art of translation], Biblis (National Library of Sweden, Stockholm), no. 76, 2016/2017, 43–47
• “A Realized Disposition: Shaftesbury on Natural Affections and Taste,” in New Ages, New Opinions: Shaftesbury in his World and Today, ed. Patrick Müller (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2014), 27–44
• “Shaftesbury auf Deutsch: Estetik, Bildung och ett intresselöst intresse” [Shaftesbury auf Deutsch: Aesthetics, Bildung, and a disinterested interest], Biblis (National Library of Sweden, Stockholm), no. 63, 2014, 62–67
• “‘Taste is not to conform to the art, but the art to the taste’: Aesthetic Instrumentalism and the British Body Politic in the Neoclassical Age,” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, vol. 5, 2013, 16 pp., DOI: 10.3402/jac.v5i0.21096
• “De brittiska moralisterna: Konsten att bilda ett smakomdöme och förnedra en slav” [The British Moralists: The art of forming a judgment of taste and humiliating a slave], Subaltern (Bokförlaget h:ström – Text & Kultur), no. 4, 2012, 60–63
• Music as a Science of Mankind in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Maria Semi, review in Eighteenth-Century Music, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, 16–18
• Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century by Jenny Davidson, review in English Studies. A Journal of English Language and Literature, vol. 93, no. 4, 2012, 493–495
• “Mellan känslor och normer: Hume om smakomdömet och kritikern” [Emotions and norms: Hume on the judgment of taste and the critic], in Förnuft, Känsla, Moral: perspektiv på David Hume, ed. Robert Callergård (Stockholm: Thales, 2011), 13–33
• “The (Un)changing Nature: Judgment of Taste and Bildung in The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardianin the Early Eighteenth Century,” Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2011, 72–92
• “Konst och Moral i 1700-talets Storbritannien” [Art and morals in eighteenth century Britain], Tvärsnitt, Swedish Research Council, no. 3, 2009, 35–38
• “Joseph Addison and General Education: Moral Didactics in Early Eighteenth Century Britain,” Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, no. 2, 2009, 144–166
• “Könsspecifika erfarenheter och transpersonen i akademin” [Gender specific experiences and transgender in the academy], Tidningen Kulturen, 16.4.2009
• “Joseph Addison och The Spectator – Borgerlighetens folkbildare” [Joseph Addison and The Spectator – educators of the middle class], Noesis. Idéhistorisk tidskrift, Stockholm University, no. 4, 2008, 5–13
• Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology and English Literature in Context, review in TFL – Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, no. 2, 2008, 94–98
• “Kulturindustrin” [The culture industry], Dagens Nyheter, 11.2.2008 (co-author Dr Camilla Flodin, Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University)
• “Hyllning till osäkerhetens skönhetsvärde,” an essay on Alexander Nehamas’ Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art (Princeton: PUP, 2007), Svenska Dagbladet, 13.7.2007
• “Höjd över livets medelmåttiga stunder,” an essay on James Kirwan’s Sublimity: The Non-Rational and the Irrational in the History of Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2005), Svenska Dagbladet, 28.9.2005
• “Från idé till fantasi. Om modernitet och modernism” [From idea to imagination: On modernity and modernism], Valör. Konstvetenskapliga studier, Department of Art History, Uppsala University, no. 2–3, 2003, 7–21
• “Queer på film” [Queer in cinema], Upsala Nya Tidning, 26.10.2001