Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General LinguisticCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic
Croce, Benedetto
Aesthetics; Language and languages -- Philosophy; Philosophy
The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the
intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations
between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which
are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar,
and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the
logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the
grammatical is dissoluble from the logical.
[Sidenote] _Grammatical classes or parts of speech._
If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a
country road, we can say: "This picture represents a fact of movement,
which, if conceived as volitional, is called _action_. And because every
movement implies _matter_, and every action a being that acts, this
picture also represents either _matter_ or a _being_. But this movement
takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given _star_ (the
Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called _terra-firma_,
and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass,
which is called _country_, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner
which is called _road_. Now, there is only one example of that given
star, which is called Earth: Earth is an _individual_. But
_terra-firma_, _country_, _road_, are _classes or universals_, because
there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads." And it
would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations.
By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for
example, one to this effect, "Peter is walking on a country road," and
by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of _verb_ (motion or
action), of _noun_ (matter or agent), of _proper noun_, of _common
nouns_; and so on.
What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to
logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that
is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in
general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the
logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of
movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual,
etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or
action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when
linguistic categories, or _parts of speech_, are made of all these, noun
and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom
altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already
criticized in the Aesthetic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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