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 aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several
forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which
pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior
senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact,
difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of
music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an
indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the
deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact
does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all
sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none
need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only
when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso
imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to
the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically
to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes
cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally
beautiful.
[Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._
The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The
conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the
actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is
not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he
frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates
spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also
means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant
energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the
consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an
aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game,
in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every
other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot
be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not
consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing
itself.
[Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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