Principles of literary criticismRichards, I. A. (Ivor Armstrong)
Philosophy
Principles of literary criticism
Richards, I. A. (Ivor Armstrong)
Criticism
These metaphysical entities, variously named Ideas, Notions,
Concepts or Universals, may be divided into two kinds, sensuous
and supersensuous.[17] The sensuous are those which may be apprehended
by the senses, such as ‘red’, ‘cold’, ‘round’, ‘swift’, ‘painful’,
and the supersensuous, those apprehended not in sensuous perception
but otherwise. Logical relations, ‘necessity’ or ‘impossibility,’
and such ideas as ‘willing’, ‘end’, ‘cause’, and ‘being three
in number’, have in this way been supposed to be directly apprehensible
by the mind. Amongst these supersensuous Ideas good is to be
found.
Nothing could be simpler than such a view, and to many people
the subsistence of such a property of goodness appears not surprising.
But to others the suggestion seems merely a curious survival
of abstractionism, if such a term may be defended by its close
parallel with obstructionism. A blind man in a dark room chasing
a black cat which is not there would seem to them well employed
in comparison with a philosopher apprehending such ‘Concepts’.
While ready for convenience of discourse to talk and even to
think as though Concepts and Particulars were separable and distinct
kinds of entities, they refuse to believe that the structure
of the world actually contains such a cleavage. The point is
perhaps undiscussable, and is probably unimportant, except in
so far as the habit of regarding the world as actually so cloven
is a fruitful source of bogus entities, usually hypostatised
words. The temptation to introduce premature ultimates—Beauty
in Æsthetics, the Mind and its faculties in psychology, Life
in physiology, are representative examples—is especially great
for believers in Abstract Entities. The objection to such Ultimates
is that they bring an investigation to a dead end too suddenly.
An ultimate Good is, in this instance, just such an arbitrary
full stop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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