Æsthetic as science of expression and general linguisticCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Æsthetic as science of expression and general linguistic
Croce, Benedetto
Aesthetics; Language and languages -- Philosophy; Philosophy
The question of the distinction between the æsthetic and the
intellectual fact appears in Linguistic as that of the relations
between Grammar and Logic. This problem has been solved in two
partially true ways: the _inseparability_ and the _separability_ of
Logic and Grammar. But the complete solution is this: if the logical
form be inseparable from the grammatical (æsthetic), the grammatical is
separable from the logical.
[Sidenote: _Grammatical kinds or parts of speech._]
If we look at a picture which for instance portrays a man walking on a
country road we may say: "This picture represents a fact of _movement,_
which, if conceived as voluntary, is called _action_; and since every
movement implies a _material object,_ and every action a _being_ that
acts, this picture also represents a _material object_ or _being._
But this movement takes place in a definite place, which is a piece
of a definite heavenly body (the Earth), and precisely of a piece of
it which is called _terra-firma,_ and more precisely of a part of it
that is wooded and covered with grass, which is called _country,_
cut naturally or artificially into a form called _road._ Now, there
is only one example of that star, which is called Earth: the earth
is an _individual._ But _terra-firma, country, road_ are genera 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_ (material object or agent), of
_proper noun,_ of _common noun;_ and so on.
What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than submit to
logical elaboration what first presented itself only æsthetically;
that is to say, we have destroyed the æsthetic for the logical. But
since in general Æsthetic error begins when we wish to return from the
logical to the æsthetic and ask what is the _expression_ of motion,
action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, etc.; so in
the case of 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 the parts of speech is really identical with
that of artistic and literary kinds, already criticized in our Æsthetic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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