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
Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive
knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does
not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has excellent eyes
of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with
intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such
a mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of
a moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a
cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of
a sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in
ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of
intellectual relation. But, think what one may of these instances,
and admitting further the contention that the greater part of the
intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet
remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive.
Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions
are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and
fused, for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have
been concepts, but have now become simple elements of intuition.
The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of
tragedy or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts,
but of characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the
red in a painted face does not there represent the red colour of
the physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait.
The whole is that which determines the quality of the parts. A work
of art may be full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them
in greater abundance and they may there be even more profound than
in a philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to
overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But notwithstanding all
these concepts the total effect of the work of art is an intuition;
and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the total effect of the
philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains
copious ethical observations and distinctions, but does not for that
reason lose as a whole its character of simple story or intuition. In
like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions to be found in the
works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer do not deprive those works
of their character of intellectual treatises. The difference between
a scientific work and a work of art, that is, between an intellectual
fact and an intuitive fact, lies in the difference of the total effect
aimed at by their respective authors. This it is that determines and
rules over the several parts of each not these parts separated and
considered abstractly in themselves.
[Sidenote: _Intuition and perception._]
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