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
This confirms the truth of the ordinary remark to the effect that
he who reasons ill, also speaks and writes ill, that exact logical
analysis is the basis of good expression. This truth is a tautology,
for to reason well is in fact to express oneself well, because the
expression is the intuitive possession of one's own logical thought.
The principle of contradiction itself is at bottom nothing but
the æsthetic principle of coherence. It may be maintained that it
is possible to write and to speak exceedingly well, as it is also
possible to reason well though starting from erroneous concepts; that
some, though lacking the acuteness that makes a great discoverer,
are nevertheless exceedingly lucid writers; because to write well
depends upon having a clear intuition of one's own thought, even if
it be erroneous; not of its scientific, but of its æsthetic truth,
which indeed is the same thing as writing well. A philosopher like
Schopenhauer can imagine that art is a representation of the Platonic
ideas. This doctrine is scientifically false, yet he may develop this
false knowledge in excellent prose, æsthetically most true. But we
have already replied to these objections, when observing that at that
precise point where a speaker or a writer enunciates an ill-thought
concept, he is at the same time a bad speaker and a bad writer,
although he may afterwards recover himself in the many other parts
of his thought which contain true propositions not connected with
the preceding error, and therefore lucid expressions following upon
confused expressions.
[Sidenote: _Reformed logic._]
All researches as to the forms of judgements and of syllogisms, their
conversions and their various relations, which still encumber treatises
on Logic, are therefore destined to diminish, to be transformed, to be
converted into something else. The doctrine of the concept and of the
organism of concepts, of definition, of system, of philosophy and the
various sciences, and the like, will occupy the field and alone will
constitute true and proper Logic.
Those who first had some suspicion of the intimate connexion between
Æsthetic and Logic and conceived Æsthetic as a _Logic of sensible
knowledge_ were peculiarly addicted to applying logical categories to
the new knowledge, talking of _æsthetic concepts, æsthetic judgements,
æsthetic syllogisms,_ and so on. We who are less superstitious as
regards the permanence of the traditional Logic of the schools,
and better informed as to the nature of Æsthetic, do not recommend
the application of Logic to Æsthetic, but the liberation of Logic
from æsthetic forms. These have given rise to non-existent forms or
categories of Logic, due to the adoption of altogether arbitrary and
ill-considered distinctions.
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