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
In this summary sketch that we have given of the entire philosophy of
the spirit in its fundamental moments, the spirit is thus conceived
as consisting of four moments or degrees, disposed in such a way that
the theoretical activity is to the practical as the first theoretical
degree is to the second theoretical, and the first practical degree to
the second practical. The four moments imply one another regressively
by their concreteness. The concept cannot exist without expression, the
useful without both and morality without the three preceding degrees.
If the æsthetic fact is in a certain sense alone independent while
the others are more or less dependent, then the logical is the least
dependent and the moral will the most. Moral intention acts on given
theoretic bases, with which it cannot dispense, unless we are willing
to accept that absurd procedure known to the Jesuits as _direction of
intention,_ in which people pretend to themselves not to know what they
know only too well.
[Sidenote: _The forms of genius._]
[Sidenote: _The system of the spirit._]
If the forms of human activity are four, four also are the forms of
_genius._ Men endowed with genius in art, in science, and in moral
will or heroes, have always been recognized. But the genius of pure
economicity has met with repugnance. It is not altogether without
reason that a category of bad geniuses or of _geniuses of evil_ has
been created. The practical, merely economic genius, which is not
directed to a rational end, cannot but excite an admiration mingled
with alarm. To dispute as to whether the word "genius" should be
applied only to creators of æsthetic expression or also to men of
scientific research and of action would be a mere question of words. To
observe, on the other hand, that "genius," of whatever kind it be, is
always a quantitative conception and an empirical distinction, would be
to repeat what has already been explained as regards artistic genius.
[Sidenote: _Non-existence of a fifth form of activity. Law;
sociability._]
A fifth form of spiritual activity does not exist. It would be easy to
show how all the other forms either do not possess the character of
activity, or are verbal variants of the activities already examined, or
are complex and derivative facts, in which the various activities are
mingled, and are filled with particular and contingent contents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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