The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
[Footnote 113: The difference between a material instrument, which is
a mere means to an end conceived by the craftsman, such as a plough
for ploughing, a rake for raking, and a purpose inseparable from the
organic whole as a mouth for eating, for without life the organism
collapses.]
[Footnote 114: _Für sich._]
[Footnote 115: In his history of Aesthetic in Germany Lötze disputes
this. It seems to some extent a question of definition. In Hegel's view
a dead body is not a human body in the full sense, but the _corpse_ of
a man. A hand separated from the body, whether we call it a hand or
not, is no longer, whatever it may be, a living member, its essential
significance as a hand has disappeared. It was only a hand in its
coherence as part of a larger whole. It may still for a time preserve
the semblance of its life, but it is cut off as the withered leaf.
These are facts at least that are undeniable, and the objection appears
to me based on a misunderstanding. A hand is only _an und für sich_
human when it is part of a living man. What is the organic reality in
the complete sense is the man as a _whole._ The hand is merely the
extremity of one of his arms. You may call a dead hand a hand if you
like. The point is what was implied in the fact that you called it a
hand at all whether alive or dead.]
[Footnote 116: That is, by Kant, of course.]
[Footnote 117: By _Verwicklung_ I understand the general evolution of
ideal philosophy which the defects of the Kantian Critique stimulated.
Professor Bosanquet apparently limits it to a perplexity personal to
Schiller. I doubt whether the word will bear this.]
[Footnote 118: That is, the concrete idea of humanity as a collective
aggregate.]
[Footnote 119: That is, intelligence as asserted by a society of human
beings as public opinion, etc.]
[Footnote 120: _Die Ineinsbildung._]
[Footnote 121: "Grace and Dignity."]
[Footnote 122: _Gesinnungen._ "Sentimental views" is probably what is
implied.]
[Footnote 123: _Alle Sache._]
[Footnote 124: Professor Bosanquet is clearly right in his view that
the order of the words here should be reversed. The words _an und für
sich_ are obviously the wider explication of _in sick selbst_, the
auxiliary, as not unfrequently in Hegel, being almost equivalent to
_nämlich._ Whether a misprint or an oversight I have translated subject
to this correction.]
[Footnote 125: I presume the revelation is not merely that of visible
shape or even mainly.]
[Footnote 126: _Das alles aus sich setzende und auflösende Ich._ The
three points emphasized by Hegel in Fichte's "Philosophy" are: (_a_)
The Ego is abstract; (_b_) Everything is a _show_ for it; (_c_) Its own
acts are a semblance.]
[Footnote 127: Hegel uses the word _Eitelkeit_ and _eitle_ in their
double sense of empty-nothingness--futility and vain or conceited. This
cannot be readily reproduced in English.]
[Footnote 128: _Schönseligkeit._ Borrowed no doubt from Goethe's notion
of a "fair soul."]
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