The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and EthicCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic
Croce, Benedetto
Economics; Ethics; Will
Nor can the connection be thought as are thought the subdivisions of
the theoretic and the practical forms, or according to the relations
of individual to universal, of finite to infinite, the first of
which terms conditions the second, but is conditioned by it only in
an implicit manner. Of the two theoretical forms (and we shall see
further on that the forms of the practical are also two), the æsthetic
precedes the logical and is autonomous: a song, a story, a statue, do
not express any concept; but the philosophy that gives the concept, is
at the same time fancy, expression, word: the prose of the philosopher
is his song. The æsthetic form is the knowledge of the individual;
the logical that of the universal, which is also individual. But this
relation that arises within the theoretic, as within the practical
form, cannot be transported to the relation of the two forms without
logical incoherence: the subdivision, so to speak, is not the
division. Thought is not the finite in respect of willing, which is
the infinite; nor is the will the finite in respect of thought, which
is the infinite. Thought and will are both of them at once finite
and infinite, individual and universal. He who passes from action to
thought, does not limit his own being by becoming finite; nor does he
limit it by passing from thought to action; or better, in both cases he
makes himself finite to attain to the infinite; poet to open to himself
the way to the thought of the eternally true; man of action, that he
may dedicate his work to the eternal good.
[Sidenote: _Perfect analogy of the two forms, theoretic and practical._]
The two forms, theoretical and practical, both positive, both a
connection of finite and infinite, correspond in everything, as has
already appeared from our exposition, in which the appeal to the one
from the problems of the other has always aided a better penetration
of the nature of such problems and the finding of their solution.
Thus in both there is genius and creation (geniuses of art and of
thought, and geniuses of action); in both, reproduction and judgment
take place in the same way (æsthetic taste, practical taste; history
of art and history of philosophy, history of actions); in both arise
representative concepts and empirical rules. The analogy will be
better illustrated by what is to follow, when will be demonstrated the
correspondence between art and economic, logical thought and ethicity,
historical discrimination and ethical discrimination, empirical
concepts and laws of action, and so on.
[Sidenote: _Not a parallelism, but a circle._]
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