The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
(_d_) How far Art responds to a genuine spiritual want in
man
(_e_) The truth which forms the content of art, religion,
and philosophy differs only in the modes under
which it is presented]
CHAPTER I
THE NOTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL IN GENERAL
1. The Idea
[(_a_) The Idea is concrete, not abstract
(_b_) Objectivity is the real existence of the notion, and
the means whereby it is actualized
(_c_) The Idea is the harmonized totality of the two aspects]
2. The Determinate Existence of the Idea
3. The Idea of the Beautiful
[(_a_) Not apprehended alone by the faculty of the understanding,
or the finite categories
(_b_) The nature of finite or abstract apprehension and
practical volition considered
(_c_) The object of beauty resolves and the one-sidedness
of both standpoints in a free and infinite totality]
CHAPTER II
THE BEAUTY OF NATURE
A. The Beauty of Nature as such
1. The Idea as Life
[(_a_) The first mode under which the notion is in
Nature asserted as objectivity is that of physical
matter, the ideal unity whereof is not
found as ideality
(_b_) A further step is the integration of natural
objects under a unified system, as the solar system
(_c_) The third mode is that of organic Life. This
alone is a determinate existence of the Idea]
2. The animated life of Nature as Beauty
[(_a_) The motion of life considered in relation to the
conception of beauty
(_b_) The nature of organic unity, and the degree it
contributes to the beauty of an object
(_c_) The inward unity of soul-life and the degree it
contributes to the correlation of parts of an
organism, or is asserted in external form to
our senses rather than our reflection]
3. Modes under which the beauty of Nature is investigated
[(_a_) Where the form is immediately in the _materia_
as its essence or conformative energy, as in
crystals, or more concretely as the informing
soul through the living organism
(_b_) Mobility in animals as a test of their apparent
beauty
(_c_) Self-conscious life the culminating mode]
B. The external Beauty of abstract Form viewed as
Uniformity, Symmetry, Conformity to Rule, and
Harmony. Also Beauty regarded generally as
abstract unity of the Sensuous Material
C. The Defective Aspects of the Beauty of Nature
1. The Inward principle in its immediacy as merely
such inwardness
[(_a_) Immediate singularity as conserved in the purely
animal organism
(_b_) Of the nature of the contrast between the above
and the human body
(_c_) Social organizations viewed in such particularized
immediacy, and the defects they betray
as such external totalities]
2. The Dependence of particular existence as viewed
in its immediate singularity
[(_a_) The dependence of animal life upon its natural
environment
(_b_) The nature of a similar dependence in the case
of the human organism
(_c_) The dependence of human souls, or spiritual
interests, on the prose-life of ordinary existence]
3. The limitations implied by such conditions