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AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION
AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO CROCE
BY
DOUGLAS AINSLIE B.A. (OXON.)
1909
THE AESTHETIC IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE MEMORY OF HIS PARENTS PASQUALE AND LUISA SIPARI AND OF HIS SISTER MARIA
NOTE
I give here a close translation of the complete Theory of Aesthetic, and in the Historical Summary, with the consent of the author, an abbreviation of the historical portion of the original work.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THEORY
I INTUITION AND EXPRESSION
Intuitive knowledge—Its independence in respect to the intellect— Intuition and perception—Intuition and the concepts of space and time—Intuition and sensation—Intuition and association—Intuition and representation—Intuition and expression—Illusions as to their difference—Identity of intuition and expression.
II INTUITION AND ART
Corollaries and explanations—Identity of art and of intuitive knowledge— No specific difference—No difference of intensity—Difference extensive and empirical—Artistic genius—Content and form in Aesthetic—Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic illusion—Critique of art conceived as a sentimental, not a theoretic fact—The origin of Aesthetic, and sentiment—Critique of the theory of Aesthetic senses—Unity and indivisibility of the work of art—Art as deliverer.
III ART AND PHILOSOPHY
Indissolubility of intellective and of intuitive knowledge—Critique of the negations of this thesis—Art and science—Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry—The relation of first and second degree—Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms—Historicity—Identity and difference in respect of art—Historical criticism—Historical scepticism—Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural sciences, and their limits—The phenomenon and the noumenon.
IV HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC
Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism—Critique of ideas in art, of art as thesis, and of the typical—Critique of the symbol and of the allegory—Critique of the theory of artistic and literary categories—Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art— Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories.
V ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC
Critique of the philosophy of History—Aesthetic invasions of Logic— Logic in its essence—Distinction between logical and non-logical judgments—The syllogism—False Logic and true Aesthetic—Logic reformed.
VI THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY
The will—The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge—Objections and explanations—Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value—Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic—Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content—Practical innocence of art—Independence of art—Critique of the saying: the style is the man—Critique of the concept of sincerity in art.
VII ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL
The two forms of practical activity—The economically useful— Distinction between the useful and the technical—Distinction between the useful and the egoistic—Economic and moral volition—Pure economicity—The economic side of morality—The merely economical and the error of the morally indifferent—Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and of Economic—Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity.
VIII EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS
The system of the spirit—The forms of genius—Inexistence of a fifth form of activity—Law; sociality—Religiosity—Metaphysic—Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect—Mystical Aesthetic—Mortality and immortality of art.
