Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Ian Dunt, Georg W.F.Hegel and Robert S. Wolf

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3 ideas

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 1. Aesthetics
Nineteenth century aesthetics focused on art rather than nature (thanks to Hegel) [Hegel, by Scruton]
     Full Idea: Only In the course of the nineteenth century, and in the wake of Hegel's posthumously published lectures on aesthetics, did the topic of art come to replace that of natural beauty as the core subject-matter of aesthetics.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], 5) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks [Hegel, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Unlike his predecessors (including Kant), Hegel does not focus on aesthetic pleasure, nor on good taste, nor even on the nature and criteria for beauty. Instead he focuses on the meaning of artworks and their role in forming mankind's self-consciousness.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
     A reaction: Personally I dislike over-intellectualising art. The aim of a work of art is to give a certain experience, not to generate an ensuing sequence of theorising. I doubt whether Vermeer had any 'meaning' in mind in his obsessive work.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom [Hegel, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Hegel thinks that natural beauty is of no real significance since it cannot display our freedom to us; nature per se is meaningless.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
     A reaction: Presumably freedom is in the creation, and so creativity is what matters in aesthetics. But what are the criteria of good creativity?