15 ideas
| 22026 | Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is actually homesickness - the urge to be everywhere at home. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 45) | |
| A reaction: The idea of home [heimat] is powerful in German culture. The point of romanticism was seen as largely concerning restless souls like Byron and his heroes, who do not feel at home. Hence ironic detachment. |
| 9254 | In philosophy the truth can only be reached via the ruins of the false [Prichard] |
| Full Idea: In philosophy the truth can only be reached via the ruins of the false. | |
| From: H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925]) | |
| A reaction: A lovely remark! In a flash you suddenly see why philosophers expend such vast energy on such unpromising views of reality (e.g. idealism, panpsychism). This might be the best definition of philosophy I have yet discovered. |
| 21793 | Genuine truth is the resolution of the highest contradiction [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The highest truth, truth as such, is the resolution of the highest opposition and contradiction. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 99), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Art' | |
| A reaction: Uneasy about the word 'highest', and the general Hegelian dream of 'resolving' contradictions, rather than just eliminating at least one component of them. No one else uses the word 'truth' like this. I suppose this Truth has a capital 'T'. |
| 21795 | What I hold true must also be part of my feelings and character [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Whatever I hold as true, whatever ought to be valid for me, must also be in my feeling, must belong to my being and character. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 97), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Philosophy' | |
| A reaction: I can see that truths do tend to become part of our character, but not that they ought to do so. I suppose I try to live my life enmeshed in the many truths which I have personally selected from the maelstrom of possibilities that engulf us. |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: An absolute drive toward perfection and completeness is an illness, as soon as it shows itself to be destructive and averse toward the imperfect, the incomplete. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 33) | |
| A reaction: Deep and true! Novalis seems to be a particularist - hanging on to the fine detail of life, rather than being immersed in the theory. These are the philosophers who also turn to literature. |
| 18549 | 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 |
| 22043 | 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. |
| 22042 | 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? |
| 20413 | For Hegel the importance of art concerns the culture, not the individual [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
| Full Idea: Hegel locates the significance of art in its role in cultural life in general, not in relation to the psychological needs of individuals. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) 1 | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to see that art is a wonderful focus and test case for political attitudes. Roughly, liberalism focuses on individual responses, but more societal views (from right and left) see it in terms of role in the community. Which are you? |
| 20394 | The purpose of art is to reveal to Spirit its own nature [Hegel, by Davies,S] |
| Full Idea: According to Hegel, the goal of art was to serve as a phase in a process by which Spirit would come to understand its own nature. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 2.7 | |
| A reaction: I try very hard to understand ideas like this. Really really hard. However, since I see little sign of 'Spirit' really understanding its own nature, I'm guessing that the project is not going well. |
| 21794 | The main purpose of art is to express the unity of human life [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Art's primary function, for Hegel, is to give expression to the unity and wholeness of life - especially human life - that the contingencies of everyday existence frequently conceal. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Beauty' | |
| A reaction: I don't find the view that human life is 'unified' and 'whole' vary illuminating, and I have no objection to art which reflects the fragmentary and unstable aspects of life. I suspect Hegel would just prefer it if life were a unity. |
| 20415 | Art forms a bridge between the sensuous world and the world of pure thought [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Spirit generates out of itself works of fine art as the first reconciling middle term between pure thought and what is merely external, sensuous and transient - between finite natural reality and the infinite freedom of conceptual thinking. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], p.8), quoted by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) | |
| A reaction: This apparently says that there is necessarily an intellectual and conceptual component in art. This means little to me. Does he include portraits? Dutch domestic scenes? Would photography qualify? |
| 9256 | I see the need to pay a debt in a particular instance, and any instance will do [Prichard] |
| Full Idea: How can I be brought to see the truth of the principle of paying a debt except in connection with a particular instance? For this purpose any instance will do. If I cannot see that I ought to pay this debt, I shall not see that I ought to a debt. | |
| From: H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925]) | |
| A reaction: This isn't quite particularism, which would (I think) say that the degree of obligation will never be quite the same in any two situations, and so one instance will not suffice to understand the duty. |
| 9257 | The complexities of life make it almost impossible to assess morality from a universal viewpoint [Prichard] |
| Full Idea: Owing to the complication of human relations, the problem of what one ought to do from the point of view of life as a whole is one of intense difficulty. | |
| From: H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925]) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that the difficulty is not the problems engendered by complexity, but that there is no answer available from the most objective point of view. Morality simply is a matter of how daily life is conducted, with medium-term goals only. |
| 9255 | Seeing the goodness of an effect creates the duty to produce it, not the desire [Prichard] |
| Full Idea: The appreciation of the goodness of the effect is different from desire for the effect, and will originate not the desire but the sense of obligation to produce it. | |
| From: H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925]) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful rebuttal of Hume, and a much better account of duty than Kant's idea that it arises from reason. Perception of value is what generates duty. And (with Frankfurt) we may say that love is what generates value. |