The previous post mentioned some of Hegel’s conclusions on religion and history. Aesthetics is also an important part of his ideological system, so this post will focus on some of Hegel’s conclusions on aesthetics. issues are discussed.
This article only touches on a few issues that interest me in Hegel’s aesthetics, and does not touch on his logical theory, because it would be very complicated to discuss his logic and aesthetics together. , this is beyond my ability. In fact, there is no need to do so. You have to eat your food in mouthfuls, and of course you can only talk about the topics one by one. However, the term logic is occasionally mentioned in the article. This is only the relationship between aesthetics and logic, not a special treatment of logic.
Since we are discussing several issues in Hegel’s aesthetic thought, it is necessary to briefly describe the particularity of his aesthetic thought. At the same time, we will also mainly focus on Western philosophy and aestheticians’ views on Hegel. The evaluation of Geer's aesthetics and his position in the history of Western aesthetics are briefly introduced. Of course, I will inevitably have my own comments, but they are just following the example of the masters.
This is not a paper, so the writing format can be casual. I chose the prose (or essay) format. The advantage of this is: you can let it go according to your heart, as long as you can take it back in the end. It can also be called essays. Even so, after all, this involves philosophy and aesthetics, especially Hegel, and you will encounter a lot of convoluted terms and obscure concepts. I still follow my consistent approach: I must first "understand" it, and then try my best. Use plain language to describe it. If you still know a little about yourself and don't understand it thoroughly, you will never pretend to be a hero and copy something to make a difference.
About Hegel’s ideological system
The content involved in this topic is by no means as scary as the title, because Hegel’s aesthetic discussion is inseparable from his ideological system of. His ideological system is very huge and cannot be explained clearly in a single essay. Therefore, here I can only summarize the aspects of "Hegel's thought" that may be involved in Hegel's aesthetic discussion to the best of my knowledge and understanding. The content is briefly introduced so that readers can understand his aesthetic point of view.
Let’s talk about two words first: “reality” and “concept”.
Hegel believed that "reality" refers to individual things themselves. From an abstract point of view, "reality" only has individuality, which must be one-sided and unreal. The "concept" is universal and is not interfered by any senses in human thinking.
When "reality" is combined with "concept", the universality of "concept" is obtained. Therefore, "reality" naturally denies its original one-sidedness and abstract individuality. This is his The famous "negation of negation". A few more words, the first negation is: "Concept" sets up the opposite in itself - "reality" to deny the abstractness and one-sidedness of "reality". Then there is the negation of negation (the first negation is opposition), that is, the concept and reality are unified to negate the first negation - opposition (which is the familiar saying of "unity of opposites"). In the sentence "negation of negation", the first negation is a verb, which negates the following "negation", while the second negation is a noun, which refers to "opposition". Two things are negated here: "individuality and One-sidedness" and "the opposition between concept and reality", this is what the negation of negation means. When the concept sets up the opposite, it simultaneously denies itself and at the same time becomes unified with the opposite. After the negation of the negative, it reaffirms itself. This is a dialectical process and a representative example of Hegel's application of "dialectics" to thinking activities. Lao Ma summarized this as one of the laws of "dialectics".
In Hegel's terms, 'concept' relies on the "mediating role" of "reality". In the process of "self-negation", it is "self-determined" (obtaining characterization), that is, " Spontaneous exhibition”.
In Hegel's philosophy, the basic source of the universe and the world is of course God, but when he discussed it, he also introduced his own "absolute idea" or "absolute spirit" about God and the absolute. Hegel was vague about which spirit has the final right to interpret, and no clearer discussion can be found in his works. He used his own "syllogism": "existence", "nothing" and "unity" to describe the movement of the universe, and then expanded it to his dialectics. With slight changes, it became the formula of "positive, negative and combination", which negated it. Negation is also a standard form of the specific application of this syllogism. (Note that the "syllogism" here is not the 'large and small premise and conclusion' syllogism in logic)
With the previous explanation, I think the unique meanings contained in these unique nouns should be It’s not difficult to understand.
About "idea".
Hegel believes that the phenomenal world we see is limited. The reason why it is limited is that this thing is opposed to the surrounding things. The relationship between these opposite things is mutual restriction, so they are mutually opposed. of. But "idea" is not like this. "Idea" is not subject to external restrictions. Instead, it sets up its own opposites and negates itself, that is, it is "self-determined" and "self-generated". In this sense, "idea" is Infinite is "absolute" and is not limited by the inevitable relationship between opposite things. It can be clearly seen that Hegel’s “absolute” means that there is no limit and is not subject to any restrictions.
Therefore, the entire real world (note: not the phenomenal world) is an "absolute idea". It is an abstract concept or a logical concept, and is the result of the transformation from opposition to unity with nature. This absolute idea is the famous "absolute spirit" (Black Geer sometimes uses "mind" instead of "absolute spirit"), which is the highest reality (this is a bit like the "truth" or "truth" in Buddhism). Therefore, Hegel regards ideas as actual, absolute, free, and independent existence. The meanings of these words are the same for him. As can be seen from the previous introduction, Hegel believes that "absolute spirit" is the unity of concept and existence, that is, the unity of subjective spirit and objective spirit. By the way, this is also a topic that has been debated in philosophy: the relationship between thinking and existence (such as which comes first and which comes last).
Hegel believes that "existence" has three forms: the "existence" of an idea in the abstract stage of logic is a kind of "potential", "empty existence" or "abstract existence" (yes , just spinning around in the mind, it must be potential and imaginary); the kind of "existence" in the natural stage is "in-itself" or "real existence"; and the kind of "existence" that embodies the human spirit is "But for oneself". "Self-consciousness" means "self-consciousness" and "self-knowledge" (there is a kind of "subjective initiative" in it). Only in the state of "being by itself", the spirit is truly "infinite", "independent", and is the "absolute spirit" - the third kind of "existence".
In his famous "Logic", Hegel basically elaborated all his philosophical thoughts, that is, "the relationship between thinking and existence". He believes that the origin of the world is not material but spiritual and ideological. He said that materialism "always thinks that those things that are opposite to it can be detected by the senses... On the contrary, they think that thoughts are dependent on other things and have no independent existence. But really speaking, things that can be detected by the senses It is truly subordinate and has no independent existence, while thought is original and truly independent.” In his thought, spirit refers to a "self-reliant" objective thought that is independent of the individual. This objective thought constitutes the entire content of the entire objective world, and the essence or origin is the "absolute spirit." His entire philosophy is a description of the dialectical development and movement of the absolute spirit.
Hegel believed that "absolute spirit" appears in art, religion and philosophy. When it comes to philosophy, the spirit has developed to its peak, that is, the real world has developed to its end. Okay, I guess these are enough.
About Aesthetics
As the name suggests, aesthetics is of course the study of beauty. But whether aesthetics is just the study of beauty has been debated in the West. Since the beginning of human history, there has been the pursuit of beauty and the concept of aesthetics. Regarding beauty, aestheticians basically summarize it as natural beauty and artistic beauty. Natural beauty is all the things that already exist in nature that can arouse our sensory pleasure; artistic beauty is such as poetry, painting, drama, sculpture...etc. It is something that people participate in the creation and can also arouse our senses. By 1750, German philosopher Baumgarten was the first to propose that aesthetics should become an independent discipline and named this "discipline" "Estetieck". The word comes from the Greek root word "sensation." Bao believes that since it is a feeling, it is a kind of epistemology, and it is opposed to logic, because feeling is carried out by the senses and does not require the involvement of logic. From then on, fine art became an independent discipline and came into being. Bao defined aesthetics as perceptual knowledge. He believes that "aesthetics is the art of thinking in a beautiful way, and it is the art theory of beauty" and has nothing to do with rationality.
Because aesthetics has become an independent discipline, historians of Western aesthetics are accustomed to discussing aesthetics (the same as the history of philosophy) starting from Plato in Greece. Although people were talking about beauty and various aesthetic opinions and viewpoints before Bao, the real study from an epistemological perspective started with the German rationalist philosopher Leibniz.
Since aesthetics belongs to epistemology, it is related to philosophy. Beginning with Leibniz (one of the founders of "rationalist philosophy" as later Western philosophers called him), aesthetics was limited to perceptual activities. In this way, he opposed aesthetics and rationality. One of his famous words goes like this: "Although painters and artists are very aware of what is good and what is bad, they often cannot find reasons for their aesthetic taste. If someone asks them , they will reply that the work they don’t like lacks some reason that I can’t explain.” The phrase "unspeakable reasons" quickly became fashionable and became a mantra in France at the time.
The largest faction in Western aesthetics after that, such as the representatives of German classical aesthetics, Kant, Wolf, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche...all the way to the modern Italian philosopher Croce etc., all believe that aesthetics and artistic activities are only related to perceptual knowledge, and perceptuality is the decisive factor. Other factions, such as British empiricism, the psychological research aesthetics developed in modern times, etc., also basically hold this view.
Historians of aesthetics include Hegel’s aesthetics as a branch of German classical aesthetics, so it is necessary to briefly introduce German classical aesthetics. The representative figure of German classical aesthetics is of course Kant.
Kant did not agree with the British empiricism's equating of "beautiful" and "pleasant", nor did he agree with Bao's approach. He tried to blend the two (note, blending, not unifying). He believes that the empiricists confuse beauty and pleasure; the rationalists confuse beauty and perfection (because rationalism believes that aesthetic cognitive activities are a low-level cognitive activity). Both fail to grasp the essence of beauty, so he hopes to combine the two. To reconcile, it is pointed out that ideal beauty lies in the reconciliation of reason and sensibility. These insights of his had a great influence on the subsequent research on German aesthetics. Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, etc. all conducted research along the direction of Kant, although they had great differences. Later generations called Kant the founder of German classical aesthetics, which I think is very accurate.
Hegel's Aesthetics
"Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas." This is Hegel's definition of beauty and a summary of his aesthetic thoughts. We have discussed Hegel’s philosophical thought before: Ideas and spirit come first, and what the senses feel is subordinate to ideas. All his aesthetic thoughts are of course determined by his philosophical thoughts. Therefore, beauty is of course determined by ideas. He believes that aesthetics is in the absolute spirit and the low stage of self-understanding. It is different from philosophy. Philosophy understands itself through abstract concepts, while aesthetics is when ideas show themselves through perceptual images. Therefore, "Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas."
Here we can clearly see the difference between Hegel’s aesthetic thought and other representatives of German classical aesthetics and mainstream Western schools: Hegel: Beauty is the product of ideas, and beauty is nothing more than beauty. It is just the perceptual manifestation of ideas; the mainstream Western aesthetic school: beauty is, and is only a perceptual activity, and has nothing to do with logic and reason. When Zhu Guangqian summarized the situation of Hegelian aesthetics in the history of Western aesthetics, he said that he was "lonely". There are very few reviews on the history of aesthetics written by Western scholars that have been translated in our country, but I believe and agree with Master Zhu Guangqian’s conclusion. There are many examples of this conclusion in his works, so I will not copy them.
Hegel’s aesthetic thought is a reflection of his philosophical thought. Under the influence of such philosophical thoughts, the conclusions drawn from the study of aesthetics will of course be deeply imprinted with his philosophical ideas, that is, thought and absolute spirit transcend the senses; the other is that he will of course use dialectics to To describe aesthetics, it means that aesthetics, like human history, develops and changes, and this change and development follows rules. Hegel's aesthetic thoughts are concentrated in his aesthetic monograph "Aesthetics", which has been translated into Chinese by Zhu Guangqian in the last century. The first part: Principles of Aesthetics; the second part: The development of artistic types; the third part: Correspondence Categories of art types. The main contents or viewpoints in the book are, first of all, the famous "outline": "Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas"; secondly, "artistic beauty is higher than natural beauty"; and finally, art, beauty also has historical development rules.
This article only discusses his three basic views.
First, "Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas."
Second, artistic beauty is higher than natural beauty. "We can say with certainty that artistic beauty is higher than natural beauty, because artistic beauty is produced and regenerated by the mind. As much as the mind and its products are higher than nature and its phenomena, artistic beauty is also higher than natural beauty." (Hegel "Aesthetics", translated by Zhu Guangqian). He believes that there is a qualitative difference between artistic beauty and natural beauty. At the beginning of his "Aesthetics", "what is discussed is not general beauty, but only artistic beauty" and believes that the real name of aesthetics should be "art philosophy". According to Hegel, the reason why art exists is to prove the existence of spirit. So art belongs to which abstract absolute spirit, similar to the abstract idea of ??God, is the highest level. It is a pity that he is "lonely". Western aestheticians do not give Master Hegel any respect at all, and still use the name given by Bao which has the Greek root of "sensibility".
Third, art history has a development trajectory. Here, he divided art history into three stages (Hegel always likes to divide everything into three stages, two, or three. More than two are impossible. For example, human history and religious history also have three stages): the lower stage is the Eastern period, where ideas and forms are unbalanced. Easterners only know forms and do not have the nobility of ideas; in the classical period, ideas and forms are not balanced. The form is balanced and achieves perfect harmony; "Romantic Period": Idea and form are unbalanced, and the idea exceeds the form. According to these three stages, art is divided into three types: first, symbolic art (low-level Eastern), material overwhelms the spirit ("material overflows the spirit"); second, classical art (starting from Greece to Germany) Classical aesthetics), is the perfect harmony between art and spirit; third, romantic art, the spirit presses onto the material ("the spirit overflows the material"). It can be seen that he regarded the evolution of nature and art as the evolution of spirit overcoming matter. He placed the golden age of art in the past. He believes that the philosophy of the world reached its philosophical peak in Prussia, and Prussian poetry was also the fixed point and end of the development of literature and art. From then on, art began to enter the romantic period. This was a downward trend, announcing the "death of art", but the development of art Death also means that "art will give way to philosophy", and "art philosophy" will eventually replace all art.
The above two conclusions rely on the premise that "beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas."
"Beauty itself should be understood as an idea, and it should be understood as an idea with a definite form, that is, an ideal. Generally speaking, an idea is nothing else, it is a concept. What a concept represents is, and this The unity of the two...", "Beauty is an idea, that is, the real direct unity of concept and embodied concept, but this unity must exist directly in the manifestation of perceptual reality to be the idea of ??beauty" (Hegel "Aesthetics", translated by Zhu Guangqian). Aestheticians first noticed that Hegel's definition of beauty here is not prescriptive at all. Because there is no comparison, people will naturally ask, since there is beauty, what is ugliness? Only beauty emerges from the idea? According to the standard dialectical model, that is, the unity of opposites advocated by Hegel, beauty should have its opposite "ugly", but Hegel "omitted" ugliness because according to his definition of beauty, ideas can pass through sensibility. It is reflected, and the idea has been unified through the "negation of negation", or through the three-stage model of "positive and negative combination", and ugliness has been negated in the process of unification, or dialectics. Things, therefore, the unified concept can only reflect beauty. However, "When a person's cruel, cold,... ideas are expressed in him, then when his sensibility is revealed, is this idea also the beauty and the embodiment of beauty?" (Ye Zhiqiu: "No Beauty" Science. Critique of the Essence Theory of Western Aesthetics"). Can't ideas be revealed from sensibility to be ugly? Everything about Hegel's fellow countryman Hitler has been perceived by people all over the world through the senses of the world. Using Hegel's definition, what our ideas and sensibility can reveal can only be the beauty of Hitler, and nothing else. things. A more important question is: which comes first, that is, feeling, that is, what is perceived by the senses, and ideas. According to this definition, ideas exist before the beauty of things felt by the senses. So no matter what "reality" is, our ideas have already had a qualitative view of it. If it is revealed through sensibility, it means that we have already understood it in advance. It is just the expression of some ideas, and what is revealed by sensibility can only be beauty. In Hegel, ideas can only embody beauty through sensibility. This definition gives people the impression that it can be used at will, and it cannot be justified at all.
The conclusion that "artistic beauty is higher than natural beauty" is to admit that nature is beautiful, but natural beauty is far lower than artistic beauty. Using Hegel's ideological logic, the reason is that although natural beauty is also beautiful, it does not contain spiritual components and does not embody ideas, so it is inferior. The beauty of art is the embodiment of human ideas, which is advanced and much more beautiful than natural beauty. The reason is that the former is felt by our senses and is perceptual and does not contain elements of ideas; the latter is the idea revealed through perceptuality. According to his inference, we can think that when we face the magnificent natural scenery and sincerely praise it, we must also admit that the natural scenery in a painting is worse than ours. The real environment that is being admired now is much more beautiful; a bright real rose is obviously not as beautiful as one on canvas, and so on. Here, Hegel apparently forgot that he was a Catholic. According to Christian beliefs, everything in nature, including things that make us feel beautiful, was created by God. However, Hegel believed that the beautiful nature directly created by God is obviously not as beautiful as the artistic beauty created by man, because the artistic beauty created by man is the manifestation of absolute spirit (idea), which separates God from his "absolute spirit" After making a comparison, God and his absolute spirit have become the two highest cosmic origins that exist at the same time. If there are really two cosmic origins, he has obviously fallen into another paradox and cannot extricate himself (and the absolute Spirit seems to be so much higher than God). The truth should be that the beauty of nature does not involve the participation of ideas, but we feel the beauty. The beauty of nature is not the manifestation of our ideas. He clearly stated that the order that produces beauty is inorganic matter - plants - animals - humans, and classical beauty focuses on the beauty of the human body. However, he no longer explained that inorganic matter other than humans can cause beauty. Plants and animals are not manifestations of the Idea. If we use Hegel's logic, could it be that these beauties entered our ideas before they were created? Our ideas have already had such reserves. When the beauty of nature appears, it is in tune with our ideas. So we feel beauty. There is an obvious and irreconcilable contradiction between the results deduced by his logic and the results he himself declared. I think the problem is with Hegel's dialectics, not with the dialectics itself.
In addition to oppositions, there are also differences among things in the world. Differences are not oppositions. There is a difference between the beauty of nature and the beauty of art, and there are differences between people's sensory experiences. The "negation of negation" of Hegel's dialectics only sees the opposition, does not see the actual differences, does not recognize the differences, uses logic to deduce the differences between nature, human senses, and emotions, and treats the original differences as Success is opposition, which is one of the reasons why Hegel came to this conclusion. Its root comes from using the extremely abstract concept of idea, or absolute spirit, as the standard for judging everything (whether it is history, religion or beauty) .
But the other side we need to see is that in his dialectics, when Hegel used the famous "positive and negative combination" formula to discuss beauty, he did not see "opposition" in the examples he cited, such as beauty and Ugly, he did not explain or discuss how to unify these opposites. Instead, he described the differences as oppositions.
Regarding the three stages of art, the three classifications and the historical development laws of beauty, Hegel still uses its ideas and dialectics as the standard for judgment and reasoning. He believes that in the ancient East, including Egypt, India and China, their spirit was still abstract at that time, and spirit and matter were not connected or decoupled. For example, "Brahma" in India and "Heaven" in China cannot be derived from any specific image, so Eastern art is only symbolic. Because of this, Eastern architecture, painting, poetry, etc. are only symbolic and low-level. It does not have the unity of spirit and material, so it has no sense of beauty. We should admit that Hegel could have believed that Eastern art (architecture, poetry, painting, etc.) was not as beautiful as Western art. If it was only perceived by his personal senses, this would be normal. Anyone, no matter he is an Easterner or a Westerner, whether a modern person appreciates the art of ancients or the art of modern people, because there are emotional differences, and there are also differences between the same art types, such as The architecture is different, the painting techniques are different, the poetry creation techniques are different, etc. Due to differences in living habits and philosophical concepts, different nationalities may like one type and not appreciate another according to their own habits. This is a difference, not an irreconcilable opposition. For example, Hegel believed that classical beauty represented by ancient Greece and Rome was the most beautiful, especially figure sculptures and paintings. But Easterners do not necessarily think that the portraits or sculptures of bare-butt women are beautiful. On the contrary, they think they are extremely ugly. It is said that the reason why Eastern art is low-level and has no sense of beauty is that the concept is not unified with the material. Then we can ask: From what point can we see that Eastern art is not unified with the concept and the material? Hegel did not make any explanation on this, but just arbitrarily pinned the label of "idea is not unified with matter" on the heads of Easterners. The paintings and poems created by Easterners do not contain ideas, in other words, they do not express any thoughts. This kind of "arbitrariness" is also clearly "shown" in their religious and historical views, and it can be found everywhere.
Hegel positioned the highest level of beauty in the past - the ancient Greek and Roman periods. When the era of classical beauty passed, what followed was the "Romantic Period". In the Romantic Period, ideas and matter were incompatible. When balance is achieved, ideas overflow from matter and form is abandoned. The art of this period cannot show beauty. Going forward, art will "die". The death that Hegel spoke of was not really death, but that art would give way to philosophy. Hegel regarded beauty and art history as a history of development with absolute spirit as the general line, and regarded a certain art type as the criterion and regulation for judging other arts, and the art type as the criterion for judgment is the balance of ideas and forms. The resultant product.
Hegel integrated art, religion, and philosophy into the category of absolute spirituality, and transcended art and religion through philosophy. So I think Croce's comment about Hegel's tendency in aesthetics to say that he is "rational, but anti-artistic" is pertinent: "The philosopher was unwilling to break away from the logical needs of his system, so he Art is about to die, and it is even said that art has already died." Therefore, "Hegel's aesthetics is the eulogy of the death of art. He examined the successive forms of art and showed that the stages of these ritual developments were all completed, and he buried them. He got up and wrote the inscription with philosophy." Croce went on to say: "In fact, asking whether art will die is as nonsense as asking whether feeling or reason can die."
When Hegel tried his best to belittle Eastern art and praise Greek art, he must have been unaware of, or deliberately ignored, the artistic achievements of Eastern culture at the same time. Homer's epic poems are beautiful, and the sculptures of ancient Greece and Rome are undoubtedly beautiful as well. However, ancient India had produced extremely beautiful poetic philosophical poems earlier than ancient Greece: the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, which is regarded as spiritually shocking by almost all Western philosophers; in China, the Book of Songs A series of beautiful poems have long been recited by people. Whether it is painting or sculpture, the East has unparalleled achievements, but this master said that the pyramids of ancient Egypt have no beauty, and the poetry of ancient India and ancient China are not manifestations of rationality. They are disconnected between concepts and forms, so they are low-level. , has no sense of beauty. The beauty of ideas that can truly be reflected through sensibility are the statues of naked men and women. Because these statues and paintings are based on humans, because the image of human beings is the image of God, these arts are the most beautiful. Zhu Guangqian is extremely correct in saying that Hegel's aesthetics is the embodiment of Prussian government thought and the vulgar philistine thought of Germany at that time. I think one more thing to add is that for the sake of his philosophical concepts and dialectics, Hegel included everything in the world into his thought and logical system. In order to prove its correctness, taken-for-granted logic is used to limit people's feelings and emotions about the external world, and dialectics are used to judge a certain nation or a certain type of art history as beautiful, while others are inferior and have no sense of beauty. In this way, his conclusions inevitably reveal a series of absurdities.
Therefore, Hegel's aesthetic thought is "lonely" among the mainstream thoughts of Western aesthetics and cannot get people's response. This is an inevitable result.