Aesthetics: Volume II by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Author:Dietrich von Hildebrand [von Hildebrand, Dietrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hildebrand Press
Published: 2019-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

1. The relationship between the written characters and the sounds is not that of meaning; similarly, the relationship between the written and the spoken word is not that of meaning. The written character is not the same as a sound, nor is the written word identical with the spoken word. We must draw a clear distinction between these relationships and the specific relationship of meaning, which is extremely intellectual and rational.

2. There is a very distinct process that leads from certain visible signs to the word. Usually, it is through the word that is read, through its meaning, or through the sentence that is read, that we attain to the state-of-affairs. The word does not appear before our mind as a tonal structure. Reading is not a process that leads through signs to a hearing of words. Normally, the act of hearing does not take place. This, of course, does not apply to reading aloud.

3. See “Das ästhetische Wiesel” in his Galgenlieder. [Editors’ note: The footnotes give a strictly literal translation without rhymes.]

4. “A weasel / sat on a pebble / in the midst of the trickling of a brook. / Do you know / why? / A mooncalf / disclosed it to me / in silence: / The refin- / ed animal / did it for the sake of the rhyme.”

5. “The donkey is a stupid animal. / The elephant can’t help it.”

6. “Mailied”: “How gloriously nature / shines to me! / How the sun gleams! / How the meadow laughs!”

7. “Gretchen am Spinnrade”: “Gone is my rest, / my heart is heavy; / I find it [my rest] never / and nevermore.”

8. “Mignon”: “Do you know the land where the lemons blossom, / the golden oranges glow in the dark foliage.”

9. See chaps. 33 and 34 below.

10. See Aesthetics, vol. 1, chaps. 4 and 7.

11. On this, see René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode, part 5: “Again, by means of these two tests we may likewise know the difference between men and brutes. For it is highly deserving of remark, that there are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood; and that, on the other hand, there is no animal, however perfectly or happily circumstanced, which can do the like. Nor does this inability arise from want of organs: for we observe that magpies and parrots can utter words like ourselves, and yet are unable to speak as we do, that is, so as to show that they understand what they say; whereas men born deaf and dumb, and thus not less, but rather more than the brutes destitute of the organs which others use in speaking, are in the habit of spontaneously inventing certain signs by which they intimate their thoughts to those who, being usually in their company, have leisure to learn their language. And this proves not only that the brutes have less reason than man, but that they have none at all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.