V
THE RELATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND ART
Il me semble que la philosophie est un véritable
chant qui n’est pas celui de la voix, et qu’elle possède le même sens du mouvement
que la musique.
[It seems to me that philosophy is a true song
that is not of the voice, and that it has the same sense of movement as music.]
Gilles
Deleuze
So far, we have compared philosophy with two other fundamental cultural
activities, science and religion, showing that, historically, it has been
situated between them. The Western philosophical tradition is not merely a
preliminary stage of science; throughout its trajectory, it has preserved
motivations rooted in religious thought. This is evident not only in the
speculative breadth of its theoretical and practical aims, but also in its
frequent appeal to explanatory principles replacing God or the gods, which
remain, in some sense, beyond human comprehension. We now turn to a third
fundamental cultural activity: art, and the task of comparing philosophy
with it.
On the basis of the recognized
proximity between philosophy and art, some philosophers have adopted the thesis
that philosophy is, in its essence, a form of art. As J. H. Gill, an advocate
of this position, has suggested, philosophy:
It is not like a lens through which we penetrate and scrutinise reality,
nor like a lamp with which we explore hitherto unknown dimensions and horizons
of human existence, but like a prism with which fascinating and provocative
conceptual models and sculptures of thought are created.[1]
There appears to be a substantive element underlying J. H. Gill’s
adoption of so radical a position, one that merits careful examination. In the
discussion that follows, I shall explore the intersection of philosophy and art
with the aim of evaluating the significance of philosophy’s aesthetic
dimensions, particularly as they emerge in its historical trajectory.
My contention is that, to a certain
extent, the Western philosophical tradition may be construed as an activity
motivated by aesthetic impulses, insofar as it engages with cognitive material
in a manner analogous to the way in which art engages with intuitive and affective
material. In this respect, philosophy may plausibly be regarded as a kind of “art
of reason.” To render this claim more persuasive, I shall begin by
distinguishing two forms of similarity between philosophy and art.
(a) External similarities:
those similarities that are due to the use of aesthetic resources in
philosophy, which do not always need to be present.
(b) Internal similarities: those similarities in nature between
the two cultural practices, which are always and inevitably present.
In what follows, I shall endeavor to advance arguments that favor this
distinction.
1. THE AESTHETIC TASTE OF SOME PHILOSOPHICAL
WRITINGS: EXTERNAL SIMILARITIES
I call the similarities between philosophy and
art external when the philosopher makes use of evident literary means. There
are several reasons for adopting a literary approach to philosophical
questions. One of them is that a literary discourse allows insights to be
conveyed more effectively and impactfully, thereby engaging the interlocutor’s
attention.
Yet
the deeper reason seems to be another: philosophers often find themselves
confronted with an exclusive disjunction: either they proceed along a linear
path, supported by arguments which, though rigorous, prove insufficient or
flawed, or they choose a more allusive form of expression, deliberately
ambiguous, whose vague contours open space for multiple interpretations, even
if, in return, they offer less informational density.
In
this context, it becomes legitimate to resort to a metaphorical discourse in
which words and their combinations evoke meanings that transcend their literal
sense. Consider, for example, the following aphorisms of Heraclitus:
One could not step twice into the same river;
for other waters are ever flowing on.
Only one thing is wise: to know the thought
that governs everything through everything.
Invisible harmony is stronger than visible
harmony.
Everything is done by contrast; from the
struggle of opposites comes the most beautiful harmony (like that of the bow
and the lyre).
Through these aphorisms, Heraclitus conveyed profound insights in
metaphorical formulations. The first aphorism may have influenced Plato,
suggesting that the visible world, being subject to constant change, cannot
serve as the true object of knowledge. The second and third aphorisms might
have inspired Hegel’s conviction that reason governs the world, while the
fourth could have helped to shape his view of reality as dialectical, evolving
through conflicting oppositions that are ultimately sublated (aufgehoben).
Moreover, the second and third aphorisms can be interpreted as pointing to what
science later called the laws that govern the universe, while the fourth
reflects the dialectical structure of human thought itself. Once unified into a
social intention, the dialectical mode of thinking could generate a dialectical
order in the intentional products of human action, such as art and history,
thereby explaining the considerable success of Hegel’s philosophy in these areas.
Another example can be found in
the similes, myths, and allegories employed by Plato, or, in a different
register, by a philosopher-artist such as Nietzsche. Style itself may serve as
a vehicle for philosophical polysemy. An analytic philosopher like W. V. O.
Quine skillfully exploited his refined style to impart discursive polysemy. The
analytic metaphysician Donald Williams, in turn, possessed a uniquely
mesmerizing style that enabled him to evade commitments arising from more direct
forms of argument. These examples are cited without even mentioning so-called
“continental” philosophers, such as Martin Heidegger, with his rhetorical
(often unwarranted) use of philosophical language in the development of his
philosophical anthropology, or Walter Benjamin, an equally formidable stylist
whose dense and evocative prose is constructed through images, analogies, allusions,
and allegories that invite multiple interpretations.
Metaphor likewise plays a pivotal
role: many of the problems confronted by Wittgenstein were approached through
figurative devices such as “family resemblances,” “one-sided nourishment,” and “language
as a great ancient city,” not to mention central yet insufficiently defined
concepts such as calculus, game, grammar, and therapy.
These instances exemplify how language in philosophy
can be decisive and powerful, not merely as ornamentation but as a legitimate
instrument of expression and conceptual elaboration. The construction of technical
vocabulary, as undertaken by Kant and Hegel, is not only indispensable but also
fulfills an aesthetic function: the terminological complexity and conceptual
density of their systems both organize thought and generate an effect of
elevation and solemnity that profoundly shaped the reception of their works,
even if not always for the best.
Yet the aesthetic dimension of
philosophy is not confined to vocabulary alone. The very structure of philosophical
discourse may itself assume an aesthetic function. One striking example is the
enumeration of propositions in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,
which, by mirroring a supposed logical-conceptual hierarchy, contributes to the
text’s aesthetic experience. Another is Spinoza’s axiomatic presentation of his
philosophy in the Ethics. Although this formal choice aims to exemplify
the rationalist ideal in its most rigorous form, it may ultimately be regarded
as a dispensable ornament, a contrivance that rather than clarifying, tends to
obscure comprehension and adds little to the force of demonstration.
These varied aesthetic resources
are art: art within philosophy, to which they belong as vehicles. Yet
they must not be confused with philosophy itself. The use of such literary
devices in philosophy appears external to the properly philosophical
enterprise. To understand why the employment of external artistic resources
does not render philosophy a form of art, one need only consider that even a complex
allegory, such as Plato’s cave myth, can be interpreted and translated
literally; however impoverished such a rendering may be, it does not cease to
be philosophy. A useful comparison may be drawn with religion, which has often
relied upon artistic resources to fulfill pedagogical and exhortative
functions. These are not limited to mythological narratives, such as Hesiod’s Theogony,
but also include Bible texts of varying literary quality (J. L. Borges once
observed that the Jews gathered all their literature into a single book). Yet
no one would conclude from this that the Theogony or the Bible
should be classified as works of fiction, or that religion could be reduced to
a form of art. If this is so with religion, if it can conceivably exist without
adornment by artistic means, why should philosophy be any different?
Notwithstanding, it must be noted
that there are philosophers who dispensed with the aesthetic embellishments
mentioned above. Notable examples include what has come down to us from
Aristotle and the work of Thomas Aquinas, to cite only the most famous, in
which it is difficult to identify any prominent aesthetic element. Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, perhaps the most influential work in the entire history of
philosophy, was described by one of its finest interpreters as a “jumble”: a
speculative mess, confused and yet, at the same time, fascinating.[2]
2. INTERNAL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND ART
Notwithstanding, it is possible to suggest that there are also internal
similarities – what we could I call similarities of nature – between philosophy
and art. The idea is that, although philosophy does not constitute a form of
art, it nonetheless incorporates intrinsic and indispensable aesthetic
elements. This is the thesis I intend to render plausible in what follows.
A first internal similarity
between philosophy and art is that the ends of both lie essentially within
themselves. As Kant observed, the beautiful produces a disinterested pleasure
– a characteristic that extends to art in general. To a lesser degree,
philosophy too can be appreciated for its own sake. (An exceptionalist such as
Martin Heidegger, for example, regarded philosophy as “too noble” to be
subordinated to practical ends.) Yet the significance of this similarity should
not be overstated. Unlike art, philosophy, by virtue of its other dimensions, maintains
a less indirect relation to practical purposes: the philosophical conceptions
we adopt, and especially those we reject, influence, albeit indirectly, our modes
of judgment and action. It is true that this normative aspect has been
thematized in various ways throughout the philosophical tradition. Even so, disinterested
pleasure may be acknowledged as an intrinsic aesthetic element produced by the whole
philosophical tradition.
A second point of convergence
between philosophy and art concerns what we may call the integrative function
of art. Art seeks to integrate our sensory and emotional life, enabling us to
harmonize feelings and to broaden, enrich, and refine our emotional experience.
Something analogous may be said of the philosophical tradition: it too
exercised an integrative function, not of the sensory and emotional sphere, but
of what has been termed the “life of thought.” This consideration, however,
requires careful delimitation. After all, religion also performs an integrative
function, tied to our worldview and our place within it, and yet it is not
thereby transformed into an “art of spirituality.” And what of science? It also
fulfills an integrative function, insofar as it organizes partial domains of
our knowledge of the world.
It also seems that philosophy accomplishes,
with the abstract material of concepts, something analogous to what art
achieves through the sensible material of intuition. Art, as the philosophers
of German idealism have emphasized, is the particular and sensible expression
of the universal. Might philosophy, then, be regarded as a kind of intelligible
expression of the universal? But in what sense? In the production and enjoyment
of art, it is the sensible imagination that is set in motion; whereas in
philosophy, we encounter a form of “imagination”, better described as intellectual
creation, that seems to be mobilized. In this respect, philosophy could be
called an art of reason, in contrast to the customary art of sensory-emotional
states.
Be that as it may, alongside
the integrative function of the intellect, there emerges another internal
similarity between philosophy and art: that of intellectual creation.
Creation, a defining feature of art, requires imagination, and like art,
philosophy is to a considerable extent a work of imagination, or more
precisely, of conceptual creation. This is, in fact, a response to thauma
(θαῦμα), the Greek term denoting wonder, surprise, admiration, marvel, and
perplexity before the world – a sentiment which, according to Aristotle, lies
at the very origin of philosophical thought.
Here, philosophy undertakes the
task of revealing the most unexpected possibilities for reorganizing our
intellectual universe, namely, what P. F. Strawson called “revisionary metaphysics.”[3]
This is evident in transcendental metaphysical systems such as Plotinus’s
theomorphic construction of the world, Eriugena’s philosophy of process, Leibniz
monadology, Hegel’s dialectical progression of the absolute, or, to give a
contemporary example, David Lewis’s defense of an infinitude of possible worlds
identically real, even if only one of them is actual, namely, our own world.[4]
Such systematic works do not show how the world actually is (despite their
authors' intentions), but rather how it could be or, possibly (though
most improbably), how it is. This aspect is particularly noteworthy, for even
though it does not equate philosophy with art, it demonstrates how much of the
creative element characteristic of artistic expression can be present in philosophical
practice.
Philosophy is more creative
than science and less than art. And the creativity of philosophy derives, in
large measure, from the philosopher’s artistic impetus. Consider, for instance,
Augustine’s doctrine of illumination: for him, eternal truths reside in the
mind of God, and access to these truths requires that we be illuminated by a
spiritual light, just as the sun illuminates the day with its physical light.
The metaphor is artistic, the purpose religious, the argument philosophical.
Artistic creation is not confined to the production of conventional
harmony and beauty; it also turns toward unexpected contrasts – what Walter
Benjamin, in his reading of Baudelaire, termed the Schockerlebnis or “shocking
life-experience” – capable of provoking in us a reorganization of the emotional
values we uncritically attach to reality. Philosophical creation, by contrast,
may generate analogous effects by manipulating the cognitive material of
abstract concepts. David Hume, for instance, achieved precisely this in
formulating his skeptical arguments concerning induction, the external world,
and even the self, leaving us with nothing beyond bunches os ideas. Not only
skeptics but also sophists embraced the device of intellectual shock.
What, then, of what Strawson
designated as “descriptive metaphysics”, in contrast with the revisionary metaphysics?
Philosophical systems such as those of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus,
William Ockham, John Locke, Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore, P. F. Strawson, and John
Searle, remaining faithful to common sense, did not seek imaginatively to
reorganize our understanding of the world but rather to present it as it
appears to be, stand closer to the scientific vertex of the metaphilosophical triangle.
Yet even here, an undeniable artistic component persists: in the integrative
function of their constructions, in the disinterested pleasure they are capable
of eliciting, and in their appeal to metaphorical entities-principles, as will
become evident.
It therefore seems possible to
admit an aesthetic dimension intrinsic to philosophy, at least in its more complete
traditional sense: desinterested pleasure, the integration of intellect with
sentiments, proceeding through metaphorical thinking, and shocking experience,
are not distinctive of religion or of science.
3. ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Although it cannot be denied that good art bears a relation to truth,
that relation is indirect. Art has the capacity to expand our consciousness,
rendering us more receptive to understanding ourselves and the world around us.
(Hitler professed admiration for Wagner, yet could never tolerate Brecht.)
Philosophy, however, sustains a
more direct relation to truth: it is concerned with the pursuit of truth
itself. Even philosophers of the skeptical variety sought to establish the truth
of their refutations. And the sophists, much like the postmodernists, need not
be taken seriously.
Although the truth-oriented element
inherent in philosophy does not yield a linearly progressive and cumulative
effect of knowledge in the same manner as science, it is, nonetheless, as we have
already observed (Chapter III), capable of increasingly narrowing the spectrum
of possible truths. Indeed, as we have suggested, since philosophy often
occupies epistemic spaces left open by as-yet-unknown scientific domains, it is
plausible to suppose that the branching of speculative alternatives within a
given domain of philosophy may be limited, whereas this does not necessarily
occur in art. Nevertheless, both philosophy and religion remain closer to art than
to science. How can this be explained? Psychoanalytic theory may assist us
here. According to it, art, religion, and philosophy, just like the thought that
produces dreams, the work of neurotic imagination and its symptoms, share the
fact of being products of what Freud called the primary process (primäre
Vorgang) of thought, a mode of thinking governed more by the pleasure
principle than by the reality principle.[5]
In the primary process, emotions
or affective charges (Besetzungen) cease to be firmly bound to their
original representations. As a result, the charges attached to unconscious and
preconscious representations become capable of being transferred to other representations,
in one way or another associated with the former. This transfer renders those
other representations conscious, possibly producing pleasure by reducing
endopsychic tension.
It is
important to note that the mechanisms by which the charges of unconscious
representations are transferred to representations capable of becoming conscious
are essentially two: displacement (Verschiebung), through which
the charge of a repressed representation R is ceded to a non-repressed representation
R1, which thereby manages to bypass censorship and become conscious; and condensation
(Kondensation), through which the charges of multiple representations
“R, R1… Rn” are ceded to a single representation R, which becomes conscious by
concentrating those energies. An example of displacement is that of a young
woman in love with a man forbidden to her, who dreams of having given him her
comb (R) instead of surrendering herself to him in love (R1). Condensation
would occur if she had dreamt that the man had forgotten a piece of his
clothing (R) at her house (R in place of “R, R1…Rn”). Displacement, Freud thought,
is a product of the unconscious, since the new representation is not perceived
as a substitute for the old one, whereas condensation may well be a product of
the preconscious, since the person can easily become aware of the
representations that have been summarized into a single one, which often blends
and confuses them.
As a consequence of this process,
the representations that emerge in consciousness are combined here in a far
more flexible manner than in the secondary process (sekundäre Vorgang),
which characterizes our practical and scientific reasoning. The latter is based
on the principle of reality, which demands that psychic charges are
rigidly bound to their respective representations. This accounts for the
improbable combinations of representations that constitute our dreams. Yet it
also explains, to some extent, the semantic suggestiveness found in art and
philosophy, insofar as these are products of the primary process, which
involves condensation and/or displacement in both their production and their reception
and enjoyment.
Philosophy can be seen as
oscillating between the primary and secondary processes. It immerses itself in
the primary process when it draws near to religion and art, yet it takes on the
character of the secondary process when it aligns itself more closely with
science.
To illustrate, let us consider Walter
Benjamin’s interpretation of the allegory of the Angelus Novus. This is
a painting by Paul Klee in which, horrified, the angel of history is propelled
by the storm of progress toward the future; with his face turned toward the past,
he helplessly beholds history as a sequence of ruins. Here we have an example
of philosophy in proximity to art, of the primary process through which the
image becomes a vivid condensation of what we know about the human past, brutally
uncivilized and destructive.
Consider now, by way of contrast,
Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. It is more closely related to the secondary
process, insofar as it reveals an approximation to consensual scientific truth.
After all, it is impossible for me to think that I do not exist while I am
thinking. This discovery of “I am, I exist” is significant because it
constitutes a rare and serious candidate for a necessary a posteriori proposition
– a truth whose evidence is disclosed within the very experience of thought.
Another relevant issue is to
understand what distinguishes art as a product of the primary process. A dream,
for instance, as a sequence of strangely combined representations, results from
the mechanisms of displacement and condensation. Yet the dream generally lacks
aesthetic value. Thus, in the work of art, there is something more, an aesthetic
ingredient that resists purely psychoanalytic elucidation.
In this sense, the proposal of
the expressivist R. G. Collingwood seems to reach the very heart of the matter.[6] In a psychoanalytically
oriented reading of his theory, true art – what he termed proper art – fulfills
a moral function: it brings into consciousness representations charged with socially
repressed feelings, refining them. This refinement is not limited to the artist
but extends to the audience, contributing to the cure of one of the greatest
social ills, the one that threatens society’s very destruction, namely, insufficient
or distorted self-understanding.
To illustrate: in his novel The
Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Machado de Assis presents Brás Cubas
as a vain and refined deceased man who recounts his exploits from his time
alive. He reveals that he spent a period in Coimbra, where he assimilated
European ideas and values, ideas that, in the narrative, ultimately prove to be
mere social ornaments. In practice, Brás Cubas is pusillanimous: he is the
lover of a politician’s wife, prides himself on never having had to work, and
seeks personal glory by inventing a plaster capable of curing all the ills of
the soul and spirit, not out of altruism, but out of vanity. What Machado de
Assis accomplished through his subtle and penetrating irony was to expose the
immorality of the Brazilian elites, who claim to be enlightened but in fact
adopt an attitude of self-indulgence and social insensitivity. The fictional
story, obviously, results from the primary process of creative imagination, yet
it carries a moralizing and edifying component. When properly understood, this
narrative makes us more attentive to the social contradictions that surround us
and more sensitive to human complexity.
This moralizing ingredient,
which elevates the spirit and refines our sensibility, may, I add, be grounded
either in displacement or in condensation. In the first case, we have what may
be called Apollonian art; in the second, Dionysian art. Thus, by comparison,
the tragedy Antigone is more Apollonian, that is, more rooted in unconscious
displacements than the tragedy of Medea, in which everything that might
remain unconscious is revealed explicitly, making it Dionysian insofar as it is
more grounded in condensation.
Consider now painting. The impressionist
paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet are Apollonian: light,
joyful, and social in the former, contemplative in the latter, yet edifying in
both (Renoir once said that he wished to paint beauty, since life is already
full of pain and suffering). In them, there is no trace of criticism of the
misery present in France or of the colonialism that sustained the wealth and
sophistication of the upper classes represented therein. This art is founded on
displacement. Social critique, by contrast, emerges with full force in the
Dionysian expressionism of Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin (pace Nietzsche), grounded
in condensation. In the same way, the subtle literature of Herman Melville or
Thomas Mann is Apollonian (more reliant on unconscious displacements) in
comparison with that of Henry Miller or Charles Bukowski (more Dionysian, since
supported by preconscious condensation).
And in music, Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky is
fully tonal and Apollonian, in contrast to Béla Bartók’s final concerto,
post-tonal (polymodal and asymmetrically polyrhythmic), whose sonic density and
emotional intensity evoke the Dionysian tragic, the former grounded in
displacement, the latter in condensation.
The examples multiply. The point
is that the aesthetic ingredient, whether in its positive or negative form,
edifying or critical, is always capable of refining our moral sensibility. This
would also be the role of art within philosophy, as seen in Walter Benjamin’s
allegory of the angel of history, whose richness of symbolic layers can be
interpreted as a Dionysian and tragic expression resulting from the work of
condensation.
Before concluding, I would like
to return to the question of the internal similarities between art and philosophy,
drawing attention to the use of conceptual metaphors, especially those we call entities-principles.
These must be semantically suggestive, even when conceived in natural terms.
The recourse to God, which they replaced, stemmed from the primary process
operating in the domain of mysticism rather than art. Yet the arche of
the Pre-Socratics already contained an aesthetic element, for its principal
function was, without doubt, to provide a disinterested intellectual pleasure,
unlike religion. The same can be said of the being of Parmenides poem, the
ideas of Plato, the immaterial substance of Aristotle, the One of Plotinus, the
thinking substance of Descartes, Kant’s thing-in-itself, Hegel’s absolute,
Husserl’s phenomenological essence, Heidegger’s Being, the ineffable of the
early Wittgenstein, and even (do not be mistaken) thought and concept in
Gottlob Frege.
By
introducing some terminology, we may say that these conceptual terms can be
regarded as either metaphorical or hypostatized (polysemic). A conceptual
term is “metaphorical” in the sense that it takes the place of another term, that
is, by virtue of displacement (Verschiebung); whereas a conceptual term
is “hypostatized” in the sense that it is polysemic, occupying the place of a
multiplicity of other terms, that is, by virtue of condensation (Verdichtung).
In this way, metaphor and hypostasis function as the usual means of expression
available to the philosopher, consisting in the transfer of the original meanings
of certain words from common usage to other significations that are,
supposedly, philosophically suggestive or denser. Traditional philosophy, in this
respect, cannot be sustained without deeply foundational metaphorical or
hypostatized components, constructed through the primary process. This is how
the aesthetic ingredient internal to philosophy takes shape.
A
problem arises when we ask whether the metaphorical-hypostatizing function of
certain terms, conceptual expressions, and names of entities-principles
internal to philosophy is, in fact, the same as the function of conferring upon
their objects attributes such as faith, scope, depth, elevation, and
orientation. If so, the internal (and even external) metaphorical-hypostatizing
element becomes indistinguishable from that which directs philosophy toward the
mystical-religious vertex of the metaphilosophical triangle, since, as we have seen,
these are precisely the characteristics that most define it (see Chapter IV).
In that case, the aesthetic function, which seemed to us essential and autonomous,
ceases to be distinguishable from a derivation of the mystical-religious function.
The
problem disappears only when we recognize that both art and religion share a common
root, as productions of the primary process. This common root, however, does
not erase their constitutive differences. After all, with respect to the artistic
element in philosophy, we find its aestheticizing ingredient
(disinterested pleasure, refinement of the senses, promotion of social
consciousness...). And with respect to the religious element in philosophy, we
find what could be called its mysticizing ingredient (the disposition to
seek comprehensive explanations and orientation in the world of life, grounded
in faith as a groundless belief).
It is
at this point that we encounter, almost by chance, what may be the foundation
of a profound suggestion by Hegel: namely, that art, as the sensible expression
of the absolute (thesis), and religion, as the symbolic representation of the
absolute (antithesis), are antithetical expressions that can only be sublated (aufgehoben)
by the conceptual and rational expression of the absolute offered by philosophy
(synthesis).[7] Hegel’s suggestion
can be demystified once we recognize that philosophy belongs only secondarily
to the primary process, having its origin in the effect of its proximity to the
opposing cultural vertices of religion and art within the metaphilosophical
triangle, both equally determined by the primary process.
Finally,
it is important to see that the mysticizing impulse need not be tied to
religion. One does not have to be religious to appreciate St. Agustine’s Meditations,
Bach’s Magnificat, Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Michelangelo’s frescoes
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Everything suggests that the
mysticizing appeal belongs to human nature itself – we are mystically wired, independent
of having religious faith.[8] It was
certainly present in thinkers such as Spinoza, Comte, Marx, Wittgenstein, and
Albert Einstein – figures who were not, strictly speaking, religious.
[1] “Philosophy as Art”,
Metaphilosophy, p. 141. See also Deleuze and Guattari in Qu’est-ce que la Philosophie? J.
H. Gill attempted to substantiate his proposal historically, demonstrating the
central role of aesthetic metaphors in major philosophical systems, but the
meager results are not convincing.
[2] Jonathan Barnes, “Metaphysics”.
[3] Strawson distinguished between a descriptive
metaphysics, which seeks to understand and clarify the conceptual structures we
use to think about the world, and a revisionary metaphysics, which aims to
alter or replace those structures with others more adequate or coherent. See his
The Bounds of Sense, Introduction.
See P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense:An Essay on
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Preface.
[4] David Lewis: On the Plurality of Worlds.
[5] See Sigmund Freud, Traumdeutung, chap. VI (“Die Traumarbeit”).
[6] The Principles of Art.
[7] G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical
Sciences in Outline, vol. III, part III, The Absolute Spirit. Sec. 556-577.
[8] Research in this field shows that certain
brain regions (such as the temporal and parietal lobes) are activated during mystical
or spiritual experiences. These neural patterns can occur independently of
religious belief, suggesting a biological basis for “faith-like” states. See Dean Hamer's God Gene.
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