Aesthetic Reflections is an artistic critique of human culture: an irrational critique of reason and a rational critique of the irrational. Absurdity is central to human existence. It expresses the mysterious irrationality of nature which confronts the human mind. Yet, simultaneously, absurdity is the essence of human reason, in the logical sense of reductio ad absurdum, the refutation of a proposition by inferring from it a self-contradictory conclusion. It may also be taken loosely to mean the refutation of an idea by experience.
Aesthetic Reflections is pervaded by Platonic ideas, although it almost always seeks to subvert his ideas, particularly his pretensions to Absolute Reason. The critical approach to Plato’s ideas is informed by Popper’s “critical rationalism”. Plato’s philosophy, however, also performs a more positive function: it has proved useful for an exploration of modern materialism and consumerism as well as of African tribalism and spiritualism. Modern materialism, in turn, has made possible a critical scrutiny of archaic spiritualism.
Plato’s Republic is the earliest surviving work to state explicitly the principle of non-contradiction and to discuss together the four natural virtues. The stories are divided thematically between the passions and virtues of the human soul, and between the Platonic triad of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, although overlap is inevitable. It should not be thought too strange that death is frequent in the marriage (marital) group but is absent from the war (martial) group; that foolishness is the essence of the wisdom group; that artistic principles are more evident in the war group than the art group; and that love is absent from the marriage group but is common to the justice group. Marriage effects a compromise between love, death and immortality; the wise fool is a Socratic idea; modern armies uphold the ancient aesthetic principle that everything has its proper place; and love and law are intimately related, usually in opposition.
Amongst the fancies projected on to nature by the human soul, the idea of an Eternal Being is perhaps the most paradoxical of all. The idea of God is the conclusion of an unqualified rationalism, based on the principle of sufficient reason, a paradoxical principle which states that every fact requires a reason. The eternity group interrogates this idea.
The fact that there are thirty-one stories is significant. Besides being an “irrational” prime number, this is a number conventionally associated with the length of a month, and it therefore contrasts the rational length of the stories (each one hundred words) with lunacy and the traditional inconstancy of the moon. The hundred-word length of the stories, however, is also perhaps an arbitrary pseudo-rationalism, although it symbolises the principle of non-contradiction.
Aesthetic Reflections seeks refutations of and “deeper” – tentative and self-critical – explanations for diverse beliefs, both supernatural and mundane, without denying the beliefs, even if they may be false, of their very real human importance. The stories record a desire not to be deceived by illusions and false claims to the True and the Good.
Aesthetic Reflections is pervaded by Platonic ideas, although it almost always seeks to subvert his ideas, particularly his pretensions to Absolute Reason. The critical approach to Plato’s ideas is informed by Popper’s “critical rationalism”. Plato’s philosophy, however, also performs a more positive function: it has proved useful for an exploration of modern materialism and consumerism as well as of African tribalism and spiritualism. Modern materialism, in turn, has made possible a critical scrutiny of archaic spiritualism.
Plato’s Republic is the earliest surviving work to state explicitly the principle of non-contradiction and to discuss together the four natural virtues. The stories are divided thematically between the passions and virtues of the human soul, and between the Platonic triad of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, although overlap is inevitable. It should not be thought too strange that death is frequent in the marriage (marital) group but is absent from the war (martial) group; that foolishness is the essence of the wisdom group; that artistic principles are more evident in the war group than the art group; and that love is absent from the marriage group but is common to the justice group. Marriage effects a compromise between love, death and immortality; the wise fool is a Socratic idea; modern armies uphold the ancient aesthetic principle that everything has its proper place; and love and law are intimately related, usually in opposition.
Amongst the fancies projected on to nature by the human soul, the idea of an Eternal Being is perhaps the most paradoxical of all. The idea of God is the conclusion of an unqualified rationalism, based on the principle of sufficient reason, a paradoxical principle which states that every fact requires a reason. The eternity group interrogates this idea.
The fact that there are thirty-one stories is significant. Besides being an “irrational” prime number, this is a number conventionally associated with the length of a month, and it therefore contrasts the rational length of the stories (each one hundred words) with lunacy and the traditional inconstancy of the moon. The hundred-word length of the stories, however, is also perhaps an arbitrary pseudo-rationalism, although it symbolises the principle of non-contradiction.
Aesthetic Reflections seeks refutations of and “deeper” – tentative and self-critical – explanations for diverse beliefs, both supernatural and mundane, without denying the beliefs, even if they may be false, of their very real human importance. The stories record a desire not to be deceived by illusions and false claims to the True and the Good.