Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

Mysticism.

The æstheticist's attitude may be considered as that of the spirit, which comes out of itself and disperses itself among things, while keeping itself above and aloof from them, contemplating, but not immersing itself in them. Mysticism is not satisfied with this, feeling that no repose is ever accorded to the spirit which abandons itself to this orgy, this breathless adventure of infinitely various spectacles, and that the intimate meaning of them all escapes the æstheticist. It is true that there is no logical knowledge, that the concept is sterile, but the claim for unity is legitimate, and demands to be, and is, satisfied. But in what way is it satisfied? Art speaks, and its speech, however beautiful, does not content us; it paints, and its colours, however attractive, deceive us. In order to find the inmost meaning of life, we must seek, not the light, but the shade, not speech, but silence. In silence, reality raises its head and shows its countenance; or, better, it shows us nothing, but fills us with itself, and gives us the sense of its very being. The unity and universality that we desire are found in action, in the practical form of the Spirit: in the heart, which palpitates, loves, and wills. Knowledge is knowledge of the single, it is representation; the eternal is not a matter of knowledge, but of intimate and ineffable experience.

Empiricism.

If the sceptics of logico-æsthetic type are chiefly artistic souls, the logico-mystical sceptics are sentimental and perturbed souls. These, although they do not usually take an entirely active part in life, yet do to some extent take part in it, vibrating in sympathetic unison with it, and, according to circumstances, suffering, sometimes through taking part, and sometimes through failing so to do. Empiricists or arbitrarists are to be found, on the other hand, among those who, engaged in practical affairs, do not indulge in emotions and sentiments, but aim at producing definite results. Thus, while they are in complete agreement with the æstheticists and the mystics in denying all value to logical knowledge as an autonomous form of knowledge, they are not satisfied, like the former, with spectacles and with works of art; nor are they caught, like the latter, in the madness and sorcery of the One and Eternal. The combination which they effect, of the æstheticist's thesis concerning the value of representation, with the mystical concerning the value of action, strengthens neither, but weakens both; and in exchange for the poetry of the first and for the ecstasy of the second, it offers an eminently prosaic product countersigned with a most prosaic name, that of fiction. There is something (they say) beyond the mere representation, and this something is an act of will; which also satisfies the demand for the universal, not by shutting itself up in itself, but by means of a manipulation of single representations, so concentrated and simplified as to give rise to classes or symbols, which are without reality but convenient, fictitious but useful. Ingenuous philosophers and logicians have allowed themselves to be deceived by these puppets and have taken them seriously, as Don Quixote took the Moorish puppets of Master Peter. Forgetful of the nature and character of the complete operation, they have proceeded to concentrate and to simplify where there is no material for such an undertaking, claiming to group afresh, not only this or that series of representations, but all representations, hoping thus to obtain the universal concept, that is to say, the concept which enfolds in its bosom the infinite possibilities of the real. Thus they have attained the pretended new and autonomous form of knowledge which goes beyond representations; a refined, but slightly ridiculous process of thought, like that of a man who would like to make not only knives of various sizes and shapes, but a knife of knives, beyond all knives which have a definite shape and are made of iron and steel.

Reduction to the absurd of the three forms.

We shall proceed to examine in their places both the errors resulting from these modes of solving, or of cutting, the problem of knowledge, and also the partial truths mingled with them which it is necessary to exhibit in their full efficacy. But, at the point which now occupies us, i.e., the affirmation or negation of the conceptual form of knowledge, let it suffice to observe how all the ranks of those who deny the concept move to the assault armed with the concept. We need simply observe, not strive to confute, because it is a question of something which leaps to the eye at once and does not demand many words; although many would be necessary to illustrate psychologically the conditions of spirit and of culture, the natural and acquired tendencies, the habits and the prejudices, which render such marvellous blindness possible. The æstheticists affirm that truth resides in æsthetic contemplation and not in the concept. But, pray, is this affirmation of theirs perchance song, or painting, or music, or architecture? It certainly concerns intuition, but it is not intuition; it has art for subject-matter, but it is not art; it does not communicate a state of the soul, but communicates a thought, that is to say, an affirmation of universal character; therefore, it is a concept. And by this concept it is sought to deny the concept. It is as if one sought to leap over one's own shadow, when the leap itself throws the shadow, or, by clinging to one's own pigtail, to pull oneself into safety out of the river. The same may be said of the mystics. They proclaim the necessity of silence and of seeking the One, the Universal, the I, concentrating upon themselves and letting themselves live; during which mystical experience it may, perhaps, befall them (as in the Titan of J. P. Richter) to rediscover the I, in a somewhat materialized form, in their own person. Nevertheless in the case of those who recommend silence, non silent silentum, they do not pass it by in silence; rather, it has been said, they proclaim it, and go about explaining and demonstrating how efficacious their prescription is for satisfying the desire for the universal. Were they silent about it, we should not be faced with that doctrine, as a precise formula to combat. The doctrine of silence and of silent action and inner experience is nothing but an affirmation of absolute character and universal content, by means of which are refuted, and it is believed confuted, other affirmations of the same nature. This too, then, is a concept; as contradictory as you will, and therefore, needing elaboration, but always conceptual elaboration and not practical; which last would altogether prevent the adepts in the doctrine from talking. And who, in our day, talks as much as the mystics? Indeed, what could they do, in our day, if they did not talk? And is it not significant that mystics are now found, not in solitudes, but crowded round little tables in the cafés, where it is customary, not so much to achieve inner experiences, as, on the contrary, to chatter? Finally, the theorists of fictions and of toys, in their amiable satire of logic and of philosophy, forget to explain one small particular, which is not without importance; that is to say, whether their theory of the concepts as fiction, is in its turn fiction. Because, were it fiction, it would be useless to discuss it, since by its own admission it is without truth; and if it were not (as it is not), it would have a character of true and not fictitious universality; or, it would be, not at all a simplification and symbol of representations, but a concept, and would establish the true concept at the very moment that it unmasks those that are fictitious. Fiction and the theory of fiction are (and it should appear evident) different things; as the delinquent and the judge who condemns him are different, or the madman and the doctor who studies madness. A fiction, which pretends to be fiction, opens, at the most, an infinite series which it is not possible to close, unless there eventually intervene an act which is not fiction, and which explains all the others, as in the unravelling of a comedy of cross-purposes. And this is the way that the empiricists or arbitrarists also come to profess the faith that they would deny. Salus ex inimicis is a great truth for philosophy not less than for the whole of life; a truth, which on this occasion finds beautiful continuation in the hostility towards the concept, perhaps never so fierce as it is to-day, and in the efforts to choke it, never so great and never so courageously and cleverly employed. But those enemies find themselves in the unhappy condition of being unable to choke it, without in the very act suppressing the principle of their own life.

Affirmation of the concept.

The concept, then, is not representation, nor is it a mixture and refinement of representation. It springs from representations, as something implicit in them that must become explicit; a necessity whose premisses they provide, but which they are not in a position to satisfy, not even to affirm. The satisfaction is afforded by the form of knowledge which is no longer representative but logical, and which occurs continually and at every instant in the life of the Spirit.

To deny the existence of this form, or to prove it illusory by substituting other spiritual formations in its place, is an attempt which has been and is made, but which has not succeeded and does not succeed, and which, therefore, may be considered desperate. This series of manifestations, this aspect of reality, this form of spiritual activity, which is the Concept, constitutes the object of Logic.

[1] See the first volume of this Philosophy as Science of the Spirit; Æsthetic as Science of Expression.