When I think of beauty, I think of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the general term that subsumes beauty, that is, brings the beautiful under a broader concept, and this is value. His last comments in the Tractatus hold true with him throughout his life: Value and its ethics and aesthetics (modes of value expression in our existence) refer us to that dimension of our existence which is simply given and is irreducible. So put, say, a lighted match beneath the palm of one's hand, and one faces a truly "pure" phenomenon, pure in that its essence is "determined' free of interpretative analysis, that is it simply will not be discussed in the determination as to what it is. As Kierkegaard, talking critically about Hegel, put it, the pain stands as its own presupposition. This is the brass ring of ethics, no? So beauty is a mode of value: simply given. Cannot be gainsaid. Apodictic, just like logic (notwithstanding the contingency of language itself. This aside for now), yet IN the palpable givenness of the world. Beauty, suffering, and the entirety of this value-in-being (call it) that is the very ground for ethics and religion there, in the phenomena of the world. Kant's wondered how apriori synthetic judgments were possible, but not how value apodicticity was possible. One is left with the horizon of value givenness, the bedrock of ethics (and aesthetics), its metaethics (metaaesthetics) worn "on the sleeve" of the world, if you will, and one sees that rational systems evolving historically are ALL about just this. This world IS a metaworld because in the essential givenness is the apodicticity of value.
Thank you for sharing these well-deliberated thoughts, inviting us to consider the relationship between essential givenness, apodicticity of value, and aesthetics. Much to think about here. DW
![[99] Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason By Martin Heidegger](/img/1.gif)
When I think of beauty, I think of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the general term that subsumes beauty, that is, brings the beautiful under a broader concept, and this is value. His last comments in the Tractatus hold true with him throughout his life: Value and its ethics and aesthetics (modes of value expression in our existence) refer us to that dimension of our existence which is simply given and is irreducible. So put, say, a lighted match beneath the palm of one's hand, and one faces a truly "pure" phenomenon, pure in that its essence is "determined' free of interpretative analysis, that is it simply will not be discussed in the determination as to what it is. As Kierkegaard, talking critically about Hegel, put it, the pain stands as its own presupposition. This is the brass ring of ethics, no? So beauty is a mode of value: simply given. Cannot be gainsaid. Apodictic, just like logic (notwithstanding the contingency of language itself. This aside for now), yet IN the palpable givenness of the world. Beauty, suffering, and the entirety of this value-in-being (call it) that is the very ground for ethics and religion there, in the phenomena of the world. Kant's wondered how apriori synthetic judgments were possible, but not how value apodicticity was possible.
One is left with the horizon of value givenness, the bedrock of ethics (and aesthetics), its metaethics (metaaesthetics) worn "on the sleeve" of the world, if you will, and one sees that rational systems evolving historically are ALL about just this. This world IS a metaworld because in the essential givenness is the apodicticity of value.
Thank you for sharing these well-deliberated thoughts, inviting us to consider the relationship between essential givenness, apodicticity of value, and aesthetics. Much to think about here. DW