A person at position "A" views a facet of the regular dodecahedron (a Platonic
solid of 12 planar, pentagonal facets). Person "A"'s view is "rationalistic"
and he uses the logic formula "the dodecahedron is green or it is not green". 1
For person "A", the dodecahedron is green. Another person at position "B" views
a facet of the same dodecahedron. His view also is "rationalistic" and he uses
the same logic formula "the dodecahedron is purple or it is not purple". 2
As both men "A" and "B" believe in rationalism and even use the same logic formula
(used in the Bible, invoked by John Locke, "Yea or Nay, anything else cometh
from evil"), conclude that the dodecahedron is both green and purple: an apparent
contradiction! Happily, both men report an empirical observation of an antinomy!
Herder, instead, rejects rationalism. Herder prefers a viewpoint
of "relativism". People can hold different views of the same reality,
each view being a valid viewpoint or facet of reality, but each seeing a
different facet of reality, each viewpoint a different truth about the
same world. Why is the view of a "wild man" or "savage" less valid than
that of a more "advanced" European? The views of a Samuel Pufendorf
differs from the views of a John Locke!
In modern terms, we now have a possible infinity of nonequivalent systems
of logic: {Li}, i ≥ 0. Which system of logic Lk
shall we use to select or choose a logical system? Isn't this choice arbitrary
or non-logical? Which logical (rationalistic, enlightened) viewpoint shall be
privileged? An unbiased choice is not possible. Rationalism was a nice dream!
By one system of Logic, Lgreen the
world is green, by another system of logic, Lpurple
the world is purple. By one system of logic, LLocke the
Amerindian is a wild man, a savage, who has no valid claim to property or life,
may morally and legally 3 be destroyed
using genocide. By another system of logic, LPufendorf
the European, due to what he claims is his inherrently "superior" view of life,
may exterminate others he calls "savages" as the European is "enlightened".
4
Thus Locke interprets the world in an "enlightenment" view (colonial exploitation,
eventually favoring industrial development by the bourgeoisie in a modern world,
as opposed to exploitation by a landed aristocracy).
Aesthetics and Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder held an aesthetic view that was totally
different and reconcillably opposed to the view of Immanuel Kant
and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Herder's views were those encountered
in modern cultural anthropology.
"...the imponderables of empirical life
[are] among the essential engines of artistic creation. Accordingly, he
[Herder] rejects universalistic constructs of the self as well as binding
paradigms of the beautiful. Because both cases have to do only with
arbitrarily created ideals, it is, as a countermove to art, incumbent upon
the aesthetic and 'interessegeleiteten' (interest-directed) self to
discover new areas of experience. Aesthetic individuality is measured
accordingly for Herder, according to willingness not to appeal to specific
points of view and exclusive moral concepts." 5
"... according to Herder, '[was] wir wissen, wissen wir nur aus Analogie';
(what we know, we know only through analogy), and because this also holds
true in the final analysis for scholarly principles and anthropological
universals, these truths cannot be proved. Truths then become matters of
faith. Formulaic proclamations about nature can be successively traced back
to humans, who think and perceive in terms of analogies, who learn to think,
as it were, under certain climatic and geographic conditions. Due to this
radical questioning of discursive thinking, Herder is not able to accept the
supposition that the human being discovers, without conceptions, a
transcendental and non-temporal world order ..." 6
"The explosive power of such ideas cannot be measured by the reservations
that Herder has against the self-image of Enlightenment rationalists. In
their circle any conclusion that was responsible, due to its crude faith
in science, for the age of light gradually losing its perspective, was
viewed as scandalous. Applied to Herder's reading of the works of Baumgarten
it becomes clear why he had to reject the putative revaluation of the senses
within the context of scientific theories of the beautiful: because enlightened
philosophers such as Baumgarten merely exploit the senses as tools of reason,
they punish the human being to a certain extent with abiding blindness. Instead
of making the senses and with them the undisciplined presence of everyday life
a starting point for their aesthetic ideas, they begin with the notion of a
heretofore Christian transfigured hereafter, which is now associated with
eternal truths ..." 7
How did Kant view art? "Kant ... offers tasteless and even racial arguments in
order to distinguish his notion of art from the 'silly' conception of art of
other countries. Arguing against such hegemonic claims, Herder refers to a
historically relativising aesthetic, as a consequence of which the art of all
parts of the world necessarily gets mired in the provincial. Measuring it
against nature as a 'lebendige Wirkerin' (living effecter), Herder gives
evidence, which was not popular in his day, that no national preference of
taste had ever succeeded in raising itself above local limitations ..."
8
"Herder's use of the word 'Volk' was grossly misunderstood in the twentieth
century. ... nationalistic readings intentionally disregard the fact that
Herder defines the word Volk as ... creatures that are closer to
nature than scholars ..." 9
Herder felt that "... creating works of art contribute to the global progress
toward brotherhood of all men. Using this premise, Herder does not order the
collected and translated folk songs according to national or Eurocentric
points of view. Alongside English and German examples there are Lithuanian,
Muritanian, Greenlandian, and — at least he strives for this —
American Indian songs." 9
1
A means alternation, N means negation:
A green Ngreen, thus A_N_
2
A means alternation, N means negation:
A purple Npurple, thus A_N_
3
The views of Pufendorf, Locke, Grotius, Vattel, etc. were used to establish
"international law", where it is understood
that "international law" excluded the views of the majority of the
peoples of the world. See:
"John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism",
by Barbara Arneil.
"Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism", by John Noyes
4
Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson
and other "founding fathers" often made their fortunes through land speculation,
by stealing Amerindian lands, and initiating the genocide of Amerindians,
basing their actions in large part upon the "enlightenment" colonialist views of
John Locke. In order to accomplish this wholesale slaughter, the Louis and Clark
expedition was used to gain an inventory of lands gained by the Louisiana Purchase,
to be stolen, and the Amerindian peoples to be selected for systematic genocide.
The Founding Fathers in the U.S. Colonies, later the United States set an example.
Other colonial genocides followed, some citing the example of the Founding Fathers!
5
"A Companion to the Works of Johann Gottfried Herder", Editors: Hans Adler, Wulf Koepke; p. 146
6
ibid., p. 147 The transcendental, non-temporal world is a world never experienced: consistent with prejudices.
7
ibid., pp. 147, 148
8
ibid., pp. 152, 153
9
ibid., p. 160
10
The 30 works of art called "Le Carceri" (The Prisons) by Giovanni Piranesi: 1720-1778
"Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Prisons (Le Carceri), Dover Publications
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