Dave Lampson <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>I don't read Goethe, and generally have little respect for philosophers.

Oh my goodness!  This is not good ... just when I was nodding my head in
agreement with all that you said, I find you generalizing a dis(sing) or
petit- respect for philosophers.  I am a philosopher, if calling myself
such does not generate a sense of hubris.  The 'love of wisdom' is, of
course, passion for a Woman -- Sophia -- philo-Sophia ... also desire for
sophrosune or 'balance of mind,' self-ordering or discipline, etc.

Has anyone considered, for a moment, that Beauty is something that we
create, out of the sonic perceptions granted us via Musick (among other
things)? The Ancient Greeks (noble thinkers!) made a distinction between
sense-perception and reason (logos).  The former was considered unreliable
and fraught with peril; the latter was considered the measure of all
things, pure context and primal intention (a la Parmenides, who stated that
"to think and to be are one and the same" -- fragment 30, and Protagoras
also comes to mind).  Anyway, if I make the statement that the film A
Clockwork Orange was beautiful, that is because I have already established
a context or field of interpretation -- an arena -- in the space of which
that film manifests a sort of beauty, which I have already interpreted for
myself and seek, in my better moments, to impart to others -- via language,
or what Plotinus would call 'discursive reasoning'.  Music, however, is
not discursive; music qua Musick rests upon the foundation of Beauty ...
a beauty that must be understood not as something verifiable by
sense-perception, but something that allows itself to be created or
expressed by the individual mind experiencing the moment -- whether musical
or cinematic or whatever ...  In short, any moment requiring or demanding
judgment.  And whence the judgment? From the notion of beauty qua
possibility -- and vice-versa -- that is the foundation of all aesthetic
perception.  Plotinus, for example, made a very subtle distinction betwixt
pathos, that which one suffers or undergoes, without recourse, and
aisthesis, the reflective experience of that suffering, which results in a
type of ordering or self-definition, leading to the establishment of an Ego
that is identical with the Divine.  Such is, in my opinion, the gift of
music:  to exercise the divinity within each and every one of us.  God
flexes His muscles when He hears the 'Vorspiel' to Das Rheingold (and the
lovely voices of those maidens!); He pats Himself on the back when He hears
Mahler's First Symphony; and He cries like a baby when He hears that piece
of crap called a violin concerto by Hindemith.  Of course, I am speaking
here in God's stead.  But I'm sure at least a few of the readers here will
get my point.

All the Best,

Edward

 [My apologies for the extremely clumsy used of words.  I did not mean
 to disparage philosophers as people.  I was referring to the writings
 of the big name philosophers I have read have generated little respect
 in me.  -Dave]