My thanks to Jerry and others for their detailed, insightful
responses to my question about artists’ appreciation of their own works. A special word to Jerry Brown: as Marx explains brilliantly in the
Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, all human work, at its unalienated
best, has the structure that the Romantic tradition imputes to the creative
acts of artists. It is not for nothing
that “artist” and “artisan” have the same root.
A beautifully crafted table, a finely wrought poem, an exquisite violin,
a lush field of grain, a portrait that reveals the true inner character of its
subject – all are, as Marx tells us, self-externalizations and re-appropriations
of men’s and women’s creative intelligence.
What prompted me to ask the question? I talked yesterday by phone with a
distinguished philosophy professor in Canada who is writing about a dispute
some sixty years ago and more involving, among others, the Harvard philosopher
Clarence Irving Lewis, with whom I had the great good fortune to study in 1953.
Out of curiosity, I re-read the portion
of my lengthy Memoir that dealt with Lewis, and while I was back there in 2012,
when I wrote the Memoir, I thought to re-read two so-called Appreciations I
posted in the same period, one of William Golding’s novel The Inheritors, the other of Erich Auerbach’s classic work Mimesis.
I was, to be embarrassingly frank, simply delighted by the flow of my own
words, not so much for their insights into the works, which were hardly original
with me, but for the grace of their expression.
The thought occurred to me: Do artists look back at works they have
created with a similar pleasure?
And so I asked.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IX.7, 1168a1-9 (Rackham tr):
ReplyDelete“This is perhaps especially true of poets, who have an exaggerated affection for their own poems and love them as parents love their children. … The reason of this is that all things desire and love existence; but we exist in activity, since we exist by living and doing; and in a sense one who has made something exists actively, and so he loves his handiwork because he loves existence. This is in fact a fundamental principle of nature: what a thing is potentially, that its work reveals in actuality.”
When did you realize that you were a good writer? Were you enamored with words, their relationship and rhythm as a child?
ReplyDeleteIn Nic Ethics IX 7 Aristotle says something brilliant but enigmatic about this: "Every craftsman loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him if it came to life [or sometimes: 'if it acquired a soul']"
ReplyDeleteRichard Moran
Thanks to Prof. Moran for that great line from Aristotle, with which I was not familiar (my lack of familiarity being perhaps explained, if not excused, by my being neither a philosopher nor a former philosophy major).
ReplyDelete"Every craftsman loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him if it came to life". I would interpret Aristotle's assertion thus (this from the perspective of the craftsman's work): "Hey, given that you've troubled yourself with the burden of creation, you might at least have made me a work of art". So too, the grumpy complaint of Believers against their god.
ReplyDeleteAristotle’s aim in Nicomachean Ethics IX.7 is to explain why benefactors love their beneficiaries more than beneficiaries love their benefactors, something thought puzzling in his day (to judge from “apparently unreasonable” at 1167b18-19) and still even now (see Elster’s Alchemies of the Mind, p. 313). The line RM cites, “Every craftsman loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him if it came to life” = 1167b33-35), immediately precedes 1168a1-9, quoted by CY above, seeks to downplay the”enigmatic” part of the analogy with the crafts and to foreground the “brilliant” part.
ReplyDeleteThe analogy is benefactor: beneficiary :: craftsman:handiwork. The righthand side of the first part requires a living creature on the righthand side of the second part, which the enigmatic fantasy of 1167b33-35 provides. The brilliant bit is the point about self-love evoked by the actualization of one’s potentiality, explained by 1168a1-9.
Two quick notes:
(1) The craft analogy cuts both ways. A patient loves the doctor who cured him more than the doctor loves her patient — unless we believe that metaphysically grounded self-love trumps affection born from gratitude.
(2) Burke’s “Antony on Behalf of the Play,” in which Aristotle’s fantasy of an artifact coming to life comes true, as it were, is silent on the question of the relative affection for one another of Shakespeare and Julius Caesar.
love their benefactors, something thought puzzling in his day (to judge from “apparently unreasonable” at 1167b18-19) and still even now (see Elster’s Alchemies of the Mind, p. 313). The line RM cites, “Every craftsman loves the work of his own hands more than it would love him if it came to life” = 1167b33-35), immediately precedes 1168a1-9, quoted by CY above, which seeks to downplay the”enigmatic” part of the analogy with the crafts and to highlight the “brilliant” part.
ReplyDeleteThe analogy is benefactor:beneficiary :: craftsman:handiwork. The righthand side of the first part requires a living creature on the righthand side of the second part, which the enigmatic fantasy of 1167b33-35 provides. The brilliant bit is the point about self-love evoked by the actualization of one’s potentiality, explained by 1168a1-9.
Two quick notes:
(1) The craft analogy cuts both ways. A patient loves the doctor who cured him more than the doctor loves her patient — unless we believe that metaphysically grounded self-love trumps affection born from gratitude.
(2) Burke’s “Antony on Behalf of the Play,” in which Aristotle’s fantasy of an artifact coming to life comes true, as it were, is silent on the question of the relative affection for one another of Shakespeare and Julius Caesar.
My apologies. I managed to create two versions of my post, the second without the first line.
ReplyDeleteTo CY
ReplyDeleteThank you for the context, etc.
Charles, they were both worth reading!
ReplyDelete