He may accept from Croce the
thesis that art is the expression of intuitions, but he will not be
extravagantly grateful, because his duty as a critic is to distinguish
between intuitions and to decide that one is more significant than
another. A philosophy of art that lends him no aid in this and affords
no indication why the expression of one intuition should be preferred to
the expression of another is of little value to him. He will incline to
say that Hegel and Croce are the scientists of art rather than its
philosophers.
Here, then, is the opposition: between the philosophy that borrows its
values from science and the philosophy which shares its values with art.
We may put it with more cogency and truth: the opposition lies between a
philosophy without values and a philosophy based upon them. For values
are human, anthropocentric. Shut them out once and you shut them out for
ever. You do not get them back, as some believe, by declaring that such
and such a thing is true. Nothing is precious because it is true save to
a mind which has, consciously or unconsciously, decided that it is good
to know the truth.
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