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Leibniz and AestheticAuthor(s): Clifford BrownReviewed work(s):Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Sep., 1967), pp. 70-80Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2105324 .Accessed: 16/10/2012 05:54

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LEIBNIZ AND AESTHETIC

There is a great volume of commentary on Leibniz, and an extra- ordinarily wide range of interpretation: Cassirer's Leibniz is not Russell's. This is undoubtedly due to the fecundity of Leibniz's thought coupled with the diversity of his interests and the ad hoc nature of much of his writing. In addition, his tendency to treat the positions of others as partial manifestations of his own more comprehensive view helped bring about syntheses which later critics have found unstable enough to justify charges of inconsistency or even of writing in bad faith.

While it is a commonplace among historians of philosophy that Leibniz's writings are laden with the past and pregnant with the future, there has been little recognition in the English speaking world of his role in the development of modem aesthetic. Works of art and their making, however, are often used by Leibniz to throw light on meta- physical, epistemological, and ethical problems; he makes aesthetic expe- rience a specific kind of knowing, he relates this kind of knowing to other kinds of knowing under the relationship of the one and the many, and he deals with the problem of the combined presence of originality and intelligibility in the work of art. These are the problems with which I am primarily concerned in this paper. The concluding section points to Leibniz's influence on Baumgarten and Kant, two philosophers frequently mentioned as the founders of modern aesthetic.

II

For Leibniz, the Cartesian criteria of clearness and distinctness are not sufficient for a proper classification of our ideas. The content of the Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas of 1684 1 appears as a constant in all the later writings of Leibniz. Here Leibniz provides a series of dichotomies: knowledge is obscure or clear, if clear, then it is either confused or distinct; and if distinct, then it is either inadequate

1 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans. and ed. Leroy E. Loemker, 2 Vols. (Chicago, 1956), I, 448-454.

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LEIBNIZ AND AESTHETIC 71

or adequate, and also either symbolic or intuitive. My knowledge is clear if it enables me simply to recognize what is represented. This clear knowledge is confused when I am unable to enumerate the various marks which distinguish the object known from other objects, even though the object may possess such marks. This is the way in which I know things in sensation; the evidence provided by the senses is direct and does not provide me with characteristics to which I can give verbal expression. Thus color cannot be explained to a blind man or, for that matter, to those who can see; all that we can do is to provide them with the direct experience or to help them recall some direct experience they have had in the past.

This direct experience of quality in sensation has a parallel in art. "Likewise we sometimes see painters and other artists correctly judge what has been done well or badly; yet they are often unable to give a reason for their judgment but tell the inquirer that the- work which dis- pleases them lacks 'something, I know not what."' 2

Thus the artist knows which is the right shape or the right color, but this is a knowledge for which he has no conceptual expression. The judgment that Leibniz makes here is not an isolated one made only in passing, but rather is reiterated throughout his mature writing. One in- stance occurs in the essay On Wisdom, written in the 1690's: "We do not always observe wherein the perfection of pleasing things consists, or what kind of perfection within ourselves they serve, yet our feelings (Gemfith) perceive it, even though our understanding does not. We commonly say, 'There is something, I know not what, that pleases me in the matter'. This we call 'sympathy'. But those who seek the causes of things will usually find a ground for this and understand that there is something at the bottom of the matter which, though unnoticed, really appeals to us." 3 And toward the end of his life, in 1712, in some remarks on Shaftsbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, he writes: "Taste as distinguished from understanding consists of confused perceptions for which one cannot give an adequate reason. It is something like an instinct. Tastes are formed by nature and by habits. To have good taste, one must practice enjoying the good things which reason and experience have already authorized." 4

It is difficult to assess the degree to which Leibniz concedes an autonomous kind of knowing to aesthetic experience. It is certainly the case that he allows for a proper kind of knowing which lies outside the

2 Ibid., I, 449. 3 Loemker, II, 698. 4 Loemker, II, 1031. See Ernst Cassirer, "Verhiltnis zur Aesthetik," Leibniz'

System (Marburg, 1902), p. 459.

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conceptualized distinctness of scientific thought. We can certainly know a quality for which no concept is immediately available. Moreover it is the case that in the knowledge of such sense qualities as color no conceptualized expression will ever be found to be equivalent to the direct experience in sensation. In regard to the experiencing of art, the situation is more complicated. Here Leibniz specifically says that while our immediate and clear experience of aesthetic perfection may be con- fused, that nonetheless in most cases further investigation will reveal the cause of our pleasure. What this cause of our pleasure is we shall consider presently. But for the moment we may at least say that while what the artist knows clearly but confusedly is subject to further rational scrutiny, it is nonetheless known immediately and without conscious concept in aesthetic experience.

Croce was willing to credit Leibniz with making a place for taste and imagination, contrary to the practice of the Cartesians, and with main- taining a difference of degree between aesthetic and intellectual expe- rience. Croce also maintained that ultimately Leibniz's place must be with the rationalizers: "It might seem that by according claritas and denying distinctio to aesthetic facts Leibniz recognized that their peculiar character is neither sensuous nor intellectual. He might seem to have distinguished them by their 'claritas' from pleasure or sense-motions, and from intellect by their lack of distinction' . But the lex continue and the Leibnitian intellectualism forbid this interpretation. In this case obscurity and clarity are quantitative degrees of one single conscious- ness, distinct or intellectual, towards which both converge and with which in the extreme case they unite." 5 Croce also held that Kant's idea of art is basically identical with that of Baumgarten and the Wolffian school, i.e., that art is ". . . the sensible and imaginative vesture of an intellectual concept." 6 In the concluding section of this paper I hope to show that these are faulty interpretations. Leibniz's "clear but confused knowledge," Baumgarten's "extensive clarity," and Kant's "aesthetical idea" all recognize an aesthetic perception which is not merely an unsuccessful attempt at conceptualization.

III

Leibniz thus holds that further investigation will often reveal the true source of the pleasure realized in the clear but confused knowledge present in aesthetic experience. He is explicit on the results of such an

5 Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic, tr. Douglas Ainslie, 2nd ed. (New York, 1920), p. 208.

6 Ibid., p. 273.

LEIBNIZ AND AESTHETIC 73

investigation: "Joy is a pleasure which the soul feels in itself. Pleasure is the feeling of a perfection or an excellence, whether in ourselves or in something else. For the perfection of other beings also is agreeable, such as understanding, courage, and especially beauty in another human being, or in an animal or even in a lifeless creature, a painting or a work of craftsmanship, as well. For the image of such perfection in others, impressed upon us, causes some of this perfection to be im- planted and aroused within ourselves." 7

Thus the cause of our joy or pleasure is perfection, a perfection which our feelings may perceive even when our understanding does not. Leibniz does not fail to provide in this same essay a definition of per- fection: "I call any elevation of being a perfection ... perfection shows itself in great freedom and power of action, since all being consists in a kind of power.... The greater any power is, moreover, the more there is found in it the many revealed through the one and in the one.... Now unity in plurality is nothing but harmony [tUbereinstim- mung], and, since any particular being agrees with one rather than another being, there flows from this harmony the order from which beauty arises, and beauty awakens love." 8 Thus the source of our pleasure in aesthetic experience is our clear but confused (i.e., non- conceptual) perception of the perfection of a unity in variety. Leibniz cites a number of specific examples: the ordered variations of music, the rhythms and rhymes of poetry, "the beat and cadence of the dance," in all of which we can find the fitness of order as an aid to our emotions.

There is, of course, no more pervasive theme in Leibniz's world view than that of parsimony. The world taken as a whole combines the simplest hypotheses with the richest compossible variety of phenomena. Every perception is a greater or lesser realization of this universal har- mony. The principles of continuity and the identity of indiscernibles combine as we move toward ever more comprehensive unities-in-variety. A suggested tool for this creative human advance is the art of combi- nations, ".... that science in which are treated the forms or formulas of things in general, that is, quality in general or similarity and dis- similarity." 9 This art is superior to algebra in being more comprehen-

7 On Wisdom, Loemker, II, 697. 8 Ibid., p. 699. Cf. the Preface to the Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus of

1693 (Loemker, II, 690-691): "Thus the contemplation of beautiful things is in itself pleasant, and a painting of Raphael affects him who understands it, even if it offers no material gains, so that he keeps it in his sight and takes delight in it, in a kind of image of love."

9 On Universal Synthesis and Analysis, Or the Art of Discovery and Judgment, Loemker, I, 359.

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sive and in applying not only to mathematics but also to deciphering, to various games, and to "... all matters involving relations of simi- larity." Thus the advancing unity-in-variety essential to the successful work of art shares its organic structuring with the expressions of logic, science, and philosophy itself.

A harmonious resolution of apparent incompatibilities thus charac- terizes our knowledge at every level. This principle is also used by Leibniz to explain the seeming presence of evil in the world on analogy to the seeming presence of ugliness in a successful work of art; the supposed evil or ugliness is due to our taking a partial view and to our frequent failure to realize that what appears evil or ugly is actually a necessary condition for the realization of a greater moral or artistic good: "If we look at a very beautiful picture but cover up all of it but a tiny spot, what more will appear in it ... than a confused mixture of colors without beauty and without art. Yet when the covering is removed and the whole painting is viewed from a position that suits it, we come to understand that what seemed to be a thoughtless smear on the canvas has really been done with the highest artistry by the creator of the work." la A similar experience is available in music when an initial dissonance arouses our attention and concern, and paves the way for a resolution.

It is not my concern in this paper to support Leibniz's analogical defense of the proposition that everything happens for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The difficulties of Leibnizian optimism are manifest, and it has been tirelessly pointed out that he is simply assuming that a highest perfection does exist, that there is in actuality a whole picture of which we see but a part. I wish only to point out that for Leibniz compossible perfection and organic unity and articu- lation are characteristics common to all forms of human knowledge and activity, and, as I hope to show, that for better and for worse, this emphasis on the structural aspect of works of art has had a strong influence on later aesthetic speculation.

IV

That the source of our pleasure in aesthetic experience is the perfec- tion of a unity-in-variety is a principle which Leibniz was not the first to pronounce, however significant his role as a carrier and reshaper of this idea may be. Perhaps the most important original contribution of Leibniz to the development of modem aesthetic theory is the impetus

10 On the Radical Origination of Things, Loemker, II, 795.

LEIBNIZ AND AESTHETIC 75

his psychology gives to -the establishing of the autonomy of the human mind in its powers of perception.

In the Principles of Nature and Grace of 1714 Leibniz speaks of an analogical free creative power of the mind: "As for the reasonable soul or spirit, there is something more in it than in monads or simple souls. It is'not only a mirror of the universe of creatures but also an image of divinity. The spirit not only has a perception of the works of God but is even capable of producing something which resembles them.... our soul is architectonic ... in its voluntary action and in discovering the sciences according to which God has regulated things.... In its own realm and in the small world in which it is allowed to act, the soul imitates what God performs in the great world." 11

It must not be supposed that Leibniz uses this notion of free creative power to refer only to our capacities for establishing new scientific laws and inventing new machines. In his Precepts for Advancing the Sciences and Arts of 168012 he invests imagination with a power for originality in art which goes beyond the compass of rule and rote. While music is subordinate to mathematics with regard to intervals and harmonies, and while rules of musical composition may be taught to a man who is ignorant of music, the possession of such knowledge does not thereby enable a man to compose successfully. What is needed is an intimate acquaintance with the works of successful artists of the past, together with a vivid aural imagination. In activity dependent on sensation "... we do better by letting ourselves go automatically by imitation and practise than by sticking to dry precepts .... imagining a beautiful melody, making a good poem, promptly sketching architectural orna- ments or the plan of a creative painting require that our imagination itself acquire a habit after which it can be given the freedom to go its own way without consulting reason.... reason must afterwards examine and correct and polish the work of the imagination; that is where the precepts of art are needed to produce something finished and excel- lent." 13

From this we may conclude that there is a sense in which for Leibniz the successful work of art is always both original and intelligible. The work is not done by mechanically following an established formula, yet it does present the requisite intelligible perfection of a unity-in-variety. The work of a Cicero or a Raphael is original in the sense of not being arrived at by rule, and yet it is at the same time intelligible in its presen- tation of a new form.

-11 Loeniker, II, 104 1. 12 Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener (New York, 1951), pp. 29-46. '3 Ibid., p. 43.

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Leibniz's artist is clearly not a creator ex nihilo. He must always make use of materials and laws which are not of his own making. But these limits constitute precisely a condition without which creative work would be meaningless or inconceivable. In developing the idea of economy in the essay On the Radical Origination of Things of 1697, Leibniz uses the example of an architect's being both limited and challenged by the nature of the terrain on which his building is to be erected.'4 The principle of economy maintains that the universe com- bines the simplest hypotheses with the richest compossible variety of phenomena. And thus the successful work of art emulates this best of all possible worlds in achieving the greatest expression of a felt unity- in-variety compossible within the receptivity or capacity of the world which the artist is attempting to shape. The successful artist, like the successful chess player, subjects himself to conditions and rules of procedure which are not the result of his own volition, and these limi- tations enable him to show us his originality and his intelligence in the shaping of his art.15

V

Writers on the history of modem aesthetic frequently attribute its beginnings to either Baumgarten or Kant. Both men were, however, heavily influenced in some of their most central theses by Leibniz.

The classifications of Leibniz's Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas are repeated in Baumgarten's Reflections on Poetry: "? 12 ... poetic representations are either obscure or clear .... ? 13. In obscure representations there are not contained as many representations of characteristic traits as would suffice for recognizing them and for dis- tinguishing them from others.... ? 14. Distinct representations, com- plete, adequate, profound through every degree, are not sensate, and, therefore, not poetic.... ? 15. Since poetic representations are clear representations ... and since they will be either distinct or confused, and since they are not distinct ... therefore, they are confused." 16

These classifications, considered at length in Section Two of this article, provide the entire systematic framework of the Baumgarten work. Moreover, the Leibnizian root-idea of perfection as unity-in- variety reappears in Baumgarten's account as the simultaneous presence

14 Loemker, II, 791. '5 See Paul Schrecker, "Leibniz and the Timaeus," The Review of Metaphysics,

IV (1950-51), 495-505. On the general problem of originality and intelligibility in the work of art, see Milton C. Nahm, The Artist As Creator (Baltimore, 1956).

16 Tr. Karl Aschenbrenner and William B. Holther (Berkeley, 1954), pp. 40-42.

LEIBNIz AND AESTHETIC 77

i the art work of "extensive clarity" and "theme." For Baumgaten, as for Leibniz, clear knowledge enables us to recognize the represen- tation, and this knowledge may be either confused or distinct. Distinct knowledge requires intensive clarity, i.e., an awareness of the essential and defining character of the object. This area of conceptualization is the proper concern of philosophy and science. The cognitive import of the work of art, on the other hand, rests on extensive clarity: "? 16. When in representation A more is represented than in B, C, D, and so on, but all are confused, A will be said to be extensively clearer than the rest." 17 Greater extensive clarity in a representation provokes a broadening multiplicity of characteristic traits in the imagination of the percipient by the use of such devices as allusion and partial images, and the reference to individuals rather than to concepts. "? 29 ... when the poet performs, we develop a more universal notion from these specific instances and sharp determinations... ." 18

These multiplicities obtain their poetic perfection, however, only in their unity in a single theme: "? 66. By theme we mean that whose representation contains the sufficient reason of other representations supplied in the discourse, but which does not have its own sufficient reason in them. ? 67 ... a poem having a single theme is more perfect than one which has several...." 19 Baumgarten closes this section of his discussion with a summary statement in the spirit of the Monadology: "? 68 . . . representations may be altogether good independently of each other, but ... in the coordination of them every sense idea, every fiction, every fantasy must be excluded which does not conform to the design (theme) and blend into the plot. We observed a little while ago that the poet is like a maker or a creator. So the poem ought to be like a world. Hence by analogy whatever is evident to the philosophers concerning the real world, the same ought to be thought of a poem." 20

The Leibnizian world-view is pervasive in Baumgarten's aesthetic; it is clearly present in the foundations of Kant's. According to Israel Knox, it is Kant's great merit that he placed in the mainstream of modern aesthetic two central conceptions: "He made the principle of harmony the root-thought of his philosophy of art and beauty.... Of equal importance is Kant's emphasis upon the disinterestedness and purposive- ness without purpose of the judgment of Taste." 2'

17 Ibid., p. 43. 18 Ibid., p. 49. 19 Ibid., p. 62. 20 Ibid., pp. 62-63. 21 Israel Knox, The Aesthetic Theories of Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer

(London, 1958), p. 50.

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The historical influences on Kant were many and diverse, yet in regard to organic unity as an aspect of aesthetic experience, he was undoubtedly affected both directly and indirectly by the writings of Leibniz. 22 Christian Wolff, who attempted to systematize Leibniz's world-view and whom Kant immortalized as the inducer of his dogmatic slumber, had defined perfection as unity-in-variety and had helped make this the aesthetic byword of the time.23 Baumgarten also serves as a connecting link, since he was both strongly influenced by the writings of Leibniz and highly respected by Kant. Of all the writings of Leibniz himself, the one which contributed most to the formation of Kant's critical thought is probably the New Essays Concerning Human Under- standing, published posthumously in 1765, with its stresses on universal harmony, the a priori conditions of human experience, and the uncon- scious levels of the human mind.

Knox says that Kant's "fatal dichotomization" of beauty as free or dependent has its source in Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten.24 There is some support for this contention. For Leibniz, joy is pleasure, pleasure is a feeling of perfection in oneself or in others, perfection is the power of a unity-in-variety, from this unity comes beauty, and from beauty comes love. Thus our aesthetic satisfaction is dependent on formal per- fection, joy is possible without material gain, and our experience of beauty is a preparation for love. For Kant, free beauty satisfies by its form, this form brings the cognitive powers into play without engaging them in questions of utility or moral judgment, hence aesthetic interest is a disinterested interest, and the truest art is free as contemplative rather than dependent on a conceptual concern for what the object ought to be. Beauty through its disinterested nature is a preparation for the moral categorical imperative.

While the parallels between the two arguments are evident, there are also some essential differences which must be stressed. Kant holds that the judgment of taste is completely independent of the idea of perfec- tion. The harmonious interplay of our cognitive powers that character- izes our experience of the beautiful is based on a purposiveness without purpose. This means that objective purposiveness, i.e. conceptual refer- ence of the object to a criterion of what it ought to be, has no place in the judgment of free beauty. Kant defines perfection as objective internal purposiveness, and observes that perfection "... has been

22 See Otto Schlapp, Kants Lehre vom Genie und die Entstehung der 'Kritik der Urtheilskraft' (Gdttingen, 1901), p. 70.

23 See Hermann Cohen, Kants Begrfindung der Aesthetik (Berlin, 1889), pp. 28-29.

24 Knox, p. 170.

LEIBNIz AND AESTHETIC 79

regarded by celebrated philosophers as the same as beauty, with the proviso, if it is thought in a confused way. It is of the greatest impor- tance in a critique of taste to decide whether beauty can thus actually be resolved into the concept of perfection." 25

For Kant, the formal element of the art work does not entail an objective purposiveness; in the experience of beauty, there is a feeling of harmony in the interplay of our cognitive powers, but there is no measuring of the object to a definite purpose. The free beauty of flowers, birds, shells, delineations a la grecque, and all music without words involves no concept of what the object ought to be. In the dependent beauty of human and animal figures, castles, and churches there is such a limiting concept.26

Thus Kant himself seems anxious to distinguish his position from that of those "celebrated philosophers" whose aesthetic touchstone is "per- fection." There are, however, grounds for maintaining that Kant's dis- tinction is not altogether defensible, and that the distance between his position and that of his rationalist forerunners is both greater and lesser than he may have supposed.

We must first recall that perfection for Leibniz does not always involve a conceptual reference of the object or event to a criterion of what it ought to be. Perfection is simply the manifestation of power in a unity-in-variety, which unity-in-variety may be felt as well as con- ceptualized. We must also recall Baumgarten's notion of "extensive clarity." He distinguishes it carefully from that "intensive clarity" which is obtained by concept. So when Baumgarten refers to the clear but confused nature of aesthetic cognition, he does not mean that it involves a fumbling and only partially successful effort toward conceptualization. Clarity may be "extensive" or "intensive," and neither is a deficient copy of the other.

Furthermore, this notion of "extensive clarity" actually recurs in the work of Kant himself, under the title of the "aesthetical idea." An aesthetical idea is "... that representation of the imagination which occasions much thought, without however any definite thought, i.e. any concept, being ... adequate to it; it consequently cannot be completely compassed and made intelligible by language." 27 ". . . the aesthetical idea is a representation of the imagination associated with a given con- cept, which is bound up with such a multiplicity of partial representa-

25 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, tr. J. H. Bernard (New York, 1951), pp. 62-63.

26 Ibid., pp. 65-66. 27 Ibid., p. 157.

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tions in its free employment that for it no expression marking a definite concept can be found... " 28

Thus Kant's "aesthetical idea" is closely related to Baumgarten's "extensive clarity" and Leibniz's "clear but confused ideas." Moreover, the Kantian emphasis on formal structure and unity is anticipated by both Baumgarten and Leibniz. Nevertheless, Kant's distinction between free and dependent beauty is not maintained by Leibniz, an essential mark of the beautiful is that it is a felt unity. The possibility of a con- ceptual unity paralleling the felt unity makes no difference. Musical harmonies continue to be felt unities even after the Pythagorean dis- covery of their numerical analogues, and Leibniz specifically lists the figures of humans and animals, architecture, and craft as examples of felt unity and hence of beauty.

CLIFFORD BROWN. RUTGERS UNIVERSITY.

28 Ibid., p. 160.