Intense engagement
Succinct articulation
Artistic insight
Rationality is the disposition of acting by reason. But is rationality a human imposition on reality, or something actually present in an independent existence? In either case, the external world must inform its human expression.
“All art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one.” – Friedrich Schlegel
Infinite circle
Stimulating enigma
Outside the periphery
We tend to neglect the sheer improbability of existence and the marvel of its performances. But since we can readily view all things from an eternal frame of reference, time presents a fertile opportunity for imagination.
“Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances we detect; but the harmony results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Laws of rhythm
Feeling analysis
Emotional equivalent
Duration is comprised of moments nested inside of one another. As experience is integrated into an external physical realm, feeling invokes an inherent life principle aimed at unity. All action flows from a common source.
“There are thus distinct phases in the progress of an aesthetic feeling, as in the state of hypnosis ; and these phases correspond less to variations of degree than to differences of state or of nature.” – Henri Bergson
Speculative physics
Dynamic construction
Postulates causes
Tracing active forces instead of inert matter, as an image series matures the iterations become less frequent. Meanwhile, continued exploration offers more nuanced potential.
“In dealing with states of consciousness we cannot vary their duration without altering their nature.” – Henri Bergson
Enigmatic way
Transference function
Point of access
A lucid and authentic penetration into the vacuousness of all finite evidence is the minimum prerequisite needed to receive an intellectual intuition.
“In time the mind comes to reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection.” – John Locke
Grasp reality
Recognize possibilities
Shape cognition
Beyond appearance lies creative potential as a congregation between the particular and the universal. Art supplements the phenomenal world.
“Because essence can only be absolute, it in turn dissolves form into essence eternally in the same way, so that essence and from are perfectly fused.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Synthesized judgment
Differentiated knowledge
Purely privative
The idea of connaturality is expressed by Schelling as ‘absolute identity.’ This transitivity links the two aspects of being – the ever changing multiplicity of the particular with the stable universal. The intrinsic incompleteness of all finite determinations uncovers the complexion of the absolute.
“Existence is the link of a being as One, with itself as a multiplicity.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Possible action
Voluntary decision
Causal connectedness
From among many various alternatives, several suggested routes of travel are promulgated. Leading to divergent outcomes, an existential attitude emphasizes such freedom of choice, as well as the obligation of having to choose, or not.
“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” – Umberto Eco
Definitely determined
According to conditions
Described nature
Leading to adaptation, future anticipation depends on comprehending uniformity. Cognitive processes trace homogeneity by designating apparently equivalent phenomena in the same classification. Similarities naturally produce purposive action.
“On the one hand they make the phenomena of the world classifiable and thereby comprehensible; and on the other hand they make possible the development of an organ of comprehension called reason.” – Paul Carus
Essential dimensions
Conditions of existence
Anatomic unity
As we know it, actuality is always slipping away. In an uncertain framework, aesthetics weaves transient circumstances into meaningful narratives.
“The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it.” – Albert Camus