Rembrandt "De Nachtwacht" (1642)
An diofar eadar breithneachadh teòiriceach is neo-theòiriceach. Am breugnachadh a-staigh ma tha inbhe-fìrinne cuingichte ris a' chiad fhear.
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The distinction between theoretical and a-theoretical judgments. The inner contradiction of a restriction of the validity of truth to the former.
The consequence of LITT's conception (which RICKERT also had to take, although he persisted in calling all judgments theoretical (1) is, that a sharp distinction must be made between theoretical judgments on the one hand, and a-theoretical judgments of valuation on the other, and that only the former can lay claim to universal validity of truth. Measured by this criterion, the judgment "This rose is beautiful", for example, or the judgment "This action is immoral" is withdrawn from this universal validity.
This entire distinction, however, (which goes back to KANT's dualistic transcendental ground-Idea with its cleavage between theoretical knowledge and apriori rational faith) is untenable and cancels itself when it is thought out.
For there exists no meaningful judgment of valuation, which does not at once, as a judgment, lay claim to validity of truth. An aesthetic or moral judgment as formulated above, with respect to its full intention must run as follows: "This rose is in truth beautiful" and "This action is in truth immoral", respectively. For these judgments imply the supposition: there exists a universally valid standard of aesthetic and moral valuation and to this rose and this action, respectively, the predicates "beautiful" and "immoral" are truly ascribed in my judgment (2). This is the case, even though he who asserts the judgment is incapable of rendering a theoretical account of this supposition.
Whoever denies this state of affairs, which is rooted in the fact, that no single modal aspect of our temporal cosmos is self-sufficient (but rather each refers to the inter-modal coherence of meaning), denies thereby the meaning of aesthetic and moral judgments themselves. He cuts through the coherence of meaning among the logical, the aesthetic and the moral law-spheres and can no longer allow even the principle of contradiction to be valid for the so-called "a-theoretical" judgments.
If a man standing before REMBRANDT's "Night-Watch", in opposition to the predominant conception, were to call this masterpiece un-aesthetic, un-lovely and at the same time would claim: "There exists no universally valid norm for aesthetic valuation", he would fall into the same contradiction as the sceptic who denies a universally-valid truth. He can try to defend himself, by making the reservation: I for one think this painting unlovely. But then it has no meaning to set this subjective impression against the generally predominant view. If this critic should also concede this, and so refrains from pressing his opinion upon others, then his judgment becomes meaningless as an aesthetic judgment. In other words, it is then no longer an aesthetic judgment, since it lacks aesthetic qualification and determinateness.
Every subjective valuation receives its determinateness by being subjected to a norm, which determines the subjectivity and defines it in its meaning! There exists no aesthetic subjectivity apart from a universally valid aesthetic norm to which it is subjected.
Let it not be objected here, that the beauty of the "Night-Watch" is so thoroughly individual, that it cannot be exhausted in universally valid aesthetic norms.
For individuality is proper to the subjective as such, and the "Night-Watch", without possible contradiction, is the objective realization of a completely individual, subjective-aesthetic conception. But this is not the point here. The question is only whether the judgment: "The 'Night-Watch' is beautiful", really has a universally-valid meaning or not. If not, then it does not make sense either to say, that the "Night-Watch" is a great work of art. If so, then the judgment must necessarily make claim to universally-valid truth. Tertium non datur!
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1 Cf. e.g. System der Phil., p. 388. But it may not be denied that, for example the expression: "Truth is the highest value" is a judgment, which, in RICKERT'S own view, can never be called a theoretical judgment, because it proceeds from a life- and world-view. Besides, as is well known, for RICKERT the theoretical judgments too are oriented to a (theoretical) value.
2 RICKERT, 10C. cit. p. 388 supposes that the explicit assertion that something is beautiful, insofar as we seek to found this judgment theoretically, should be a theoretical judgment about the "aesthetic value", and that in such a judgment the characteristic aesthetic attitude, which according to him lacks a universally valid standard, is in fact abandoned. The art lover, however, who is not at all related theoretically to the work of art, but who, in the full contemplation of the work, asserts the judgment "This work of art is beautiful" wants just as well, and necessarily so, to imply the truth of his assertion in this non-theoretical judgment. To claim, with RICKERT, that such a non theoretical aesthetic judgment is impossible, is simply untenable. Besides, if aesthetic valuation were to know no tension between norm and aesthetic object, as RICKERT pretends, why then do I distinguish beautiful and ugly in my a-theoretical appreciation of art?
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I, pp 151-153)
