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Re: From the Sublime to the ...
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Jlspe-@aol.com
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Mar 07, 2004 08:14 PST
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Thanks to J. Wager for his comments on Kant on 'idea' vs. 'ideaL'.
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If we can beat Kant more to death than we've already been doing so, I
think he offers "idea" as "idea" and "ideal" as a sensory image of the
idea. The "ideal" can't be fully realized; we can't really "see" a
perfect representation of an idea. But we need "ideals" as images to
remind us of ideas. As long as we remember that ideals are only images,
they aren't misleading.
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Exactly. But I think Sibley's point, as usual, is to direct the attention to
an _implicature_. That is, there is nothing inconceivable about there being an
ideal of ugliness, indeed in fact there may. (Actually, some people may have
an ideal of ugliness but no ideal of beauty). I quote from Sibley:
"By contrast [with 'beautiful'], I tentatively suggest that 'ugly' is always
attributive, and in a way that is not merely comparative (though it can be
used additionally in a comparative way), and is not what I call 'point-related',
and can hardly be called ideal-related either. (It would be odd indeed to say
we have ideals of facial or female or equine ugliness). We need some other
notion, for which, not very felicitously (though with some historical backing) I
shall call 'deformity-related' attributivity." (Sibley, Approach to
Aesthetics, p. 195).
Note that Sibley writes, "It would be odd...", which is the typical mark, for
Grice, of a conversational implicature. Odd, or misleading, but not _false_
or inconceivable.
Surely the reference to the jolilaid seems to be one such case of oddness --
although the case is tricky in that it includes the notion of 'joli' ('nice').
Cheers,
JL
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