Reflection #4 2-15-11 through 2-20-11 Enlightenment

English 436 Reflection #4, Covering 2-14-11 through 2-20-11

Yesterday, I caught up on all the reading from last week: The works that I was most able to follow were Alexander Pope’s, An Essay on Criticism; Edmund Burke’s, Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s, Phenomenology of Spirit, Dr. Wexler’s handouts of Immanuel Kant’s, “What is Enlightenment?” and the six-page summary (Dr. Wexler’s) of all our readings. I had a particularly rough time reading Kant’s From Critique of Power of Judgment and Hegel’s From Lectures on Fine Art.

Last week’s class was somewhat of a self-inflicted disappointment because I had not finished most of our required reading, and as a result did not follow Dr. Wexler’s lecture very closely. In addition, the apprehension regarding my involvement in our group project lived out to my worst fears as I blew my best opportunity for some constructive dialogue when I did not respond adequately to classmate Janet Smith’s compliment that she thought my clip—"James Farmer Jr.’s speech was the most sublime.”

I’ll try to articulate the most salient points from last week’s reading:

• Alexander Pope is a witty, pithy, and clever poet whose verse in An Essay on Criticism expounds on critics’ talents and lack of. He is a neoclassic poet and critic, who values the classic adherence to strict rules.

• Immanuel Kant implores us to be enlightened and value our minds to think courageously and freely. He differentiated between public freedom as a scholar and writer, with less private freedom as a worker in civic post or office, which has less latitude. Although he believes in mature and independent thinking, Kant is far from being an anarchist. He influenced other great writers, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson—particularly, I would assume, in his Self Reliance essay.

• Edmund Burke, in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful expounds on affection, pain, pleasure, joy, grief, self-preservation, the sublime, and the beautiful. He states that “curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections,” (Leitch 454) and basically once you find out or discover what you are curious about the “novelty” lessens. I would agree with most of that; however, I can visualize Albert Einstein still enamored all the time. He also makes a point to the effect that the removal of pain or danger does not produce “pleasure” but does produce “delight.” He feels not even grief has any resemblance to positive pain. He believes we endure grief and somehow willingly accept it; however, we try to shake off absolute pain quickly. Self-preservation from pain and danger is the “most powerful of all the passions” (458). Burke vehemently turned against the French Revolution probably because of the ugly turn of events, viz., "The Reign of Terror.” Finally, he related Sublime with danger, e.g., nature’s capacity for violence; and Beauty “should be light and delicate.” (460).

• Hegel, who was German like Kant, was to me perhaps to most controversial,yet his philosophy has influences in the Psychoanalysis and Marxism theories. He believes that philosophy’s goal is to realize the “absolute knowledge.” (537) I look forward to re-read his essays for a firmer grasp. He expostulates on the Master/Slave(Bondsman) relationship in stark terms: Generally, as humans, we have to have another human in our world to feel our “self-conscious,” which initiates the lord and bondsman relationship. Besides influencing the Psychoanalysis and Marxism theories, he also influenced the rise of fascism.