Maritain, Morality, Art and Distortion

馬里旦，道德、藝術與失真

Gregory J. Kerr

《哲學與文化》 41卷4期 (2014/04) Pp. 49-73

摘要

小說家弗蘭納里．奧康納（Flannery O' Connor）曾說，馬里旦的美學令她獲益良多。她表示她的故事經常包含對現實的扭曲和誇大。不僅如此，她更說扭曲才是她作品的重點。傳統道德或許會質疑扭曲之道德價值的有效性。這樣難道不會混淆和困擾讀者嗎？事實上，如果柏拉圖在場，他難道不會責難她的謊言，以及所有扭曲概念真理及傳統真理的作家所編織的謊言？馬里旦的美學哲學提供了瞭解道德家與藝術家之緊張關係的關鍵。他表示藝術品或詩不應該以清晰地傳達價值觀為目的，弔詭的是，當作品不傳達清晰的價值觀時，反而更具有道德價值。馬里旦認為，詩和藝術經常將現實轉變、扭曲和變形，是為了讓作為觀眾的我們，不會僅僅滿足於化約我們對現實的認識來理解實在，而是讓我們做好準備，以同理心去「經受」作品傳達的訊息。當我們理解到，對馬里旦來說，世界和人類的前意識之間存在著更豐富而大量的理智與認知的暗流或交流（這種暗流或交流恐怕無法對自身提出理性或哲學的說明）時，上述的觀點就可以被表達得更清楚。詩人將其所經受到的認知之流，透過他作品中的符號分享出來。要瞭解作品的整體意義，我們絕對不能妄下判斷。透過扭曲實在的方式，藝術品的意識內容滲透我們的存有。藝術通達到我們深處當中的實在，而以此在道德上指引我們。

關鍵字

馬里旦 ； 藝術 ； 美學 ； 道德 ； 《藝術與詩的創作直覺》 ； 《藝術與士林哲學》 ； 弗蘭納里．奧康納 ； 柏拉圖 ； 扭曲 ； 前意識

並列摘要

The novelist Flannery O' Connor once said that she had cut her aesthetic ”teeth” on the aesthetics of Jacques Maritain. She tells us that her stories often contain distortions and exaggerations of reality. More than that, she says that distortion is critical to her writing. A traditional morality might question the soundness of the moral value of distortion. Would it not confuse and disturb the readers? Indeed, if Plato were present would he not censure her lies and the lies of all writers who distort the conceptual and conventional truth about things? Jacques Maritain's aesthetic philosophy provides a key to understanding the tensions that exist between the moralist and the artist. He suggests that a work of fine art or poetry shouldn't be about conceptually communicating values. Paradoxically, it may be more morally valuable because it doesn't! For Maritain, poetry and fine art often transform, distort, and transfigure reality in order that we, its audience, will not be satisfied and content to reduce our vision of reality by merely understanding it or planning to do something, but rather prepare us to sympathetically ”suffer” what is being communicated through it. This point is clearer if we consider that there is, for Maritain, a rich and plentiful intellectual and cognitive undercurrent or trafficking between the world and the preconscious of human beings, one that perhaps is unable to give a rational or philosophical account of itself. This cognitive current or vein into which the poet ”suffers' or taps into, he shares through signs in the work. To receive this fullness we must be prevented from a premature understanding. Through distortion, the intellectual content of the work of art permeates our very being. It gets more of reality inside of us to morally guide us.

並列關鍵字

Jacques Maritain ； Art ； Aesthetics ； Morality ； Creative Intuition ； Art and Scholasticism ； Flannery O'Connor ； Plato ； Distortion ； Preconscious