Paul Valery was especially interested in the relation between the two.
There's an essay called "Leonardo & the Philosophers" which is interesting.
Valery seems to have anticipated some postmodern concepts - he compares
philosophy's claim to offer "truths" to the idol worship of old; says
what's best about philosophy is its own particular kind of poetry (it's
the pleasure to be had in reading particular philosophers, not their
abstract systems, that draws us to re-read them). Says that you can
present a summary of a philosophy but a summary of a poem (the special
delusion of some critics & estheticians) is strictly impossible: a summary
leaves out the experience which only the poem can provide.
I don't agree completely with all this (I think I agree with Chas. Peirce
that it's possible for "general qualities" to be real, and thus summaries
or holistic pictures of these qualities can be true & useful) - but Valery's
thought a lot about it...
Henry
|