Abstract

It is a philosophical commonplace to juxtapose logic and imagination, reason and sensibility, the concept and intuition, philosophy itself and art. Frequently these pairs are thought of as opposites, one mediated through abstract reflection, the other a more intimate participant in the given of concrete existence. Philosophy does not always come off uncriticized in this opposition. Its reflective, analytical impulse is often thought to abstract us, remove us from the concretely real. Art, by contrast, it is said, serves to keep us closer to the particularities and richness of the concrete, and so to be justified in the greater immediacy of its appeal.