A research on "Aesthetic consciousness" and "Historical consciousness" as the possibility of knowledge in Benedetto Croce

Benedetto Croce, the most important figure of the Italian philosophical tradition in 20th century has created a great impact especially by his theories of aesthetics and art. In his view, aesthetics and history are two fundamental areas that surrounds our entire knowledge. Croce, who was impressed profoundly by Hegel, explains the whole reality through the concept of spirit (lo spirito) and argues that we comprehend the World within two forms of the spirit: Theoretical and practical. Every kind of knowledge in the sphere of the theoretical spirit is underlain by intuition, which is the knowledge of individual. The genuine aspect of his philosophy is that he identifies intuition with expression and assigns to it a pivotal position for every kind of knowledge. Within the scope of this theory of expression, the main characteristic of all knowledge is expressiveness. That is, everything including the conceptual knowledge can be known on the basis of intuition. However, by assigning the central position to spirit and reducing all knowledge to expression, Croce emphasises that the distinction between reality and non-reality is extraneous to the nature of true intuition. Therefore, he denies the existence of physical reality in several cases. This is because if the physical reality is accepted as an independent realm of existence, this would lead to a kind of dualism. Hence, Croce tries to avoid this dualism by stating that the physical action should be taken in the practical spirit. Nevertheless, a possible contradiction between intuition and physical reality emerges from this picture. As a result of this approach, artwork as the physical phenomenon is reduced to a symbol that does not bear any value by itself in terms of aesthetics and as far as history is concerned, the main elements of history such as chronicles and documents are considered to be dead, that is devoid of meaning whereas history itself is taken as a living thing. Therefore the physical reality of the artwork is jeopardised in the theory of art while in the theory of history a possible dualism emerges between the elements of history and history itself. In the first chapter, Croce's Philosophy of Spirit is explained by all of its aspects in general in order to comprehend the basis of both history and aesthetics as well as the problems concerning them. The theoretical and practical forms and four moments of the spirit – i.e., aesthetics, logic, economy and ethics are exposed. In the second chapter, the identity of intuition with expression and language is explained. Within this context, it is shown how Croce composed his theory of knowledge and the position of the artwork as a form of knowledge in his philosophy and its relationship with the other types of knowledge. The problems that arise by the reduction of the physical phenomenon to expression connected with the conception of art, which is based on the theory of expression are criticised. In the third chapter, Croce's logic as the science of the pure concept is explained and the identity of history with philosophy is shown with regards to it. Next, the concept of contemporary history which is connected to his absolute historicism and theory of historiography is set forth. Eventually, by analysing the contradiction between history and the composing elements of history, the idealistic and dualistic interpretations of Croce are discussed. In conclusion, it is maintained that the artwork as a form of knowledge cannot be mere expression regarding Croce's theory of knowledge based on intuition. The physical phenomenon is real to the same degree, and they should be taken as a unity. In respect of historical knowledge, it is shown that the dualist contradiction which seems to have emerged from Croce's distinction between the history, which is living, and the chronicles, which are dead, could be overcome by considering the distinction in question not real but ideal and as a result of which the theory of history could be built on a firm foundation.