Truth from the Heart: objectivity

Freedom through Obedience

6:00:00 AMCatherine Beigel

Born with a fierce love of freedom, I’ve always had a distrust for authority. Little girls are told when they are young that they are princesses, but I didn’t want to just be a princess. I wanted to be the queen. Allowing others to tell me what to do was absolutely not the way to be a queen. In highschool I proudly told friends stories of rebellious escapades. Freedom was wild. Freedom was intoxicating. I eagerly anticipated the the day I would turn 18 and be free of parental obedience.

I feared obedience would force me into some arbitrary mold and I would lose my individuality. This fear I would argue, holds true for most millennials. Exemplified in modern heroes and heroines, our generation doesn’t wait for an authority or a higher power to save them but rather carefully calculates and fights for themselves. Just look at Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. The only morality or obedience she is subject to is herself. Yet is she truely free? In a similar warped concept of freedom I learned to justify my own existence. My identity was built on the ways that I lived differently from the set of objective standards. I wasn’t standard. I was going to be a queen. Looking back, I realize I was using highschool stories to affirm my dignity. I was determined to seeking my good without help or guidance from others. After all I was human and had enough reason to find the way alone. I didn’t need anyone telling me what was best for me.

Please understand me; this is an entirely healthy stage of adolescent development. Most teenagers at some point realize they have the ability to think for themselves and don’t need their parents to do the thinking for them. However, this cannot be our justification for disobedience. As maturing adults it’s important that this normal part of adolescence doesn’t become a defining characteristic of our person. Each of us, whether 8, 18, or 88, is called to obedience.

Obedience is not coercion or forced submission to another. In obedience, I do not simply mindlessly perform acts. But as a freely acting person, I surrender my immediate desires to another who I trust to seek my good. The notion of “acting” and “personhood” is key to understanding obedience. Crosby expresses that:

“It is not enough that believers profess what is objectively true and act according to what is objectively right; theirs subjectivity must be in order, they must profess the truth as persons, they must act through themselves in doing what is objectively right” (3).

You are capable of reasoning, willing desiring and must direct your whole person towards the truth. To merely perform a physical action is robotic. There is nothing human about it, nor is there any freedom there. We are called beyond the role of a slave. By submitting myself to authority, the truth that I am not alone in this universe and the truth that I am not God gently beckons me outside of myself. There is no coercion. It simply presents itself to me. In freedom, I respond to a given truth with a free assent. When the truth is not apparent to me directly, I surrender to the vision of another to guide me to it.

Wojtyla said: “The tension arising between the objective order of norms and the inner freedom of the person… this tension is only resolved in the good and conviction of the truthfulness of the good.” (4)

As an adult, I’m no longer being asked to be obedient to my parents. I am in a continuous way however, asked to be obedient to the truth. When I assent to the truth, I am making myself obedient to it. This means I cannot simply abandon the truth when faced with momentary discomfort, but must continue to freely choose it for the sake of the good which it is leading me to.

This radically affirms my dignity as a person, and does not undermine it in anyway. If I were to not acknowledge the truth I would simply be denying my ability to recognize and respond to it. As I submit myself to what is true I discover a paradox. In commitment to truth there is freedom. I have committed myself to something beyond myself and my actions free in virtue of that choice. That is a true kind of freedom.

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Crosby Chapter 7:On Proposing Truth and Not Imposing It Pg. 141
Ibid Pg. 143
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being gratitude objective values

Terror of the Void

6:00:00 AMUnknown

An abyss of nothingness awakens in us the terror of the void.

My Father raised his glass and made a toast. “To God’s precious gift of life,” he said. But as the words passed his lips, he could not hide the emotion behind them. His eyes filled with tears as he honored the birth of a newborn child. Over the years my father has become a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and in his eyes. If you told him to keep a straight face as he gazed upon the newborn, you would’ve been asking the impossible from him. However, his response to the preciousness of the beautiful baby was not unique only to him. For, the proud mother and father were also taken back by the miracle in their arms.

The response which people give to the value of a newborn is a tender and moving sight to behold. It would be difficult and uncomfortable to conceive of treating a newborn baby with indifference and a cold heart. It is of vital importance that we apprehend values; that we are disgusted when man neglects to do so and inspired when he succeeds in doing so. The apprehension of values is the core of being. Without it there would be no dialogue between subject and object. It would be impossible for man to coexist within the world around him and likewise, impossible for him to seek transcendent knowledge.

Man responds to the world of values because it is of fundamental ontological importance that he do so. Neutrality and indifference rob the universe of the joy behind a baby’s first laugh, true love’s kiss, a tender embrace before a loved one dies. Grasping values is essential to our being and our nature. If we do not grasp values, we are failing to let our being flourish to its fullest extent. Dietrich von Hildebrand writes in his chapter on Gratitude in The Art of Living, “If the capacity for apprehending objective values were to be taken from man, he would be cut off from the innermost life of the cosmos” (pg. 106).

Consider how depressing it would be to live in a world in which everything were utterly neutral, in which everyone was indifferent. There is no joy or hope to be found in a world where everything is a subjective illusion. Why would I be joyful at the birth of a newborn baby if the event does not possess any deeper meaning than reproduction? If the material world is the only dimension of the universe, why would I hope that something or someone could prevent my beloved’s inevitable death? Hildebrand writes, “The inconceivable barrenness, the absurdity and nothingness of a world in which there is no objective value and disvalue, can hardly be imagined” (pg. 105). This inconceivable abyss of nothingness would frighten the skeptic on his death bed, afraid of the unknown and his finite ending. If he finds no deeper meaning during his life, the end of life carries no weight, only despair; his existence is coming to a complete stop. The abyss inhales faith and hope; exhales doubt and despair. Belief in this abyss of nothingness strips man of his meaning and substance, leaving behind only emptiness.

This is the abyss our culture lives in, when we prefer an illusion to the world of values. Yet, I venture to believe in a reality which possess intrinsic splendor, beauty, and mystery. The splendor, beauty, and mystery of a newborn baby experienced by my tearful father.

Image: source

Quotes: Pages 105-106. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1965).

beautiful beauty objectivity

The Value of Beauty

6:00:00 AMChase J. Cloutier

As you prepare to leave work one day, your thoughts turn to music. For as long as you can remember, you have enjoyed listening to the music of the symphony. Luckily a local radio station often broadcasts music performed by the city symphony. Every evening as you finish your work day, you anticipate the ride home listening to the soothing sounds of the strings, the brazen bellows of the brass, and the whirling whispers of the woodwinds. Whenever you hear the symphony, you perceive in their playing such masterful artistry, subtle technique, and

exuberant enthusiasm. Who wouldn’t love the symphony?

Today is of special importance because the radio station is featuring a piece of music that just premiered last night. It was said to be a performance never to forget. However, today is also the day you promised to give your co-worker a ride home. His car is in the shop, after all. As you both walk out to the car, you mention the exciting performance that is being broadcast. Maybe your co-worker will enjoy the piece as well. Starting the car and pulling out onto the road, you turn the radio to your favorite channel.

As the first glorious moments of the symphony ring out, your heart begins to soar and leap with the delightful melodies being performed. The symphony is as excellent as you’ve ever heard it. The performance turns out to be even better than you anticipated. “Do you think we could change it?” asks your co-worker. Change it? Are we listening to the same thing? “Why do you want to change the channel?” “Oh, I don’t really like the symphony. It just doesn’t sound that good to me.”

Based on the great variety of musical tastes in society, one may be tempted to conclude that the beauty of music is completely subjective; it all depends on which person you ask. I may like a certain song on the radio, but that does not mean all of my friends will like it. My standards of beauty differ from that of others. Who’s to say that my subjective standard of beauty is superior to any other? What enables me to judge the standards of others as uninformed, mediocre, or just plain wrong?

This touches upon an issue of which we are all aware on some level. Each of us has had an experience of beauty in music which lifted us up and brought joy to our hearts. Yet there is so much disagreement on what constitutes beautiful music -- maybe beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder (or maybe the ear?).

In the first chapter of the Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand broaches the topic of the objectivity of beauty. Many thinkers in the philosophy of aesthetics today think that beauty is just a word we use to describe a pleasurable experience in ourselves. If we feel a delight when we see or hear some object, then we call that thing beautiful. It is not on account of any property or quality of the object itself that we call an object beautiful. Rather, beauty is only constituted in our reaction to an object.

I believe many music-lovers in today’s culture would not take it so far. While they respect that others have different musical tastes, they want to believe that their own musical tastes are justified. One thinks that there are good reasons to like this type of music over another. I love this music because it is beautiful, because of the quality inherent in it. “Beauty presents itself unambiguously as a property of an object -- more specifically, as a value.” (1) The object does not all of a sudden become beautiful once I enjoy it. This is why we are genuinely upset if someone else thinks our favorite piece of music -- the work of art which we treasure more than any other -- is ugly. We think to ourselves -- they are wrong. In truth, this musical work is exceedingly beautiful.

In his discussion on the objectivity of beauty, von Hildebrand points to this phenomenon of the experience of beauty. If we have truly experienced the beautiful, we come to an intuitive awareness of its intrinsic importance. That which is beautiful is not merely subjectively satisfying. Beauty constitutes a value -- that is, it is important in itself. It stands out in our experience as worthy of admiration. In the dialogue of subject with object one comes to perceive the value of beauty.

While our preferences and affinities do have a role to play in our appreciation of the beautiful, the main focus in aesthetic experience is on the beautiful thing itself. Thus, the response of the subject can be evaluated, to a certain extent, according to how beautiful this object really is. Ultimately, we should strive to apprehend and respond to all that is beautiful. There is an education in the beautiful and a cultivation of the aesthetic sense which we are all capable of entering into. Often this requires some humility and openness to the aesthetic sense of others. It may mean attending your first symphony with a friend or it may demand tuning in to a new radio station.

---------- 1. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Aesthetics Vol. 1 (Forthcoming publication of the Hildebrand Project), 15-16. Image 1: St. Cecilia with Two Angels, Antiveduto Grammatica, c. 1620-1625. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. (source)
Image 2: Sled dog and gramophone, Herbert Ponting, 1910-1913. (source) Image 3: Listening to album, Ed Uthman, 1969. (source)

beloved love Marriage

Union with the Beloved

6:00:00 AMUnknown

I was truly astounded when I was surfing the web the other day and came across an article about divorce rates in 2013.

It said that the average length of an American marriage is 8.8 years. I was familiar with the statistic of the percentage of marriages that end in divorce, but I had never heard the duration of an average marriage. Still in college, I cannot wrap my feeble brain around the challenges of married life, but still I wonder, “Is it really that bad? What goes wrong?”

In this discovery, I was interested in the principal reasons why couples divorce. Common motivations included: lacking individual identity and having different priorities and interests. The top reason was getting in for the wrong reasons such as for money or thinking it would be “happily ever after.”

There is an underlying theme in these motivations that von Hildebrand illuminates in his philosophy of love: the contrast of selfishness with selflessness. In his book The Nature of Love, von Hildebrand speaks of the various elements that constitute love. He suggests that the most misunderstood element of love may well be the intentio unionis, or the desire for union with the beloved person.

Von Hildebrand says that in relations of love we desire to be united with the beloved. This is sometimes seen as selfish because there is a connection of union and happiness. It perhaps leads to the misunderstanding that we seek union with another person only for selfish reasons, in order to fulfill our own desire for happiness.

This concept would be rejected by von Hildebrand because when we seek union with the beloved, the primary yearning is for union, not happiness. In other words, happiness is the result of the fulfilment of our desire for union. Simply speaking: boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl and wants to marry her (be united with her). From this union, boy is happy.

The moment a man is more interested in his own happiness than in union with his beloved, he stops wanting real union.

This would play out as so: Boy meets girl, girl makes boy happy, boy wants to keep girl around for his own happiness. This is selfish in that man does not want “union” with the beloved. He wants “possession” of the beloved. Perhaps this is why some marriages have ended in a divorce. But take heart! Von Hildebrand illuminates true union with the beloved beautifully.

The desire to benefit the beloved ought to dominate, as seen in intentio benevolentiae. In desiring union with the beloved, one should also desire their good, otherwise love becomes malformed. The beloved is presented as intrinsically important and worthy of reverence and love in herself. This motivates him to act in her best interest, in accord with her good. He desires to be united with her, but this is balanced by a desire that she flourish in her true good.

When desiring union with the beloved, one yearns for a return of love and seeks a mutual commitment in his/her beloved. In this union, the beloved becomes a source of happiness for the one who loves. Though love brings about the greatest happiness, the focus of love is never that happiness itself. We do not love others merely in order to make ourselves happy. The focus is the beloved and what is truly in accord with her good. Through union with the beloved, happiness is given as a free gift.

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aesthetics art beautiful

Beauty's Beholder

6:00:00 AMChase J. Cloutier

Beauty moves the heart like nothing else. Beautiful things have a magical power over us; they enchant us and evoke awe in us. They move us to wonder at reality. In my last post, I discussed how beautiful works of art make us yearn for Beauty itself. In this post, I want to examine a popular saying about beauty.

An often heard phrase on beauty, perhaps the most often heard, is the saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." What is the meaning of this phrase? Usually, one who uses this phrase means to say that what counts as beautiful depends upon who is looking. Considering a specific piece of art, some people will think it is beautiful and others will not. It depends on the tastes of the observer.

But there is another meaning that this phrase may carry. Whenever some observer recognizes that an object is beautiful, they must perceive it to be so. The beauty has to pass through their eye, so to speak. The beauty is "in" their eye at that moment. In any aesthetic experience, that is, in any experience of the beautiful, you need a subject and an object. You need a beautiful object and a subject who is able to experience the object.

However, this does not mean that beauty is completely reducible to the subject. If the beauty of your favorite music were based on nothing more than your fanciful thinking, it would empty all meaning out of the experience. The experience of beauty would then be likened to an illusion or a hallucination. To invest this meaning in the object would be to ignore and avoid the object as it is in reality.

On the contrary, beauty is able to hold such a powerful sway over us because this beauty is, first of all, in the object. An object of great beauty asserts itself in our experience as beautiful. It demands a response from us. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a work of such exceeding beauty that millions of people over hundreds of years have recognized its majesty. To dismiss such a work as utterly worthless would be to do it an injustice. The work itself has beauty. If you disagree, you have not yet truly perceived its beauty.

Still, because a subject is required for an aesthetic experience to take place, the state of the observer is very important. What does it take for a painting like Van Gogh’s Starry Night to be appreciated by an onlooker? If one is unfamiliar with post-impressionist paintings, Starry Night might strike one as somewhat strange and unreal. Yet there is a captivating beauty revealed to the one who is patient enough to grow accustomed to this style. For a variety of reasons, if a subject is not prepared and able, then he may fail to see the beauty of this object. It may be his unfamiliarity with the style, his overfamiliarity with this kind of work, or his inability to see the work clearly.

The aesthetic experience is full of light and meaning and yet we tend to disagree about beauty. Why is this? It is because the aesthetic experience is an encounter of a subject and an object. Some will recognize a beautiful thing and others will not. The beholder, once he has received the splendor of beauty, ought to rejoice in this encounter. Beauty cannot be reduced to mere opinion but it does have a rich subjective dimension. Beauty is in the thing but it is also in the eye of the beholder.
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Dietrich von Hildebrand’s masterful two volume treatment of beauty entitled Aesthetics is a forthcoming publication of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project. Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. (source) Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503-1517. Musee du Louvre, Paris. (source)

Christmas contemplation forgiveness

The Art of Living: Is it really that hard?

6:30:00 AMMeredith Kuzma

To kick off my winter break I have begun reading Dietrich von Hildebrand's The Art of Living. This topic is especially compelling during this time of year, when many people focus on going through the motions of a commercialized Christmas, stripping it of the response required to God becoming incarnate. In the Foreword of The Art of Living, Alice von Hildebrand says; “Never in the history of mankind has the average man had so many material possessions and yet never has he been more restless and unhappy” (p. ix). The Art of Living addresses the “happiness problem” that has been discussed previously on this blog before but also goes beyond happiness to discuss all elements of a fulfilling human life.

The Art of Living could probably be described as practical philosophy. The book began as radio talks by Dietrich von Hildebrand, given in a very simple style that was easily understood by those without philosophical training (like me!). The first chapter is entitled “Reverence,” and each chapter adds an additional virtue, culminating in the crowning virtue of Gratitude. Today I will cover Reverence in this blog.

The book opens with the topic of value response, discussing the importance of moral values. There's a beautiful quote for this:

“That which is realized and shines forth in an act of genuine forgiveness, in a noble and generous renunciation, in a burning and selfless love, is more significant and more noble, more important and more eternal than all cultural values” (p. 1).

Here von Hildebrand stresses that “only persons can bear moral values” (p. 2). This is significant because it means that man's life is not solely dominated by survival or entertainment, that there is a higher level in man's moral life. If neglected, this higher level can become corrupted and, in turn, corrupt man.

With each virtue, there is a corresponding vice. Opposed to Reverence is Irreverence.There are many problems that may arise with the irreverent man, but the most striking is that “the irreverent man can never remain inwardly silent” (p. 4). The inability to cultivate inward silence becomes a stumbling block later, when, for example, religious response is required.

“Confronted with being, the reverent man remains silent in order to give it an opportunity to speak” (p. 7).

Thus, Reverence is necessary for value response, it is an essential element of love, and it is the necessary basis for justice, purity, and religion. The concept of Reverence embodies recognition of personal value, which towers over material possessions. The art of living out Reverence means living a response to the value of persons. At Christmas, this may mean less focus on material possessions and more focus on human beings.

“For far above his cultural accomplishments rises the importance of man's own being: a personality radiating moral values, a man who is humble, pure, truthful, honest, and loving.” (2)

We can all issue ourselves a challenge to cultivate silence and reverence this Christmas season.

Von, Hildebrand Dietrich, and Hildebrand Alice. Von. The Art of Living. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute, 1994

Reverent Woman Image Source

Candle Image Source

affections affectivity emotion

The Objectivity of Love

6:00:00 AMChase J. Cloutier

Earlier I wrote a post reflecting on how love bestows sight. For von Hildebrand, love is a value-response. One is struck by the beauty of the beloved. One begins to love the other in response to her unique and overall loveliness. In the act of love, the riches and splendor of the other person are revealed to us. Love affords a clearer sight of the other.

But, one might object, there is such an intensity of emotion in love that under its sway we cannot possibly see clearly. The experience of love is so subjectively colored that it must result in a distortion of the objective truth of the other person. The Stoics, a certain school of ancient Greek philosophers, would agree: I ought to avoid emotion at any cost, for emotion clouds my judgment. In order to achieve moral perfection, I must become totally detached from everything and everyone around me.

Consider a mother greatly saddened over the fact that her son is very sick. She wants him to recover but cannot do anything to help him. According to the Stoic, it would be better if the mother detached herself emotionally from her son. That way, she will not experience the sorrow. But this does not seem right. A mother and father ought to care for their children. A mother’s tears reveal a great love for her child. When a child is suffering, the parents will suffer along with him. Is this wrong? Or, rather, is it called for by the situation?

Or, take, for instance, the same parents who attend their son’s soccer game. He does exceedingly well during the game, scoring several goals for the first time. His parents are overjoyed for their son’s accomplishment. After the game, they run to embrace their smiling son, sharing in his excitement. But what if the parents had not acted excited at all? What if they had remained distant from the game, acknowledging their son’s accomplishment, but not showing any excitement? Obviously, the first reaction is more appropriate to the situation.
There are many situations which demand our emotional investment. In his work The Nature of Love, von Hildebrand states “true objectivity consists in the adequacy of a response.” (1) Indeed, in order to do full justice to the object before us, we need to offer a response in keeping with its real importance. The stunning artwork deserves to be admired with awe, the son’s soccer victory warrants a joyful celebration, and the beloved other calls for an affectionate love.

Love calls for a donation of one's heart.

In these cases, it is the response of the subject -- a rich subjective dimension -- which ensures true objectivity. (2) These situations call for an investment of the subject’s heart, a flourishing of spiritual affectivity. This is the only response which the object deserves. Thus, the affections play a key role in the objectivity of love. Love brings about powerful affections -- not arbitrarily but precisely in response to the beloved other. The Stoics overlooked this fundamental fact of human relationships: there are times when love calls for a deep affectivity. Indeed, love calls for a donation of one’s heart.

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1. The Nature of Love (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2009) 43.

2. Cf. Ibid., 43: Love is “the most subjective value-response...which forms no contrast at all to true objectivity.”

Image: Ricard Canals. Sick Child (Octavi, the artist's son), 1903. Oil on canvas. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. (original source)

Freedom through Obedience

Terror of the Void

The Value of Beauty

Union with the Beloved

Beauty's Beholder

The Art of Living: Is it really that hard?

The Objectivity of Love

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