From Hegel to Ingarden: Aesthetic Objects and the “Creation” of the World

Abstract

In modern philosophy the concern for truth has often taken the form of an inquiry into understanding or has become a quest for knowledge. Truth is not considered to be a given, but is seen as research performed with human effort in an attempt to explain or to come to terms with our relation to the world in which we live. In this context “truth” involves consciousness as the subjective element of human thought. Now this is different from truth as revelation because there, consciousness must play an active role, whereas the concept of truth as revelation would seem to involve a more passive role for under standing. Truth as knowledge, on the other hand, introduces a form of truth that implies understanding, but which minimizes the subjective element of consciousness: knowledge that can be accepted by all and can be demonstrated from a technical perspective as producing or arriving at the end desired is truth. In this sense knowledge is considered to be a form of objective or technical truth, as opposed to understanding as a simply subjective truth.