Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- List of Charts
- Introduction: Prometheus Unbound
- 1 ‘Things without him’: Locke and the Logic of Metallism
- 2 Shaftesbury and Scottish Moral Sense Commercial Humanism: Inclinations Implanted in the Subject
- 3 American Money and Political Economy, 1780–1828
- 4 Banking and Money in Boston
- 5 Likeness to God
- 6 The Luxury of Pity
- 7 The Political Economy of Beauty and the Imagination
- Conclusion: Sense Subordinated to the Mind
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Appendix: Tables for Charts 1–9
- Index
7 - The Political Economy of Beauty and the Imagination
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- List of Charts
- Introduction: Prometheus Unbound
- 1 ‘Things without him’: Locke and the Logic of Metallism
- 2 Shaftesbury and Scottish Moral Sense Commercial Humanism: Inclinations Implanted in the Subject
- 3 American Money and Political Economy, 1780–1828
- 4 Banking and Money in Boston
- 5 Likeness to God
- 6 The Luxury of Pity
- 7 The Political Economy of Beauty and the Imagination
- Conclusion: Sense Subordinated to the Mind
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Appendix: Tables for Charts 1–9
- Index
Summary
‘Didn't I tell you so?’ said Flask; ‘yes you'll soon see this right whale's head hoisted opposite that parmacetti's.’
In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick; quoted in M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 47.Questions about the nature of value were not confined to economic issues and morality. The erosion of empiricism or received value structures and the rise of subjectivity also affected aesthetic values. In this realm as well, the Scottish Moral Sense philosophers and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers contributed to an ongoing debate surrounding the nature of beauty and the related ideas of taste, the sublime and the picturesque. There were almost as many angles to this lively eighteenth-century discourse as there were participants. This chapter will, however, focus on one major point that seems to hold the key to this debate: the site and nature of beauty.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Political Economy of SentimentPaper Credit and the Scottish Enlightenment in Early Republic Boston, 1780–1820, pp. 131 - 158Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014