Date of Award

4-1974

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Literatures, Languages, and Cultures

Abstract

Samuel Johnson comments, in Rambler 155, that "It seems generally believed, that, as the eye cannot see itself, the mind has no faculties by which it can contemplate its own state, and that therefore we have not means of becoming acquainted with our real characters" (V 60 Rl55). The implications of this statement provide a working basis for a relational study of Dr. Johnson's epistemological, moral, and artistic beliefs. The most important implication is that human perception is stimulated from outside rather than inside; that knowledge is, at its root, based upon experience with and observation of the outer world. A contrary epistemological viewpoint would be one which espoused innate ideas, knowledge with which every man is born. Another implication from Johnson's statement is that, since man cannot know his own real character by introspection, he must glean self-knowledge from the observation of particular beings around him, generalizing those particular observations in order to make them applicable to all mankind, thus himself. Yet another implication, when the comment is applied to art, is that Johnson does not see art as a mode of self-expression which leads to self-knowledge. He does not view writing as an emotional purge which results in the elevation of self-consciousness. From these three implications it can be shown that Johnson's concept of the acquisition of knowledge from the exterior world is the basis for his morality and his art; that his moral beliefs and his art spring organically from his empiricism. Underlying is the knowledge, implicit in an empirical epistemology, that 'no man is an island'; rather, he is a social animal who gains knowledge of the world and of himself from others; and who gives others the same knowledge through his own actions and through the vehicle of art, which is a generalized representation of man's condition.

Comments

An Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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