I
have been revisiting G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” this semester. This book has
been one of the few works that I’ve returned to over the past years (along with
“The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis). As I have read through the book in
light of this class, an old idea cam into new light. Chesterton makes the case
that it is impossible to make a scientific law based purely off of empiricism.
He argues that just because something has happened a million times prior, that
does not ensure that the same thing will happen at this very moment. In other
words, just because the lights have turned on, with the flipping of a certain
switch, we cannot guarantee that the lights will turn again based purely upon
previous observations.
Therefore,
within every situation must bear within it something beyond the empirical
driving its occurrence, or must necessarily be, in and of itself, a unique and
new occurrence. For art, this means that every representation or symbolization
of an experience or idea carries within itself an element superseding
experience or must be an entirely new and original subject of art and
representation.
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