Hildebrand Glossary

Knowledge that results from immediate insight into the essence of an object, rather than that which comes via sensory experience. A priori knowledge is knowledge of that which is strictly and essentially necessary, entirely intelligible, and absolutely certain. A priori knowledge also comprises deductive, demonstrative proof.

A rational response of the heart to the importance of a thing, where one has a feeling that meaningfully corresponds to a thing; ideally, this is a feeling that is due to that thing. Certain things, in virtue of their value, deserve to be admired, loved, revered, respected, or have some other felt response given to them.The affective response to value (the important in itself) represents the highest instance of the affective response. The lowest instance of an affective response is one motivated by the merely subjectively satisfying.

The "new element" in artistic representation, whereby reality is not merely copied, but re-expressed in the medium of some kind of artwork. The full range of values, including moral values and disvalues, can be fully transposed into aesthtic values. Even moral and aesthetic disvalues can be integrated into a work of art in such a way that, after being transposed, they contribute to the beauty of the work of art.

The most fundamental aesthetic value, which calls us, just in perceiving it, to have profound joy, to be elevated to what is transcendent, and to have reverence. Beauty is a primordial phenomenon–that is, it must be perceived to be known; it cannot be adequately explained or analyzed in terms of some other set of properties. It is also an objective property of things, and in particular, it is a property of every value: it is the enjoyable appearance or "face" of every value, its privileged manifestation

A sublime, transcendent, spiritual beauty that belongs to some audible and visible things, where the beauty is so lofty, and so raises our minds to God, that it is entirely disproportionate to the material parts of the beautiful object. For example, it is not clear how something so metaphysically lowly as rocks could be the basis for the sublime beauty that is found in the Grand Canyon. The beauty of the second power operates similarly to how sacraments do, on the Catholic understanding: something material, which is of a low level metaphysically speaking, bears a very lofty spiritual value.

The beauty that belongs to audible and visible things, like beautiful music, beautiful paintings, or beautiful landscapes, where it is clear how the physical and sensible parts of the beautiful object coordinate together in such a way that they evoke enjoyment, reverence, awe, and other value responses.

One antithesis to beauty, particularly as found in art, and especially to artistic beauty of the second power. It is not hostile to the beautiful as is ugliness or triviality, but stands rather as a contrast to the richness of content typical of artistic beauty of the second power.

The disvalue that is found in the attitude that focuses exclusively on what is conventional, mediocre, and comfortable, and refuses to respond to (and live up to the greatness of) absolute, unconditional values, especially moral values and beauty.

An act of the personal subject in which an object in its intelligibility comes into view for the subject; an act in which the personal subject comes to know the object. A cognitive act forms a contrast with a response: the former is receptive in relation to its object, whereas the latter takes a stance toward its object.

The disordered desire ('cupere') to be together with ('con-') some or other good experienced as important; in the case of concupiscence, the object is always desired as subjectively satisfying.

Experience or subjectivity characterizes consciousness; the conscious subject 'undergoes' and 'lives through' experience; this undergoing and living through takes shape through the subject's acts of cognition, affection, and volition, each of which intends (or aims at, or is about) various objects.

An opposition consisting of the presence and absence of something; an opposite that cannot exist/hold/pertain simultaneously with its opposite, such as being/non-being, and which also has no intermediary.

Opposites that are contentfully or qualitatively opposed, such as beauty and ugliness, moral goodness and moral evil.

A use of our freedom, whereby we do not bring something into existence (whether direclty or indirectly), but in which we freely take up a position toward experiences already existing in our soul, and which we have not freely engendered, and are not free to dissipate. Cooperative freedom is used with respect to the experience of "being affected," and with respect to affective responses. We can, in the language of Dietrich von Hildebrand, sanction (make our own) or disavow (refuse to own) an affective response that has arisen in the soul.

The approach to beauty in which we do not approach it as a means to our own subjective satisfaction or advantage, as something merely desired, or as only something to be grasped through abstract thinking.

A living urge of a human being that arises at the level of nature. It has a certain object-directedness, like hunger or thirst, but does not rise to the level of an intentional or properly personal act.

The response that ought to be given a thing because of its value or importance in itself, that is, the response that a thing deserves for its own sake, regardless of whether giving that response is subjectively satisfying or objectively fulfilling for a person. Some responses are morally due to a thing, that is, that thing is a bearer of moral values. Other respones are due to things in non-moral senses–for example, we should give respones to the beauty or the technical values we find in things, even though we are not morally obliged to do so.

An aesthetic value that is found in clothing, dance, music that is fashionable and, to some extent, graceful. Someone elegant has and portrays a clear sense of his own body's rhythms and style. This is a purely worldly aesthetic value. It does not reveal anything about God, and it does not even rise to the level of the properly beautiful.

The kind of strict necessity that is grasped a priori knowing. This kind of necessity forms a contrast with the essences found in many plants and animals, which only have what Dietrich von Hildebrand calls contingent necessity or morphic unity. The essence of an oak tree has a certain necessity, but it is only contingent; it is not the strict, essential necessity of a principle of logic. Essential necessity is known a priori, whereas contingent necessity is known a posteriori.

That which is (or is experienced to be) higher than or superior to something else, either with respect to the loftiness of its value and its resemblance of God (as moral values and the beauty of the second power are exalted over all other values), or with repsect to one's attitude towards others.

An expression is a perceivable revelation of some interior content (e.g., the revelation of an emotion on a human face); expressed beauty is a sense-perceivable manifestation of interior, metaphysical beauty, in which the beauty of the being or essence of a thing (e.g., the beauty of human nature) makes itself perceivable (e.g., on a person's face)

"Face" first refers to the material expression of (personal) subjectivity via the living (human) body, and then to the expression of (personal) subjectivity itself, whether bodily or non-bodily. So considered, the face is the 'place' of encounter between two (personal) subjectivities, who stand in an I-Thou relation via the mediating significance of the face. Again, so considered, the face is the threshold of (personal) subjectivity, where the interiority of (personal) subjectivity is exteriorized and made available for another. Taken more broadly, each value and each being can have have a "face" in an analogous sense, that is, a distinctive, privileged manifestation whereby it is most perfectly revealed

Our ability to volitionally respond to an object, either to conform ourselves to its importance and say "yes" to it, or to reject it in light of its disvalue and say "no" to it. See also "Second perfection of the will," to which this first perfection is contrasted.

Aesthetic disvalues that are found in kitsch artworks, and intellectual pursuits and achievements that are reductionistic, where someone thinks that what is objectively higher is nothing but a result of what is objectively lower, e.g., thinking that love is nothing but an expression of sexual drives. It is an antithesis to true depth, and the proper response to a display of this false sense of superiority is disgust or nausea.

Frontal consciousness is awareness of something as an intentional object, as something "in front of me," something given as distinct from my consciousness and its states, about which I have thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc. Lateral consciousness is awareness of my own consciosuness or my conscious states or acts, not as an object of those acts, but rather insofar as I live those states and acts, that is, insfoar as I am aware of them from within, from the first-person point of view.

An object that possesses positive importance in some way. Also, the object of choice and striving, the end of activity, which choice, striving, and activity ordinarily originates in some prior affective response to value.

An aesthetic value that is the opposite of being ungainly. People and actions display gracefulness when they involved skilled, flowing, masterful movement, as in the graceful dancer or bullfighter.

A third spiritual faculty/capacity allied with the traditionally enumerated faculties of intellect and will, which, unlike intellect that intends the true as cognitive, and will that intends the good as volitional, the heart intends the valuable as affectively registered or felt. The heart is not reducible to the will, nor is it reducible to bodily sensations. It is equal in spiritual stature to the intellect and the will.

That which possesses formal likeness and a relation of origin to that of which it is an image.

An artwork is an imitation when it aims at being exactly like some reality, rather than just representing features of it.

The feature of a thing opposed to neutrality. Importance can be considered as a feature of a thing itself, or as that in virtue of which it is able to attract our interest and motivate a response. According to von Hildebrand, things can be important in one of three ways: they can have the importance of being subjectively satisfying, objectively good for a person, or important in themselves.

The importance of a thing grounded in its very nature. Hildebrand reserves the term "value" exclusively for importance-in-itself. This is contrasted with the importance something takes on in relation to a subject – either as satisfying some subjective desire of a person, or as contributing to his objective flourishing .

The intention that wills the good for someone, with a particular focus on willing the good of the (then) beloved other.

The intention proper to the essence of love that seeks union with the beloved. This intention need not have anything self-centered about it; it can enter in to the value-response of love.

The object-directedness of a conscious experience, e.g., the experience of grief is intentional as a result of being grief over something sad. To say that an a conscious experience is intentional is to say it is "of" or "about" something. This concept gets focused by contrasting it with non-intentional experiences. For example, physical exhaustion is a non-intentional conscious experience since it is not about anything nor does it have a motivating object.

A cognitive contact with some object, whereby we receive that object cognitively, letting it disclose itself to us.

Natural love (as contrasted with caritas) is in its proper sense directed to persons. It is an affective value response: a response to another person in his or her individual and unique "overall beauty," which comes to the lover as a gift, and which must be sanctioned by his or her freedom. It includes a desire for the good of the beloved, and union with the beloved.

A form of beauty that belongs to what is beautiful in an everyday or familiar, but genuinely loveable, sense. That which is lovely is often also charming; it makes us happy. The lovely is distinct from highly lofty or sublime beauties.

The disvalue that is characterized by opposition to greatness. A mediocre person tends interpret everything morally or aesthetically great in ways that deprive them of everything great, absolute, or unconditional.

The beauty that something has in virtue of the kind of being it is or the kinds of non-aesthetic value it has. This kind of beauty forms a contrast with the beauty of visible and audible form. Whereas metaphysical beauty grows out of a beautiful being, and is proportioned to the nature of the beautiful being, the beauty of visible and audible form far surpasses the visible and audible forms on which it rests. The beauty of a Mozart melody rests on the musical notes as on a pedestal, whereas the metaphysical beauty of a saint grows out of the moral being of the saint. And metaphysical beauty is not tied to the visible and audible, as we can see in the beauty of a saint.

Something that, through its value, evokes wonder in someone who perceives it. When we perceive a mirandum, we see that something has some property, but it is entirely mysterious how it could have that property. For example, given the metaphsyical disproportion between what is material and what is spiritual, the way in which a human face can express spiritual attitdues is a mirandum: it is mysterious how anything material could so perfectly display the spiritual life of a person.

That kind of value which an act or response has when an agent responds properly to a morally relevant value that makes a claim on the agent. Also, a kind of qualitative value that can be considered in itself, such as purity, generosity, or humility in themselves. Moral values have a unique indispensability; they belong to the "one thing needful"; a human being is a failure as a human being by being morally deficient. Moral values also have a special relation to God; a morally bad person cannot not turn away from God.

That which is given in human experience that is morally relevant, including morally good and bad acts, and moral value and disvalues.

One of the three levels of unity in the Hildebrandian ontology of unity. Less than a morphic unity is the chaotic unity (such as a completely irregular line). More than a morphic unity is the necessary essential unity (such as a square or a circle), which grounds necessary essential laws. The morphic unity is known by way of observation and induction, and grounds laws that are subject to exceptions. It is known a posteriori, whereas the highest form of unity, the necessary essential unity, is known a priori.

When we apprehend something as important, we are moved, or motivated, by that thing. Motivation is the power exercised by importance once it has been apprehended; it provides an objective reason for the performance of action (of all kinds).

Those experiences (and dimensions of experience) that lack an intentional character, that are not intentionally structered as subject-act-object, such as vigor vs sluggishness, etc. See also the definition of 'intentionality.'

The kind of importance that something has when that thing serves to perfect a person and to contribute to his or her happiness; it fulfills a need or desire that a person has by nature (rather than because of subjective preference or choice) and when it is sought (or otherwise responded to) because it fulfills that need or desire, rahter than because it is important in itself.

The value that something has because of the kind of thing that it is. The dignity of a person is an ontological value. Ontological values are distinguished from qualitative values, such as moral values, which do not exist in a person merely in virtue of being a person.

Someone who looks at everything in terms of utility, and with a prosaic attitude, without attending to absolute and unconditional values, especially moral and aesthetic values.

A sui generis aesthetic value that is the antithesis of the merely prosaic, boring, and mediocre. It is the enchanting value that hovers over many lovely landscapes, especially at evening or early morning; it is a charm or harmony that unites many disparate elements of those landscapes, works of art, poems, etc.

The basic attitude that characterizes those who subordinate all modes of importance, including all values, to their own glory. Sometimes, this means a simultaneous recognition and hatred of values; sometimes, it means a desire to turn all values into a means to one's own glory.

The aesthetic disvalue belonging to that which is devoid of poetry and charm, to the banal, everyday, mechanized, dull world of the factory or the office.

A supernatural virtue. The positive value to which the pure person responds – fixes his gaze on, wills unreservedly, and surrenders to – is the splendor of God's holiness and everything indissolubly linked with his holiness. The disvalues which the pure person especially rejects are those diametrically opposed to this light of God's holiness, the giving into which defile the person in a particular way and banish him from God's presence. For the human person, at the center of these negative values is the misuse of sex.

A value that something has not because of the kind of thing that it is, but because it has some property or quality. Qualitative values include moral values, most aesthetic values, and technical values. Creatures merely share in these values.

Any likeness of any kind between two or more things.

Any act in which I take up a position towards some object, or bestow a word or stance upon an object, in answer to its disclosing itself to me. Responses include theoretical responses like conviction and doubt, voluntary responses like sanctioning and disavowal, and affective responses like reverence and hatred.

An attitude in which one regards reality not as a means to one's own pleasure or well-being, but as valuable in its own right, and one lets reality reveal itself, rather than imposing one's ideas or goals upon reality.

Fundamental uses of our cooperative freedom to respond to spontaneous attitudes, like affective responses, that arise in us. To sanction such an attitude is to use my freedom to endorse that attitude, to make it my own; to disavow such an atittude is to use my freedom to reject that attitude, to counteract it, and to withdraw myself from it.

Our ability to freely command certain activities and to become the cause of a new chain of causality. See also the entry for "First perfection of the will."

Any act in which a person goes beyond attention to himself or herself (or to what concerns his or her own personal interests and subjective life), and makes contact with some real being or value distinct from him.

An attitude in which one fails to respond to the objective aesthetic value of things, but instead, when encountering something beautiful or otherwise aesthetically valuable, focuses on and enjoys one's own affections that are elicited by that response. It is a kind of self-absorbtion or indulgence of one's feelings in relation to beauty.

Spiritual' translates the German 'geistig.' Most properly, it is persons who are spiritual–that is, they are able to be self-conscious, be self-transcending, be motivated by importance (rather than merely beings causes or effects), and grasp and respond to meanings and values for their own sake. Secondarily, values that only properly belong to persons (e.g., moral values) or that specially call our attention to what transcends the merely material, causal world (e.g., spiritual beauty) are called spiritual, because of their close association with persons

Beauty that belongs to what is truly spiritual (e.g., to persons or to moral values) or beauty that, despite belonging to material things, calls our attention to what is spiritual and transcends the material world, as in the beauty of the second power.

Those things of importance that satisfy the subject in a way particular to that subject, and without drawing or fostering any transcendence of subjectivity by the subject.

This can mean either one's consciousness, or (as a translation of the German word 'Eigenleben') those things that are of personal interest to someone or that concern his or her own private life and needs.

A value (like beauty) is sublime inasmuch as it is a higher value than other values, inasmuch as it moves us deeply, and inasmuch as it raises our attention and love to the divine.

A value-response is "superactual" if it is not just a single act of responding to a value, but remains in a person's consciousness as a constant stance of that person, affecting all of their conscious acts, even if one does not directly attend to this value-repsonding attitude. For example, when I truly love another person, that love remains in me and affects how I experience many other acts, even when I am not explicitly paying attention to or expressing this love. Such a value-response is a continuous value-responding attitude in a person.

A receptive, cognitive act in which something reveals itself to me and I become aware of it and gain knowledge of it, e.g., an act of perception, as opposed to acts in which I take a stance toward something known e.g. having a conviction.

The value or importance in itself belonging to the immanent actualization of power, regardless of whether that actualization is morally good or not. For example, every instance of intellectual cleverness, strength of will, creative genius, excellence of eyesight, and so on, have technical value in themselves. The value of a strong will is different from the value of a good will; only the former is a technical value, not the latter.

An act in which I take an intellectual stance toward something known e.g., affirmation, conviction, doubt, denial, or conjecture. Here, having taken cognizance of something, I give an answering word, an affirmation or rejection, of what I have received.

The way in which some reality is reworked or altered so that it is adequatly expressed in the medium of some work of art. Even moral and aesthetic disvalues can be integrated into a work of art in such a way that, after being transposed, they contribute to the beauty of the work of art.

The aesthetic disvalue that is the opposite of all deep and profound beauty, like the beauty of the second power. It is a pseudo-beauty, meant to lead to attitudes of sentimentality, exaggerated vivaciousness, harmless mediocrity, or shallowness.

The aesthetic disvalue that is the opposite of all metaphysical beauty, e.g., the perceivable disvalue that emerges from the disruption of a thing's form, or from having moral disvalues. Whereas beauty gives enjoyment when perceived, ugliness gives pain.

The aesthetic disvalue that results from affectation, false pathos, or failure to give a true value-response.

A property that makes something important-in-itself, not just important insofar as it fulfills someone or adds to someone's pleasure or well-being. When something has value, it deserves a response for its own sake, regardless of whether that response is subjectively satisfying or beneficial to me.

An spiritual insensitivity (or insensibility) to a particular value or kind or range of values, usually resulting from some moral deficiency in the value-blind person..

A response of the heart or the will to an apprehended value. Any response to something motivated by what is due to it in virtue of its intrinsic importance. In responding to value, a person transcends himself or herself.

The act of the will by which we choose and strive for something apprehended as important. This is the same as the first perfection of the will.

All that is or can be given in experience, or a sense of the wholeness of reality (or a distinct domain of reality) that is captured in a particular work of art (for example, as a great work of literature presents us with a whole world) or presented from a particular aesthetic point of view.