Two Feelings in the Beautiful: Kant on the Structure of Judgments of Beauty (original) (raw)
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In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant introduces the notion of the reflective judgment and the a priori principle of purposiveness or systematicity of nature. He claims that the ability to judge objects by means of this principle underlies empirical concept acquisition and it is therefore necessary for cognition in general. In addition, he suggests that there is a connection between this principle and judgments of taste. Kant's account of this connection has been criticized by several commentators for the reason that it leads to the 'everythingisbeautiful' problem. In this paper I argue, contrary to these objections, that both finding an object beautiful and acquiring the concept represent the satisfaction of the same principle of nature's purposiveness, which refers to the same cogni-tive need we have, that is, to systematize experience. I avoid the 'everything is beautiful' problem by arguing that aesthetic reflection refers to the synthesis of object's individual and distinctive properties, while logical reflection refers to the synthesis of object's general properties that it shares with other objects of its kind. Because aesthetic purposiveness is different from logical purposiveness, this allows for the possibility that we can have an object of cognition, without finding this object beautiful.
Kant and the Problem of Judgments of Taste
1998
Kant holds that when we judge a thing beautiful, we do so on no other basis than our pleasure in the contemplation of it, while at the same time, we presume to judge with validity for everyone. To explain how this is possible is the task of what he calls the critique of taste. Such a task has three main parts. The first is to describe and analyze the essential characteristics of judgments of this kind. The second is to identify the state of mind from which such judgments take rise, this being, according to Kant, a state of harmonious free play between the cognitive faculties. The third part is the “deduction,” or proof of our right to make judgments of taste. I argue that Kant is unsuccessful in the second and third parts of this task. The main interest of his critical effort, I find, lies in his descriptive and analytical account of judgments of taste, specifically in his attempt to comprehend both their subjective character and their claim to universal validity. The first of these he understands as consisting in the judgment’s being based in feeling; the universality claim he understands as a normative requirement. I argue that no interpretation can be faithful to these basic tenets of Kant’s analysis without also accepting his conclusion that the act of judging in some sense “precedes” the very feeling of pleasure on which it is said to be based. I attempt to make sense of this conclusion in terms of the peculiar kind of consciousness of pleasure involved in such a judgment.
A Conceptualist Reading of Kant's Aesthetic Judgment of Beauty
Tsinghua Studies in Western Philosophy, 2021
This essay offers a conceptualist reading of Kant’s aesthetics to address two central issues in Critique of Judgment: what is the nature of the judgment of beauty, and how it bears on the a priori principle of judgment. Challenging the popular subjectivist approach which takes the content of Kant’s aesthetic judgment as a non-conceptual mental state, I argue that the judgment of beauty in Kant is a full-fledged conceptual judgment whose contents are aesthetic appreciation and criticism, and that the principle of subjective purposiveness in judgment refers to a generic concept instead of a mental episode. My view has the advantage over the subjectivism of both preserving the intuitive idea that aesthetic judgment has rich conceptual contents, and of avoiding the theoretical difficulties which subjectivism suffers. To sharpen my focus, I will present a sophisticated version of subjectivism offered by Hannah Ginsborg in section 1, and in section 2 give my criticism of Ginsborg’s theory, which also reveals a fundamental limit of the subjectivist approach in general. Finally, in section 3 I give my own conceptualist reading of Kant’s aesthetics and respond to potential challenges from the subjectivist camp.
How do some people feel pleasure while others feel displeasure as they are viewing the same piece of art craft or they are watching the same dramatic work? It is hard to define "beauty" from an objective point of view because beauty is a subjective judgment and it changes from one person to another. There has been a long debate about criteria of beauty; but in a global and changing world it is hard to define beautiful in strict borders for the reason that a piece of art can have aesthetic value without being beautiful since the emergence of modern art.
Revista de Estudios Kantianos, 2024
While in the “Analytic of the Beautiful” of the third Critique Kant establishes an unequivocal distinction between aesthetic and cognitive judgments, in the context of the theory of Genius we find new elements that will enable us to discuss such antagonism between both type of judgments. As a matter of fact, Kant defines genius as the one possessing the “vivifying principle in the mind” which—by setting our cognitive faculties in motion—succeeds in exhibiting certain intuitive representations called “aesthetic ideas”. The latter are intuitions of the imagination that give much to think about, but against which no particular thought seems adequate. In this sense, after analyzing the four moments of the pure judgment of taste, we will develop the notion of “aesthetic idea” within the framework of the Kantian theory of genius, drawing on the most recent interpretations of the subject. Ultimately, we will attempt to show that—although judgments of taste are not cognitive judgments—the third Critique presents important elements in order to evaluate to what extent aesthetic judgments contribute to cognition.
Kant on the Beautiful: The Interest in Disinterestedness
Colloquy: Theory | Text | Critique, 2008
In the 'Critique of the Power of Judgment', Immanuel Kant proposes a puzzling account of the experience of the beautiful: that aesthetic judgments are both subjective and speak with a universal voice. These properties – the subjective and the universal – seem mutually exclusive but Kant maintains that they are compatible if we explain aesthetic judgment in terms of the mind’s a priori structure, as explicated in his earlier 'Critique of Pure Reason'. Kant advances two major claims towards arguing for the compatibility of the subjectivity and universality of the experience of beauty: (i) that aesthetic judgments are ‘disinterested’, and (ii) that the universality of an aesthetic judgment derives from the transcendental idealist’s account of ordinary spatio-temporal experience – that is, our ordinary cognitive framework can explain the experience of beauty. If correct, these two claims support the thesis that, while the experience of beauty is wholly subjective, it nevertheless speaks with a universal voice (or, the experience of beauty can be related among subjects). I will move to interpret Kant’s theory of the beautiful with reference to his earlier two Critiques in order to better understand the marriage of subjectivity and universality. In turn, this reveals a deeper symmetry between the disinterestedness of the experience of beauty and the freedom of moral action, allowing Kant to maintain, as he indeed does, that “beauty is the symbol of morality.”
The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 2018
The article follows Kant's different views on aesthetics ranging from the pre-critical period to the Critique of the Power of Judgement. It argues that John Zammito's psychological explanation of why Kant in the third Critique developed an argument for the transcendental justification of judgements of taste is unconvincing. As an alternative, the article shows how Kant in his published pre-critical discussions of aesthetics was relying upon empiricist sources while he in private comments turned to consider the culture critique of Rousseau. Kant's preoccupation with questions of culture critique, it is argued, was an important reason to enlarge the doctrines of transcendental philosophy with a third Critique containing a transcendental aesthetics of beauty. Additionally, it is pointed out an interesting similarity throughout the development of Kant's philosophy. In 1765 and in the third Critique Kant was concerned to keep philosophy and judgements of taste apart from science in order to argue that these were spaces for freethinking.