Philosophy of Art Kant—1 The Three Great Critiques relate to three

Philosophy of Art Kant—1

Kant

The Three Great Critiques

relate to three modes of consciousness

Critique of Pure Reason Critique of Practical Reason Critique of Judgment

Knowledge Desire Feeling

The Critique of Pure Reason seeks to establish the foundation for making objective, universally

valid empirical judgments about the world—both ordinary and scientific

this critique focuses on knowledge of Nature which is a realm of necessary laws

The Critique of Practical Reason seeks to establish the conditions for making objective,

universally valid moral judgments

As morality depends upon freedom this critique focuses on the realm of Freedom

These first two critiques

leave a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the realms of

Nature and Freedom

The Critique of Judgment (1790) aims to reunite the worlds of Nature and Freedom

it seeks to establish the a priori conditions for making universally valid aesthetic and teleological

judgments

it is generally regarded as foundational treatise in modern philosophical aesthetics

it was the first attempt to integrate aesthetic theory into a complete philosophical system

he hoped to provide a theory of the aesthetic judgment that would justify its apparent claim to

intersubjective validity, and escape the temptations of skepticism and relativism

believed this could be accomplished only by giving a deeper interpretation of art and its values

and by establishing for it a more intimate connection with the basic cognitive faculties of the

mind

How does the Critique of Judgment fit within Kant’s overall project and provide the bridge

between the gaping chasm opened up between the realm of nature and freedom?

We need to start by reviewing the main outlines of the first two critiques

The Critique of Pure Reason sought to provide a foundation for the universality of judgments of

natural science which seemed to have been called into question by Hume’s skepticism

Philosophy of Art Kant—2

Hume’s Fork

All knowledge is either:

Relation of Ideas Matters of Fact

a priori a posteriori

necessary truths contingent truths

“All bachelors are unmarried males” “All swans are white”

the negation is a contradiction: the negation is not a contradiction:

“All bachelors are not unmarried males” “All swans are not white”

In Kant’s language

these are Analytic Statements these are Synthetic Statements

the concept of the predicate (“is an unmarried male”) the concept of the predicate

is included in the concept of the subject (“Bachelor”) is not included in the subject

these tell us nothing important about the world these add to (are synthetic)

only about our language our knowledge of the world

these are necessary truths by definition these statements are contingently true

or by Analysis of our language requiring sense evidence for verification

Hume’s Skepticism

Hume’s analysis of causality had shown that the judgment that A is the cause of B is based on:

1) temporal priority: Event A must precede event B

2) spatial contiguity: A must be spatially connected to B—the problem of action at a distance

3) constant conjunction: we must see repeated instance of event B following event A

all of these can be verified by sense evidence

but the fourth step cannot

4) necessary connection: for A to be the cause of B there must be some necessary connection

this idea of necessary connection is based on the assumption:

“The future will be like the past”

Is this statement a Relation of Ideas of a Matter of Fact?

the negation “The future will not be like the past” does not imply a contradiction

Thus it is not an a priori necessary truth

but a synthetic statement requiring sense evidence

and there can be no sense evidence to verify that the future will be like the past

Thus we have a major problem!

the presumed basis for all human knowledge

the causal relation

is never ratified by direct human experience!!!

Hume didn’t let this trouble him too much. As we cannot live without making judgments about

cause and effect, we continue to make those judgments out of necessity. But the necessity is not

grounded objectively in sense evidence. The necessity is only of subjective conviction. One

Philosophy of Art Kant—3

perceives the regularity of events, but not their necessity. Science is possible, but it is a science

only of the phenomenal only, of appearances registered in the mind, and its certainty is a

subjective one, determined not by nature but by human psychology.

For Hume, even the ideas of space and time are ultimately not independent realities as Newton

assumed, but are instead simply the result of a habit of association of ideas. The notions of space

and time are abstracted by the mind from repeated experience. At bottom the mind experiences

only particulars—any relation between these particulars is woven by the mind into the fabric of

its experience. In other words, the mind experiences with impressions only a buzzing confusion.

The mind must organize these impressions in order to make sense of experience. Thus the

intelligibility of the world reflects the habits of the mind, not the nature of reality.

This was not good enough for Kant. One of the main aims of the Enlightenment was to provide a

solid foundation for science—for making objective, universally valid judgments about the world.

The Critique of Pure Reason

sought to provide this foundation

and save the Enlightenment project by responding to Hume’s skepticism.

came up with an imaginative synthesis of empiricism and rationalism

In response to Hume’s Fork

all knowledge is either

Analytic and A priori or Synthetic and A posteriori

with the supposition that some knowledge is

Synthetic and A Priori

In other words, he agreed with the rationalists that there are important truths (not just Analytic

truths that tell us about words) about the world that do not come from experience, in other words,

truths that are synthetic a priori.

He seeks to go beyond rationalism by providing a more adequate explanation for the possibility

of such knowledge.

He agrees with the empiricists that much of our knowledge comes from experience, yet he argues

that the empiricists neglected the “formal” contribution the mind gives to the “content” received

by experience.

In other words, the mind is not merely a passive mirror of nature. The mind actually “frames” or

imposes some order upon the data received by the senses.

Philosophy of Art Kant—4

Although we rely on experience, on ‘receptivity’ or what Kant calls ‘intuition’ for the particular

contents of our knowledge, the structure or form of that experience is provided by the human

mind, or what Kant calls the ‘understanding’ (Verstand). Without the mind to provide the

structure or form to what is given through the senses we would have no experience of the

external world at all.

This is what Kant described as the “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy

prior to Copernicus they couldn’t satisfactorily explain the movement of the heavens based on

the supposition that the heavens revolved around the spectator

(the sun revolving around the earth)

Copernicus achieved a breakthrough by supposing that it was the spectator that revolved

(the earth revolving around the sun)

similarly Kant thought he had achieved a breakthrough in metaphysics

prior to Kant the mind was conceived as a passive mirror of nature

and crucial notions like space and time and causality were thought to reside outside the mind and

only passively mirrored in the mind

the foundation for making objective, universally valid empirical judgments (judgments about the

external world) was thought by rationalists to lie in a priori innate ideas that mirrored an

objective reality

or by empiricists in ideas given in sensation (a posteriori) whose source lay outside the mind

both rationalists and empiricists assumed the mind to be a passive mirror of nature

for Kant the empiricists were right that the content of our knowledge comes from experience

but the mind supplies the form to that content and thus the rationalists were right about there

being some non-analytic a priori knowledge

thus the Copernican Revolution is that Kant finds the source of the objective, universally valid

empirical judgments to lie within the mind

The mind is no longer a passive mirror, but actively structures or imposes form upon our

experience.

How, one might ask, if the source is within the mind, can the judgments be objective and

universally valid?

For Kant, the universality lies in the structure of the human mind

all of us have a mind that is hardwired to experience the world through the categories of space

and time and causality

The aim of the Critique of Pure Reason is to demonstrate that we can have a priori knowledge of

the structure or form of experience.

He calls this knowledge “transcendental”

it concerns the nature of our experience but “transcends” the way empiricists supposed it was

derived

the project Kant undertakes is to lay out the structure of the human mind

he seeks transcendental knowledge of the basic form or structure of experience

Philosophy of Art Kant—5

Another important distinction for Kant is between

the Phenomenal World and the Noumenal World

the world as it appears to us the world as it is “in-itself”

Kant accepts the conclusion of Hume’s consistent empiricism:

we don’t know the world as it is “in-itself” only the world “as it appears to us”

but it appears to us in ways that are structured by the human mind

and that structure, for Kant, is the same in all of us

the world appears to us through a necessary, and thus, universal structure of experience

we cannot experience the world except through space and time

space and time are the a priori conditions of our being affected by things (Sensibility)

the necessary connection that makes possible causal judgments

is not found looking outside the mind to what is given in sense experience

the necessary connection is in the way the mind structures experience

causality is one of the categories of understanding

which, for Kant, are the a priori conditions of making judgments (Understanding)

in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant attempts to prove his claims about the necessary structure of

our experience

he calls this the “transcendental deduction” of the “categories”

which aims to establish the transcendental conditions of all possible experience

the difficulty of Kant’s arguments here are notorious

the difference between mainstream analytic and continental philosophy divides here over

responses to Kant

the starting point of analytic philosophy is the rejection of Kant’s transcendental arguments

they claim they cannot be successful deductions

thus, according to analytic philosophers, Kant’s crucial class of synthetic a priori truths is empty

they revert to Hume’s fork, all truths are analytic a priori or synthetic a posteriori

this tradition maintains that philosophy should ignore those questions that ‘it is not able to

answer’

the continental tradition places greater emphasis on Kant’s recognition that there are important

metaphysical, moral and aesthetic questions that we are unable to ignore

some continental philosophers are more sympathetic to Kant’s transcendental deductions

the continental tradition also places more emphasis on the second and third critiques

the Critique of Practical Reason which aims to discover the a priori conditions of making

objective, universally valid moral judgments

the Critique of Judgment which aims to discover the a priori conditions for making judgments

based on feeling

Philosophy of Art Kant—6

Critique of Practical Reason

Here is Kant’s definition of Enlightenment:

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the

inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another” (Kant, “What is

Enlightenment?”)

this means the unfettered pursuit of factual or scientific understanding

no more throwing scientists like Galileo in prison

but it also means freedom of public speech (within responsible limits)

freedom in religious matters

freedom in discussing legislation (what laws we set for ourselves)

all of these are essential elements in the unfinished process of Enlightenment

Kant was certainly aware that Enlightenment philosophy created a serious problem for morality

and religion

a purely mechanistic view of a world governed by necessary laws

seems to undermine notions of freedom and responsibility

it is not obvious how the scientific rationality of the Enlightenment can support moral principles

any basis for objective moral evaluation is seemingly undermined

Kant’s strategy is to establish a secure basis for moral judgments independent of scientific reason

on the one hand, the Critique of Pure Reason sets to establish the limits of scientific rationality

scientific rationality is limited to the phenomenal world, the world as it appears to us

this limitation, in Kant’s view, makes room for faith

I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith. The dogmatism of

metaphysics, that is, the preconception that it is possible to make headway in metaphysics without a

previous criticism of pure reason, is the source of all that unbelief, always very dogmatic, which wars

against morality. (Critique of Pure Reason)

Kant simply assumes morality as a fact of human existence

in the Critique of Practical Reason Kant seeks to determine the necessary conditions for its

possibility

the necessary condition for its possibility is freedom

but causal necessity is an essential feature of the physical world (as perceived by the human

mind)

so we come back to the distinction between

Philosophy of Art Kant—7

the Phenomenal World and the Noumenal World

the world as it appears to us the world as it is “in-itself”

is the realm Nature is a realm of Freedom

which appears to us causally determined and thus not causally determined

the empirical self is causally determined the intelligible self has free will

The conclusion Kant draws from this is that free or moral action must be something completely

purified of any ‘empirical’ motivations—the desires and impulses of particular human

individuals (phenomenal selves)

A moral action must be motivated purely by the intention to do what is right

not by any particular interest or desire of the individual

Thus, for Kant, who is more morally praiseworthy—the one who does X (helps the needy)

a) out of a sentiment or feeling (wanting to help the needy)

b) out of a sense of duty, a obligation to do what is right

For Kant the individual acts freely and morally only when he or she acts purely in obedience to a

universal moral law that is the product of reason alone

how does reason determine what the moral law is?

Through the famous ‘categorical imperative’

“Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a

universal law”

in another famous formulation Kant’s categorical imperative is expressed as the injunction never

to treat others merely as means but always as ends in themselves

we should thus never use other people merely as instruments to our own ends

to act morally is to treat others as rational beings and therefore as moral ends

We can see now how the realms of Nature and Freedom are sundered by the first two critiques

thus the Critique of Judgment seeks to reunite the worlds of Nature and Freedom

it is Aesthetic experience which mitigates the stark opposition between two seemingly

incommensurable dimensions of human life:

our bodily existence within the deterministic realm of physical nature

our existence as autonomous rational agents obeying universal dictates of practical reason

our aesthetic experience delivers an awareness of the meaningfulness or ‘purposiveness’ of

nature

like the natural inevitability of a work of art

such a work seems to be ‘purposive’ but as an “end it itself” has no determinate purpose

Philosophy of Art Kant—8

we are thus able to feel at home in nature

Critique of Judgment

Critique of Judgment: are there a priori conditions for making judgments based on pleasure?

Kant takes as his paradigm the type of judgment everyone believes is based on feeling of

pleasure—the judgment that something is beautiful

his epistemology and metaphysics based on division between

Sensibility—the passive ability to be affected by things by receiving sensations; this is not yet

at the level of thought, or even experience in any meaningful sense

Understanding—the faculty of producing thoughts; it is non-sensible, discursive, works with

general concepts, not individual intuitions

Ordinary experience comes about through the synthesis of these two powers

the Understanding takes the material of sensation and organizes it into a concept

resulting in a thought or judgment

by ‘judgment’ Kant simply means experience that results in a claim or assertion about something

the judgment that something is beautiful he calls a ‘judgment of taste’

The Analytic of the Beautiful

an analysis of “what is required in order to call an object beautiful”

The Four Moments

is divided into four “Moments” corresponding to heading of the table of judgments in the first

Critique: quantity, quality, relation, modality

FIRST MOMENT (QUALITY)

Disinterested Pleasure

concludes that in order to call an object beautiful one must judge it to be

“the object of an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction”

aesthetic pleasure comes only to those who attend to the object disinterestedly

how does Kant reach this conclusion:

begins with the observation that the judgment of taste is an aesthetic judgment

thus not a cognitive judgment

in a cognitive judgment I use a concept to connect my experience to an object

in an aesthetic judgment, I don’t use a concept, but my own subjective state (sentiment)

when judging something to be beautiful, one is relating the object (one’s awareness of the object)

“back to the subject and to its feeling of life, under the name of the feeling of pleasure or

displeasure”

judgments of taste are thus subjective rather than objective

Philosophy of Art Kant—9

then Kant differentiates pleasure in the beautiful from other pleasures

what is unique about pleasure in the beautiful is that it is

“a disinterested and free satisfaction; for no interest, either of sense or of reason, here forces

our assent”

there are two types of interest:

1) by way of sensations in the agreeable

the pleasure in the beautiful is not in an object’s gratifying our senses: like sweetness of candy

2) by way of concepts in the good

the pleasure in the beautiful is not based on finding some practical use (the mediately good or the

useful)

nor based on fulfilling moral requirements (the morally good)

the pleasure in the beautiful is “merely contemplative”

a kind of free contemplation and reflection

this disinterestedness is what is unique about the judgment of taste

for contemplation and reflection are absent in what pleases through sensation

and contemplation and reflection in the practical concerns (the useful or moral) are not free but

constrained by definite concepts

The judgment results in pleasure, rather than pleasure resulting in judgment.

This leads Kant to claim that aesthetic judgment must concern itself only with forms

shape, arrangement, rhythym, etc

Kant is thus the founder of all formalism in aesthetics

This claim of the disinterestedness of all aesthetic judgment is strongly challenged by subsequent

philosophers of art

by those like Nietzsche and Freud who question the very possibility of disinterested

contemplation

by those who see art as a form of cultural production and thus always invested in a political

context

by those who see art in terms of some expression theory

SECOND MOMENT (QUANTITY)

Universal Pleasure

concludes that “the beautiful is that which pleases universally without [requiring] a concept”

this conclusion is badly put since it is plainly false: a beautiful thing does not please everyone

what he means is better put earlier

“the beautiful is that which apart from concepts is represented as the object of a universal

satisfaction”

Philosophy of Art Kant—10

aesthetic judgments thus behave universally

they involve an expectation or claim upon the agreement of others

we make the judgment that something is beautiful ‘as if’ beauty where a real property of the

object—in this sense the pleasure in the beautiful is not wholly subjective

we think that others should find the object beautiful as well, while fully recognizing that not

everyone will in fact agree

“the judgment of taste itself does not postulate the agreement of everyone”

we tend to see disagreements over judgment of the beautiful as involving error

an agreement as more than coincidence

Kant calls this feature of judgments of taste their “subjective universality

argues for this in two ways

1) through the concept of disinterestedness

if the pleasure in finding something beautiful does not lie in any interest

then one can conclude that it doesn’t depend on private conditions

“must be regarded as grounded on what he can presuppose in every other person . . .

Consequently the judgment of taste, accompanied with the consciousness of separation from

all interest, must claim validity for everyone”

2) to say that something is beautiful is (linguistically) to claim universality for one’s judgment

this universality is distinguished first from the mere subjectivity of judgments like

“I like honey”—this judgment is not universal, nor do we expect it to be

and secondly is distinguished from the strict objectivity of judgments like

“honey contains sugar and is sweet”

here the judgment is based on a concept—the sweetness of sugar

Judgments of taste are not objective but only subjectively universal

they cannot be proved like the judgment that “honey contains sugar and is sweet”

“there can be no rule according to which anyone is to be forced to recognize anything as

beautiful”

At this point Kant’s explication of the judgment of taste seems to lead to an insoluble problem:

the judgment of taste is based on feeling of pleasure but also claims universal validity

yet judgments of taste cannot be proved since they do not rest on concepts or rules

the crucial question, which Kant says “is the key to the critique of taste”

Philosophy of Art Kant—11

How is it that the feeling of pleasure in the beautiful is universally communicable?

The answer is that the pleasure is universally communicable only if it is based not one mere

sensation but on a state of mind that is universally communicable

since the only universally communicable states of mind are cognitive states

somehow the pleasure in the beautiful must be based on cognition

but he has already determined that a judgment of taste is not cognitive in that there is no referring

to a concept but rather to a feeling

thus his answer is that the pleasure underlying the judgment of taste is not based on a particular

cognitive state of mind, but only on “cognition in general”

judgment of taste is based on the free play of the cognitive faculties

imagination: that which gathers together the stuff of our experience into definite images or

representations

understanding: forms definite concepts from these representations

in aesthetic experience the same two faculties operate together

however the end result is not a definite concept

instead the two faculties interact in free play:

the imagination forms a representation of the object

but unlike the case of cognition

the understanding does not form a definite concept

for in aesthetic experience no definite concept could adequately capture what we observe

in aesthetic experience the two faculties do not come to a definite conclusion but they work back

and forth in a free play between imagination and understanding

take the case of the experience of a flower

in the case of cognition, the imagination presents to the understanding a representation of the

flower

the understanding then determines the appropriate concept (e.g., a petunia) completing the

process of cognition

but in aesthetic experience this process does not come to a completion but works back and forth

the understanding still seeks understanding

but the imagination is continually reworking its representations

thus in aesthetic experience there is more than understanding can grasp

the understanding also stimulates the imagination into further reformulations

the aesthetic experience thus enhances our experience of the object’s particularity

while cognition seeks generically classifiable features

Philosophy of Art Kant—12

THIRD MOMENT (RELATION)

The Form of Purposiveness

purports to explain what is being related to in the judgment that something is beautiful

the content of the judgment of taste

Kant concludes it is the form of the purposiveness or finality of an object, insofar as this is

perceived without any representation of a purpose

“purposiveness without purpose”

the straightfoward (easier) part of the third moment is that the pleasure in the beautiful is based

on the perceived form of the object

Kant argues that a pure judgment of taste cannot be based on pleasures of charm or emotion

nor simply on empirical sensations such as charming colors

nor on a definite concept

but only on formal properties

these formal properties are essentially spatial and temporal relations

manifested in the spatial delineation or design of figures

temporal composition of tones

ornamentation or elements of charm or emotion may attract us to beautiful objects

but in order to make an aesthetic judgment we must abstract from these elements

reflect only on the form

the harder part of the third moment concerns the concept of “purposiveness without purpose”

an object’s purpose is the concept according to which it was manufactured

purposiveness is then the property of appearing to have been manufactured according to some

purpose

to say that an object (say a knife) has a purpose is to say that the concept of its being the way it is,

having the form it has, came first and is the cause of its existence

the knife’s form makes sense because we know its purpose—its purpose is to cut

the judgment as to whether the knife is a good one is based on utility—does it serve its purpose?

to see something as beautiful, according to Kant, is to see it as purposive

we see an object to be purposiveness in its form

but there is no concept by which we can identify a definite purpose

Kant identifies two primary examples of such purposeless purpose—one natural, the other

cultural:

the living organism

the work of art

Philosophy of Art Kant—13

FOURTH MOMENT (MOD A LITY)

Necessary Pleasure

Kant is trying to show that aesthetic judgments must pass the test of being “necessary”

which means “according to principle”

“the beautiful is that which without any concept is cognized as the object of a necessary

satisfaction”

when we find something beautiful we think that everyone ought to give their approval and also

describe it as beautiful

but this necessity is of a peculiar sort—its necessity is not theoretical and objective

as we cannot prove that everyone will find the same object beautiful

nor can it be a practical necessity—there is no moral ground for this necessity

Kant calls the necessity

“exemplary”—this means that the judgment does not follow from or produce a determining

concept

“conditioned”—here Kant reaches the core of the matter

He is asking: what is it that the necessity of the judgment is grounded upon?

based on a “ground that is common to all”

describes this as “common sense”

this does not mean “common sense” in the familiar sense

here is where we see the connection to the first critique

it is a sense that is common to all of us

just as we cannot but see the world as causally conditioned

the causal connection is an a priori principle—one of the “categories” of Understanding

similarly, Kant assumes all of us have this common sense

“A subjective principle which determines what pleases or displeases only by feeling and not

by concepts, but yet with universal validity”

it is a common sense that is exemplary—an ideal or norm—but is presupposed by all aesthetic

judgment

Philosophy of Art Kant—14

The Deduction of the Judgments of Taste

strictly speaking the “Analytic of the Beautiful” was only supposed to show what is required to

call an object beautiful—to give an explanation of what a judgment of taste means

but Kant also begins to discuss the problem of whether one can ‘provide a deduction’ (show the

legitimacy) of a class of judgment “which imputes the same satisfaction necessarily to everyone”

this is what he thinks subsumes the Critique of Judgment under transcendental philosophy

the key question of philosophical aesthetics:

is it legitimate to make a judgment based merely on the pleasure experienced in perceptually

apprehending something, while implying that everyone ought to agree?

Kant believes he has established a link to the general problem of transcendental philosophy:

how are synthetical a priori judgments possible?”

His answer:

claims that the pleasure in the beautiful must be based on “cognition in general,” which is

described as the harmony of the cognitive faculties (imagination and understanding) in free play

that is, not determined by concepts

because such faculties are required for all theoretical cognition

they can be assumed to be present a priori

and thus present in the same form and in the same way in all human beings

the key move is to claim that the aesthetic judgment rests upon the same unique conditions as

ordinary cognition

and thus have the same universal communicability and validity as cognitive judgments

The conclusion of the Deduction:

it is legitimate to impute to everyone the pleasure we experience in the beautiful because

1) we are claiming it rests on the subjective element that we rightly presuppose in everyone to be

necessary for cognition

for otherwise we would not be able to communicate with one another at all

2) we are assuming that our judgment of taste is pure—not affected by charm, emotion, the mere

pleasantness of sensation, or even concepts

experiencing beauty is thus a doubly reflective process:

1) we reflect on the spatial and temporal form of the object

by exercising our powers of judgment (imagination & understanding)

2) we judge the beauty of an object when we come to be aware

through the feeling of pleasure we get of this harmony that is the free play between imagination

& understanding which we become aware of by reflecting upon our own mental states

Philosophy of Art Kant—15

Fine Art and Artistic Genius

Kant now turns his attention to fine art

with this Kant marks a great turn in the focus of philosophical aesthetics

before Kant, philosophical aesthetics was largely content to take its primary examples of beauty

(and sublimity) from nature

after Kant the focus shifts to works of art

he assumes the cognition involved in judging fine art is similar to the cognition involved in

judging natural beauty

however, the problem that is new with the case of fine art (as opposed to natural beauty)

is not how it is judged by a viewer

but how it is created

How is fine art possible?

Before examining Kant’s answer to this we need to see how Kant defines “fine art”

as a general term “art” refers to the activity of making according to a preceding notion

If I make a chair I must have a preceding notion of what a chair is

this is different from creation in nature where there is no preceding notion

“art” is also different from science

it is skill distinguished from a type of knowledge

art involves some practical ability

not a mere comprehension of something

knowledge can be taught

though there is some role for training in art

art cannot be taught and depends upon some native talent

Kant will thus claim that there can be no scientific “genius,” because a scientific mind can never

be radically original

furthermore, art is distinguished from labor or craft

craft is a making that is satisfying only for the payoff which results from it

and not satisfying for the mere activity of the making

art, like beauty, is free from any interest

arts are subdivided into mechanical and aesthetic

mechanical arts are distinguished from handicraft

but are still directed toward some definite concept of a purpose

aesthetic arts are those whose end is pleasure itself

aesthetic arts are further subdivided into the agreeable and fine art

Philosophy of Art Kant—16

the agreeable aesthetic arts are those that produce pleasure through sensation alone

the fine arts produce pleasure through various types of cognitions

thus we come back to the question:

How is fine art possible?

What goes on in the mind of the artist in creating works of fine art?

the solution comes through two new concepts: the “genius” and “aesthetic ideas”

Kant argues that art can be tasteful (agreeable to aesthetic judgment) and yet be “soulless”

in other words, lacking that certain something that would make it more than just an artificial

version of a beautiful natural object

what provides soul in fine art?—an aesthetic idea

what is an aesthetic idea?

contrast with a “rational idea”—a concept that can never be adequately exhibited sensibily

an aesthetic idea is a set of sensible presentations to which no concept is adequate

it is the talent of genius that generates aesthetic ideas

through genius “Nature gives the rule to art”

“Genius is the talent (or natural gift) which gives the rule to art”

genius has a talent for producing that for which no rule can be given

genius does not imitate

originality is his essential property

influence of Kant’s theory of genius:

radical separation of the aesthetic genius from the scientific mind (129)

emphasis on the near miraculous expression of the ineffable, excited states of mind (132)

the link of fine art to a ‘metaphysical’ content (133)

the requirement of radical originality (128)

the raising of poetry to the head of all arts

all of these were a commonplace for well over a century after Kant

when modernists protested against the concept of the artist by using ‘automatic writing’ or ‘found

objects’ it is, for the most part, this concept of the artist-genius that they are reacting against