Immanuel Kant

1. Immanuel Kant 1724-1804

2. 3 Critiques 1st Critique: Pure Reason (1781) 2nd Critique: Practical Reason (1788) 3rd Critique: Judgments (1890)

3. Hume Skepticism

4. Higher Faculties Understanding Normative NATURE Practical Reason Normative FREEDOM Judging Normative ? Domain ? 1st Critique 2nd Critique 3rd Critique

5. “General Validity” Aesthetical judgment based on feelings. Moral judgments based on concepts. “…for the judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment (either theoretical or practical), and thus is not based on concepts, nor has it concepts as it purpose” (285).

6. Kant Higher Cognitive Faculty: (1) Understanding –Descriptive knowledge- Sciences (2) Practical Reason- Prescriptive knowledge- Morality (3) Judging- 3.1 Determinative 3.2 Aesthetical – Tastes Aesthetics 3.2.1 Judgments of sense 3.2.2 Judgments of reflection

7. Judgments Determinative Aesthetical Reflective From Particular to Universal • From Universal to Particular

8. Distinctions Aesthetic judgments of sense vs. Aesthetic judgment of reflection Determinative vs. Reflective Judgments Beautiful vs. Pleasant Beautiful vs. Good

9. Pleasant, Beauty, and Good They all designate three different relations of representations to feeling of pleasure and pain. Pleasant: concerns all animals Beauty: concerns only rational animals. Good: concerns all rational beings

10. Taste in Beautiful and Interest “The taste in the beautiful is alone a disinterested and free satisfaction; for no interest, either of sense or of reason, here forces our assent”(285).

11. Kant's Definition * “Taste is the faculty of judging of an object or method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called Beautiful” (286).

12. Why disinterested satisfaction? If the object of satisfaction entails an interest, then there is a private and personal inclination upon which the satisfaction of the object rests. In other word, I am attracted to the object because of a personal interest. However, if this is the case, then it is difficult to see how such an attraction could be said to be universal.

13. Aesthetic Judgments Aesthetic judgments of sense Aesthetic judgments of reflection Subjective/feelings/quasi-noncognitive Public universally true Mediates (compares) through the imagination with the understanding. Beauty • Subjective/feelings/purely noncognitive • Private • Is true only for the individual • Connected directly to pleasure and displeasure • The pleasant

14. Aesthetic judgments of Sense: Pleasant Everyone has his or her own taste about the pleasant. We cannot correct or oppose another’s pleasant feeling. This wine taste pleasant for me. Kant refers to this as “Taste of Sense” NOT NORMATIVE

15. Aesthetic Judgment of Reflection: Beauty A judgment of taste about the beautiful must be attributed to everyone. “This is beautiful.” If you do not agree then you do not have right taste. NORMATIVE

16. Reflection “To reflect (or consider) is to hold given representations up to, and compare them with, either other representations or one’s cognitive faculty, in reference to a concept [an a priori concept of the understanding or the logical purposive of nature] that this [comparison] makes possible . The reflective faculty of judgment is the one we also call the power of judging.”

17. Subjective Universal Validity For a subjective judgment to be universal it requires “a universal point of reference.” Universal capability of communication. Feeling of free play For a representation of feeling to become cognition imagination and understanding are required.

18. Beautiful and Good The judgment about the beautiful, unlike the good, is not through a concept! When I say “this is good” it is universal because of the a priori necessary concept of the good. A judgment about the beautiful arises from the validity of the reference of a representation to the feeling of pleasure and pain for every subject.

19. OUV vs. SUV Objective Universal Validity: hold true for a category of things, everything that is contained in the subject. Determinative Judgments: move from the universal to particular (Categories of the understanding) Subjective Universal Validity: hold true only for the particular judgment. (singular) Reflective judgments: Move from the particular to the universal (the logical purposive of nature)

20. Kant’s Definition “The beautiful is that which pleases universally without [requiring] a concept” (293).

21. Subjective Universal Validity All judgments of taste (reflective and sense) are singular.

22. Logical vs. Aesthetical Universal Validity Judgment of taste (about beauty) carries with it an aesthetic quantity of universality. (It is valid for every rational human being.) This is not true of taste about the pleasant. However, since it is not based on concepts (reason), like the good, there are no rules which can force anyone to recognize something as beautiful. “We cannot press [upon others] by the aid of any reasons or fundamental propositions our judgment that a coat, a house, or a flower is beautiful” (290).

23. Subjective Universal Communicability Subjective Universal Communicability: if an argument for the universality of the beautiful is not possible then how can it be universally possible? Compare the pleasant and beauty with respect to the timing of the pleasure felt by the subject. In the case of the pleasant, the pleasure precedes the object. In the case of beauty, the pleasure comes subsequent to the object.

24. Pleasure and universality Kant says, “The cognitive powers, which are involved in this representation, are here in free play, because no definite concept limits them to a definite rule of cognition” (291). “Hence the state of mind in this representation must be a feeling of the free play of the representative powers in a representation with reference to a cognition in general” (291).

25. Cont. “Now a representation by which an object is given that is to become a cognition in general (Reflective judgment) requires imagination for gathering together the manifold of intuition, and understanding for the unity of the concept uniting the representations” (291).

26. Kant Definition “The beautiful is that which pleases universally without requiring a concept.”

27. A priori Aesthetical Judgments Purposiveness without purpose 2 Kinds of purpose (with respect to pleasure and pain): (1) Objective purpose: a representation of an object has objective purpose if it has external possibilities which would please us. (the good/morality) (2) Subjective purpose: a representation of an object has subjective purpose if it has internal possibilities which would please us. (taste of sense/private feelings) Both of these have an interest.

28. The Ground of Aesthetic Judgments “Therefore it can be nothing else than the subjective purposivness in the representation of the object without any purpose (either objective or subjective), and thus it is the mere form of purposiveness in the representation by which an object is given to us, so far as we are conscious of it, which constitutes the satisfaction that we without a concept judge to be universally communicable; and, consequently, this is the determining ground of the judgment of taste” (295). I call this the bracketed purpose inherent in the representation of the object.

29. Ground of the Judgment of Taste Indifferent to emotions and charms. Not focused on the content or matter (meaning). Not concerned with the empirical (desires). Not to be confused with perfection (which requires conceptual knowledge.) It is based on the pure form of the representation because this is the only thing that is universally communicable.

30. Kant’s Definition “Beauty is the form of the purposivnessof an object, so far as this is perceived in it without any representation of a purpose” (301).

31. Wassily Kandinsky Composition VI

34. Modality x is possibly pleasant. x is actually pleasant. x is necessarily pleasant. If x is beautiful, then x is necessarily pleasant.

35. The Modality of Beauty The beautiful has a necessary reference to satisfaction. Not Theoretical necessity, as in a priori concepts. Not Practical necessity, as in the moral Law. Rather, “exemplary necessity”.

36. Exemplary Necessity a necessity of the assent of all to an aesthetical judgment (all must agree). Normative (ought) The judgment is “an example of a universal rule that we cannot state.” But how is this necessity possible?

37. Necessity is conditioned “We ask for the agreement of everyone else, because we have for it a ground that is common to all.” “and we could count on this agreement, provided we were always sure that the case was correctly subsumed under that ground as rule of assent”

38. Conditioned vs. Unconditioned Necessity Cognitive judgments have a definite objective principle therefore they have an unconditioned necessity. They are necessary for all rational beings. If a judgment is devoid of all principles then they have no necessity. Therefore, aesthetic judgments must have a subjective principle which determines that pleases (liked) or displeases (disliked) ONLY by feeling and not by concepts, BUT yet with UNIVERSAL VALIDITY.

39. Common Sense The common sense is different than the common understanding (which is sometimes referred to as the common sense). Only under this presupposition can aesthetic judgments be made with universal validity. What is the argument for a common sense (different than a common understanding)?

40. Common Sense 1) If cognitions and judgments are universal and necessary, then they must be communicable (among rational beings). 2) If cognitions (the results of thought) are universally communicable, then the process [“the mental states” or “the attunement of the cognitive powers that is required for the cognition in general”] must also be universally communicable. 3) Therefore, there must be a common and universal process between feeling and the understanding, hence common sense.

41. Kant “And this [attunement] does actually take place whenever a given object, by means of the sense, induces the imagination to its activity of combining the manifold, the imagination in turn inducing the understanding to its activity of providing unity for this manifold in concepts.”

42. Kant’s Definition * “Taste is the faculty of judging of an object or method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called Beautiful” (286). “The beautiful is that which pleases universally without [requiring] a concept” (293). “ The beautiful is the form of the purposivnessof an object, so far as this is perceived in it without any representation of a purpose” (301). “The beautiful is that which without any concept is cognized as the object of a necessary satisfaction” (304).

43. Higher Faculties Understanding Common Understanding Concepts Normative NATURE Practical Reason Common Understanding Concepts Normative FREEDOM Taste Common Sense Feelings Normative FORMAL PURPOSIVENESS 1st Critique 2nd Critique 3rd Critique