Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T13:40:51.602Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kant on Fine Art, Genius and the Threat of Private Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2018

Aviv Reiter
Aviv Reiter*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
*
Email: avivreit@post.tau.ac.il
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Wittgenstein’s private language argument claims that language and meaning generally are public. It also contends with our appreciation of artworks and reveals the deep connection in our minds between originality and the temptation to think of original meaning as private. This problematic connection of ideas is found in Kant’s theory of fine art. For Kant conceives of the capacity of artistic genius for imaginatively envisioning original content as prior to and independent of finding the artistic means of communicating this content to others. This raises the question of whether we can conceive of art as both original and meaningful without succumbing to privacy.

Keywords

KantWittgensteinfine artoriginalityprivacygeniustastespirit
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 307 - 323
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry E. (2001) Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the ‘Critique of Aesthetic Judgement’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biemel, Walter (1959) Die Bedeutung von Kants Begründung der Ästhetik für die Philosophie der Kunst. Cologne: Kölner Universitäts Verlag.Google Scholar
Chignell, Andrew (2007) ‘Kant on the Normativity of Taste: The Role of Aesthetic Ideas’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 85 (3), 415–433.Google Scholar
DeBord, Charles (2012) ‘Geist and Communication in Kant’s Theory of Aesthetic Ideas’. Kantian Review, 17 (2), 177–190.Google Scholar
Düsing, Klaus (1990) ‘Beauty as the Transition from Nature to Freedom in Kant’s Critique of Judgement’. Noûs, 24 (1), 79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricke, Christel (1991) ‘Kants Theorie der schönen Form’. In Gerhard Funke (ed.) Akten des 7. Internationalen Kant-Kongress, vol. 2/1 (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag), pp. 623–632.Google Scholar
Friedlander, Eli (2006) ‘Meaning and Aesthetic Judgement in Kant’. Philosophical Topics, 34 (1/2), 21–34.Google Scholar
Gammon, Martin (1997) ‘Exemplary Originality: Kant on Genius and Imitation’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 35 (4), 563–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geiger, Ido (2010) ‘Transcendental Idealism in the Third Critique ’. In Dennis Schulting and Jacco Verburgt (eds) Kant’s Idealism: New Interpretations of a Controversial Doctrine (Dordrecht: Springer Verlag), pp. 71–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gotshalk, D. W. (1967) ‘Form and Expression in Kant’s Aesthetics’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 7 (3), 250–260.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (1997) Kant and the Claims of Taste, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2006) ‘The Harmony of the Faculties Revisited’. In Rebecca Kukla (ed.) Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 162–193.Google Scholar
Hanna, Robert (2005) ‘Kant and Nonconceptual Content’. European Journal of Philosophy, 13 (2), 247–290.Google Scholar
Janaway, Christopher (1997) ‘Kant’s Aesthetics and the “Empty Cognitive Stock”’. Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (189), 459–476.Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark L. (1979) ‘Kant’s Unified Theory of Beauty’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 38 (2), 167–178.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1998) Critique of Pure Reason. Ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2000) Critique of the Power of Judgment . Ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2006) Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Ed. and trans. Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1952) ‘The Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics (II)’. Journal of the History of Ideas, 13 (1), 17–46.Google Scholar
Lorand, Ruth (1989) ‘Free and Dependent Beauty: A Puzzling Issue’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 29 (1), 32–40.Google Scholar
Lüthe, Rudolf (1984) ‘Kants Lehre von den ästhetischen Ideen’. Kant-Studien, 75 (1), 65–74.Google Scholar
Neal, Robert J. M. (2012) ‘Kant’s Ideality of Genius’. Kant-Studien, 103 (3), 351–360.Google Scholar
Matherne, Samantha (2013) ‘The Inclusive Interpretation of Kant’s Aesthetic Ideas’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 53 (1), 21–39.Google Scholar
Reiter, Aviv (2017) ‘Kant and Hegel on the End and Means of Fine Art: From an A-Historical to a Historical Conception of Art’. Hegel-Jahrbuch, 2017, 29–34.Google Scholar
Reiter, Aviv and Geiger, Ido (2015) ‘Kant on Form, Function and Decoration’. Proceedings of the European Society of Aesthetics, 7, 234–235.Google Scholar
Reiter, Aviv (2018) ‘Natural Beauty, Fine Art and the Relation between Them’. Kant-Studien, 109 (1), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rush, Fred L. Jr. (2001) ‘The Harmony of the Faculties’. Kant-Studien, 92 (1), 38–61.Google Scholar
Sassen, Brigitte (2003) ‘Artistic Genius and the Question of Creativity’. In Paul Guyer (ed.) Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), pp. 171–179.Google Scholar
Seel, Gerhard (1988) ‘Über den Grund der Lust an schönen Gegenständen. Kritische Fragen an die Ästhetik Kants’. In Hariolf Oberer and Gerhard Seel (eds) Kant: Analysen, Probleme, Kritik, vol. 3 (Würzberg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1988), pp. 317–356.Google Scholar
Stecker, Robert (1990) ‘Lorand and Kant on Free and Dependent Beauty’. British Journal of Aesthetics, 30 (1), 71–74.Google Scholar
Sturgis, Alexander (2006) Rebels and Martyrs: The Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century. London: National Gallery Co.Google Scholar
Uehling, Theodore E. Jr. (1971) The Notion of Form in Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Wicks, Robert (1997) ‘Dependent Beauty as the Appreciation of Teleological Style’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 55 (4), 387–400.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980) Culture and Value. Trans. Peter. Winch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1991) Philosophical Investigations. Tr. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2007) Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief . Ed. Cyril Barrett. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zuidervaart, Lambert (2003) ‘“Aesthetic Ideas” and the Role of Art in Kant’s Ethical Hermeneutics’. In Paul Guyer (ed.) Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), pp. 199–208.Google Scholar