THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE

We begin our exploration of Schopenhauer's conception of beauty by summing up some components of Kant's system related to that subject. This is done, not because of the chronological or historical sequence but because of the built-in relation of Schopenhauer to Kant on that issue. We may say already here that Schopenhauer integrated several of Kant's components of the exploration and gave them a new dimension and status.

Kant says that the beautiful is that which pleases in the mere estimate of it; it is not in sensation or by means of a concept. From the position of judgment related to the beautiful, it is said that the judgment of taste determines its objects in terms of delight – as a thing of beauty. Though these components, both of taste and delight, are prominent, there is a claim to the agreement of everyone just as if it were objective. An example is that to say that this flower is beautiful is tantamount to repeating its own proper claim to the delight of everyone. An additional characteristic of art is that the work of art is organized or a self-organized being. An organized being possesses inherent formative power. It is a self-propagating formative power, which cannot be explained by any mechanism.

The conjunction of delight on the one hand and the inner structure of the work of art on the other becomes manifest in the absense of interest, that is to say of taking advantage of the work of art. Every interest vitiates the judgment of taste and robs it of its impartiality. It is a pure judgment of taste, uninfluenced by charm or emotion.

Background

In this chapter we shall attempt to present a typological analysis of the philosophical interpretations of Judaism which arose over the course of the nineteenth century. We do not refer here to the interpretation of Judaism given in the great non-Jewish philosophical systems of this period, as is indeed the case in the systems of Kant and Hegel, or of Schopenhauer. Instead, we confine ourselves to the philosophical interpretations conceived by philosophers of Judaism who, as Jews, tried in their own way to justify Judaism or to present it as a viable religious and systematic structure vis-àvis other religions and within the context of the modern world. From the latter point of view, systematic philosophical interpretations of Judaism, prompted by and conceived within the modern context are to be viewed not only within the framework of the history of philosophical systems but also, in part, under the aspect of what is called the history of ideas or intellectual history – in German Geistesgeschichte.

We emphasize the last point because it will become clear that problems inherent in the modern situation have their impact on the formulation of systems of Jewish philosophy in two major directions: there were modern systems whose consequences, in terms of both tools of interpretation and thematic shifts, had a major influence on the interpretation of Judaism.