Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on citations
- Introduction
- 1 The problem: The unity of the diverse
- 2 Reflective judgment and its principle: Preliminary remarks
- Part I Teleological judgment
- Part II Aesthetic judgment
- Introduction to Part II
- 5 Beautiful objects: Subjectively purposive form
- 6 Aesthetic pleasure: The feeling of subjective, projective temporality
- 7 The free harmony of the faculties: Purposiveness as the principle of aesthetic Beurteilung
- 8 The justification of aesthetic judgment: Purposiveness as the principle of reflective judging
- Conclusion
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index
Introduction to Part II
from Part II - Aesthetic judgment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on citations
- Introduction
- 1 The problem: The unity of the diverse
- 2 Reflective judgment and its principle: Preliminary remarks
- Part I Teleological judgment
- Part II Aesthetic judgment
- Introduction to Part II
- 5 Beautiful objects: Subjectively purposive form
- 6 Aesthetic pleasure: The feeling of subjective, projective temporality
- 7 The free harmony of the faculties: Purposiveness as the principle of aesthetic Beurteilung
- 8 The justification of aesthetic judgment: Purposiveness as the principle of reflective judging
- Conclusion
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index
Summary
As we have seen, Kant argues that we must judge according to the principle of purposiveness without a purpose in order to characterize the dynamic unity of the diverse that characterizes organisms, but that this principle is merely subjectively necessary: it is needed to aid us in discovering laws governing these objects, but it cannot be determinatively applied to them. In the CAJ, Kant's conclusions appear similar: aesthetic judgments have only subjective universal validity, or make claims only to subjective necessity. Beauty – like organic purposiveness – is not a property of objects, but is (as it were) in the eye of the beholder. Yet Kant's question here is somewhat different than that in the CTJ: he is not concerned here to find a principle by which we could explain material unity in objects (though he does hold that beautiful objects are “formally” or “in their representation” unified) but instead to explain how something that is subjective (pleasure) could be the basis of universal or necessary claims. Thus here Kant argues not for mere subjective necessity, but for necessity in the realm of the subject. As I shall argue, Kant's account in the CAJ is nonetheless closely connected to the CTJ, for the aesthetically judging subject must itself be understood as purposive without a purpose, to be engaged in a judging activity structured by this principle.
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- Information
- Kant on Beauty and BiologyAn Interpretation of the 'Critique of Judgment', pp. 173 - 180Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007