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Introduction

A Twofold Peculiarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2021

Katalin Makkai
Affiliation:
Bard College, Berlin
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Summary

This introductory chapter motivates and sketches the book’s approach. The chapter identifies the heart of the problem that the judgment of taste poses in terms of its apparent presumptuousness in demanding pleasure. Many scholars read Kant’s Critique of Judgment as adumbrating an account of the aesthetic that has little connection with our actual aesthetic experiences or with our ways of explaining and supporting aesthetic judgments. Among art historians, critics, and theorists, Kant is regarded as the source of a distorting notion of the aesthetic that chooses affect or pleasure over meaning. For example, Kantian aesthetics is widely taken to entail a specific approach to art criticism, viz. a narrow formalism. My interpretation aims to show that the judgment of taste is a contentful engagement with an object the terms of which are not specifiable in advance. To enter a judgment of taste is to expose one’s sense of what matters. This is why a risk of presumptuousness is characteristic of the judgment of taste. It is also why the judgment of taste is exemplary of judgment generally

Type
Chapter
Information
Kant's Critique of Taste
The Feeling of Life
, pp. 1 - 33
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Introduction
  • Katalin Makkai
  • Book: Kant's Critique of Taste
  • Online publication: 07 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108596893.001
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  • Introduction
  • Katalin Makkai
  • Book: Kant's Critique of Taste
  • Online publication: 07 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108596893.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Katalin Makkai
  • Book: Kant's Critique of Taste
  • Online publication: 07 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108596893.001
Available formats
×