2009 Kants Aesthetics Compass

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Kant's Aesthetics: Overview and Recent Literature
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DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x
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Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x
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Aesthetics: Blackwell
Aesthetics:
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Overview and
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Literature
Kant’s Aesthetics: Overview and

Recent Literature
Christian Helmut Wenzel*
National Taiwan University
Abstract
In 1764, Kant published his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the
Sublime and in 1790 his influential third Critique, the Critique of the Power of
Judgment. The latter contains two parts, the ‘Critique of the Aesthetic Power of
Judgment’ and the ‘Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment’. They reveal
a new principle, namely the a priori principle of purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit)
of our power of judgment, and thereby offer new a priori grounds for beauty and
biology within the framework of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. They also
unite the previous two Critiques, the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of
Practical Reason. Besides contributing to general and systematic aspects within
his transcendental philosophy, Kant’s aesthetics also offers new insights into old
problems. It deals with feeling versus experience, subjectivity versus objectivity,
disinterested pleasure, aesthetic universality, free and adherent beauty, the sensus
communis, genius, aesthetic ideas, beauty as the symbol of morality, beauty of
nature versus beauty of art, the sublime, and the supersensible. In this article I
will limit myself to this critical aesthetics of Kant. But I will also discuss the ugly
and the possibility of beauty in mathematics and see whether Kant’s theory can
successfully explain or deal with them. I will also compare his theory with
philosophical ideas from a very different tradition, namely from Confucius, not
only as a challenge to Kant’s theory, but also because there is a growing interest
from the Chinese side in combining ideas from Confucius and Kant, an interest
that might well become influential in both East and West during the 21st century.
1. The Background and the Problem

Aesthetics floats – happily or unhappily, but in any case interestingly –
between the subjective and the objective domains. There are no proofs in
matters of taste. Aesthetics is not like mathematics. But it is also not the
case that there are no standards at all and that everyone lets everyone else
have his or her own, personal taste. For Kant, this was a starting point, a
fact about human beings that he took as given – but not for granted. Kant
of course was not alone in this, and many before him had thought about
this problem. Some philosophers of aesthetics had tried to find rational
standards and norms for what should count as beautiful. Leibniz (1646–
1716), Wolff (1679–1754), and Baumgarten (1714–62) were influential in
© 2009 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Kant’s Aesthetics: Overview and Recent Literature 381
this direction. Others followed empirical considerations, but also argued

for objective standards. Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Hutcheson (1694–1746),
Hume (1711–76), and Burke (1729–97) should be mentioned here. Kant
was influenced by both sides of this discussion, particularly by Baumgarten
and Burke. But he took a different perspective. He was interested in the
a priori grounds of our very ability to make judgments of taste, no matter
what the resulting empirical standards might turn out to be. He knew that
the ideal of a beautiful man or woman in Africa was different from what
it was in China or France. Ideals change over time and vary from place
to place. But in all cultures people find something or other to be beautiful
and make judgments of taste. Kant was less interested in cultural variations
and historical origins than in the very nature of those judgments in
general and their ‘conditions of possibility’. Furthermore, he took it as a
fact that our satisfaction in the beautiful is ‘disinterested’, and that when
making a judgment of taste, we claim that ‘everyone should agree’.
We somehow make judgments of taste in the name of humanity. Thus
he thought there must be a priori grounds for the possibility of such
judgments. In this way, judgments of taste found a place within his
transcendental philosophy, and this was a starting point for the third Critique.1
Kant also realized that there is a common ground to both aesthetics
and teleology: both rely on ‘purposiveness’. Hence he deals with aesthetic
and teleological judgments in a single book, the Critique of the Power of
Judgment. Taste and teleology each show us that we fit into nature: that
we can do empirical science and that we should be able to realize the idea
of moral freedom and of mankind under moral laws.
Zammito gives a well-written general introduction to the historical
background of Kant’s aesthetics. An explanation of what Kant means by
the term ‘aesthetic’ and how he introduces it against the background of
Baumgarten’s Aesthetica of 1750, can be found in Wenzel’s Introduction to
Kant’s Aesthetics (4 –7). Wenzel argues that the first paragraph of Kant’s
aesthetics should be read as a direct reply to the first paragraph of
Baumgarten’s aesthetics. Kant’s aesthetics has its roots, from the rationalist
side, not only in Baumgarten but also in Leibniz and Wolff, as can be
learned from the detailed study by La Rocca. Regarding the empiricist
side, Guyer (Values of Beauty 8–16, 21–8) gives an account of Shaftesbury,
Hutcheson, and Addison.
2. The Four Moments in General

Kant analyzes the judgment of taste ‘This is beautiful’ (or ugly) against
the background of his first Critique, the Critique of Pure Reason. While the
first Critique was concerned with knowledge and judgments of cognition,
the third Critique deals with aesthetics and judgments of taste. But there
is, as Kant points out in paragraph 1, enough understanding involved in
judgments of taste to justify this method. The third Critique thus turns out
© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x
382 Kant’s Aesthetics: Overview and Recent Literature
to be analytic in method, analyzing the judgment of taste against the

background of the first Critique (which was synthetic in method). In
particular, there must be four ‘moments’ corresponding to the four groups
of judgments that compose the ‘table of judgments’ from the first Critique.
These groups have four ‘titles’ (a term from jurisprudence) and come in
a certain order: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. In his aesthetics,
though, Kant starts with quality, because the question of whether some-
thing is beautiful or not, i.e., whether the judgment is a positive or a
negative one (which is what the quality of a judgment is about), naturally
comes first. Kant briefly justifies his method of following the table of
judgment in the notoriously dense footnote to paragraph 1, saying
basically what I have summarized above:
In seeking the moments to which this power of judgment [for judging the
beautiful] attends in its reflection, I have been guided by the logical functions
for judging (for a relation to the understanding is always contained even in the
judgment of taste).
Kant here moves between first and third person perspectives.
The word ‘moment’ (German: Moment) suggests a specific point in
time as well as a force, i.e., a ‘momentum’, such as torque in physics –
something related to mass and motion and that makes something happen.
It is this second meaning that is intended here. In German this is clearer:
das Moment (physics) rather than der Moment (time).
Klaus Reich in 1932 published a short but influential book about the
‘table of judgments’ and the ‘moments of the understanding’ from the
first Critique. He offers a highly original reconstruction of the table from
the ‘highest point’, the ‘original synthetic unity of apperception’, or the
‘I think’, which Kant developed in the second, B-edition of 1787 of the
first Critique. Reich’s book appeared in English translation in 1992. Brandt
(Die Urteilstafel) has argued, against Reich, that the table can be derived
from traditional logic by analyzing a judgment such as ‘All men are
mortal’ by systematically paying attention to the ‘functions of the under-
standing’. Quantity, quality, and relation are connected, respectively,
with concept, judgment, and syllogism, and also with, respectively, subject,
copula, and predicate. For this derivation, he argues, the earlier 1781
A-edition suffices. Brandt not only gives detailed accounts of the inter-
pretations by Reich, Lorenz Krüger, Hans Lenk, Walter Bröker, Peter
Schulthess, and Hans Wagner, but also points out the historical roots of
the table in the Port Royal Logic and in Christian Wolff ’s writings. These
works already discuss the quatre operations de l’esprit and the tres mentis
operationes, which lead to the Kantian ‘moments of thought’. In 1995,
Michael Wolff offered another detailed discussion of the table of judg-
ments, building on the work of Reich, Brandt, and others, and adding
Frege’s view. The table of judgments can be derived by analyzing how
concepts are used in judgments (Brandt), which is nothing but analyzing
the concept of our understanding as a faculty of using concepts, which

after all is the highest point as discussed by Reich. Besides Brandt (Die
Urteilstafel), Longuenesse (Kant and the Capacity to Judge) is particularly
useful, if one wants to arrive at a better understanding of Kant’s analysis
of judgments of taste against the background of the first Critique.
Regarding the explicit relevance of the table of judgments from the first
Critique for the analysis of the judgment of taste in the third Critique,
Kulenkampff (Kants Logik des ästhetischen Urteils) and Guyer (Kant and the
Claims of Taste; ‘Kant’s Distinction’) take a more critical and skeptical
attitude, whereas Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 72–82), Wenzel (Introduction
to Kant’s Aesthetics 8–18), and Longuenesse (Kant on the Human Standpoint
265–90) defend the aesthetic role of the ‘logical functions of judgment’
from the first Critique. The table and these functions certainly serve as
some kind of guide in Kant’s analysis. However, the problems are in
the details. Fortunately these are often not just problems within Kant’s
idiosyncratic system but also reveal general philosophical questions
regarding the connection between taste and cognition.
3. Disinterestedness and the Three Kinds of Satisfaction

Of fundamental importance for many arguments that follow in Kant’s
analysis, is a distinction that Kant makes between three kinds of satisfaction,
or pleasure (Wohlgefallen): the satisfaction in the agreeable, the beautiful,
and the good. What singles out the beautiful is the criterion of ‘disin-
terestedness’. Only the satisfaction in the beautiful is without any interest
in the ‘existence’ (Existenz) of the object. It is free of such concerns and
is content with contemplation. In the case of (1) the agreeable, one is
passive and affected. One’s pleasure depends on the existence of the
object. In the case of (2a) the morally good, one wants to bring the object
(an act) into existence, and in the case of the object’s being instrumentally
good for something else (2b), one depends on the object’s existence
as well. Thus in both cases of satisfaction in the good, the satisfaction
is dependent on the existence of the object and is mediated through
concepts. One must have an understanding of the object in order to find
it good, whereas the satisfaction in the beautiful (3) is not conceptually
linked in that way. There are no rules of taste. Thus beauty is neither
based on individual subjective grounds (the agreeable) nor on general
objective grounds (the good). It is free of interest and is not conceptually
bound. Up to this point in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant has
arrived at his concept of ‘satisfaction in the beautiful’ merely through
elimination.
Historically, Shaftesbury (1677–1713) and Hutcheson (1694–1764)
were influential in the development of the notion of disinterestedness.
Shaftesbury introduced the notion in his dialogue The Moralist and meant
by it an independence of considerations of personal use or possession.
The sense of beauty shares this feature with the moral sense, and since
both senses allow us to perceive the order of the world that has been
created by God and therefore equally allow us to perceive God’s divine
intelligence, beauty and the good in the end turn out to be the same. But
for Hutcheson there is merely an analogy between the two senses. Beauty
and goodness are felt immediately and necessarily, but they remain distinct.
In Germany, it is with Kant, and against Baumgarten, that beauty
emancipated itself from morality and cognition.
In making a judgment of taste, human beings take an intermediate
position between animals and spirits according to Kant: Animals feel the
agreeable, spirits understand the good, but only humans, sharing aspects
with animals as well as with spirits, are capable of the satisfaction in the
beautiful. In that sense we are most human when it comes to matters of
taste. Schiller and Goethe made much of this, and their writings were
influential in the development of educational ideas in Germany. Wilhelm
von Humboldt, for instance, who founded the Humboldt University in
Berlin, read Kant’s third Critique and promoted freedom and independence
for scholars at German universities.
Guyer’s Kant and the Experience of Freedom (48–130) gives detailed
historical accounts of various views about disinterestedness in Germany
and England; for Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, see 48–61 and also Guyer’s
‘Free and Adherent Beauty’ (8 –16); Crawford (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory 37–
54) questions the possibility of pure disinterestedness, and also Guyer’s
Kant and the Claims of Taste (148–83) is critical about Kant’s arguments in
this respect. But Zangwill shows that Kantian disinterested pleasure can
well go together with various kinds of interest, such as interested attitudes,
interested attentions, and mental states of finding something interesting.
The pleasure is tied to the representation only, he argues, and how this
representation arises is another question. McCloskey (29–49) discusses
disinterestedness in the light of contemporary theories of aesthetic
attitudes, whereas Dörflinger and Prauss make general connections with
our experiencing, and our being open to, objectivity.
4. Subjective Universality and Free Play

Because one finds no personal grounds for the satisfaction in the beautiful,
there must be universal ones, Kant concludes in paragraph 6. In the much
discussed paragraph 9 he then derives those universal grounds. These are
the free play of the faculties of imagination and understanding and the
reflection about others (that they would feel the same and agree to my
judgment, if they were in my position). This reflection is involved in the
free play. Paragraph 9 is a rather complicated one. A so-called ‘judging’
(Beurtheilung) is found to ‘precede’ the pleasure. After all, the pleasure
in the beautiful must involve special grounds, so that one can enjoy this
special feeling that others should agree, and be justified in doing so. Paul
Guyer has argued that the argumentation Kant offers is circuitous. Others
(including myself ) have defended Kant. But it is difficult to avoid this
criticism of circularity, and it is not easy to give a smooth and linear
account of what is going on in this paragraph. Furthermore, this is not a
minor and local problem; it is crucial for Kant’s overall project, because
paragraph 9 is supposed to offer the ‘key’ to the critique of taste.
The understanding is the faculty of cognition and rules, and only
cognition can serve as a basis for objectivity and communicability. Feelings
and imagination remain subjective. Hence the understanding must be
involved in one way or another, in any case sufficiently to justify the
feeling of communicability and the claim to universality that Kant assumes
are found in the satisfaction of the beautiful. But as there are no rules
of taste, the understanding cannot be involved in a determining and
rule-giving way. The predicate ‘beautiful’ is not an objective predicate.
There is no way it can be connected to the subject ‘this rose’ in an
objective way as ‘red’ is connected to ‘this rose’ in the judgment ‘This
rose is red’. In the latter, cognitive judgment, the connection between
subject-concept and predicate-concept is mediated through the intuition
(of the rose) in a way that gives rise to cognition: This, what I see, is
a rose, and it is red. It is red as a rose. What I see in a manifold of
perception is subsumed, and thereby organized, under the concepts ‘rose’
and ‘red’, and this in such a way that the concepts in turn are determined
through this perceptual manifold and the subject-concept is further
specified by the predicate-concept.
Thus a lot is going on in a judgment of cognition according to Kant,
and he struggles with this in his deduction (justification) of the so-called
‘categories’ in his first Critique. But all this cannot be applied in the third
Critique, because judgments of taste are not judgments of cognition and
‘beautiful’ does not function in the way ‘red’ does (see above). What is
predicated of the object is a certain pleasure, or rather, that the object
gives rise to such pleasure. We might say that this pleasure, the satisfaction
in the beautiful, takes the place of the predicate. It is not an objective
predicate, but it must involve something else, not rules as with the
predicate ‘red’, but other grounds, so that the claim to universality can be
justified. These grounds are to be found in the ‘judging’, the free play of
the faculties and one’s reflecting about others.
Kulenkampff (Kants Logik des ästhetischen Urteils 87–106) discusses and
reconstructs paragraph 9, highlighting its transcendental aspects. Fricke
(Kants Theorie des reinen Geschmacksurteils 38 –71) focuses on the difference
between judging and judgment, whereas Budd explains the free and
reflective nature of the judgment of taste. Falk discusses the communica-
bility of feelings such as pain and pity in comparison with pleasure and
taste. Ameriks (‘Kant and the Objectivity of Taste’) defends the objectivity
of taste and argues that Kant’s deduction fails. Savile (Aesthetic Reconstructions)
explains taste in relation to cognition in Kant, and Dörflinger sees in
Kant’s aesthetics an extension of objectivity, including individuality and

self-awareness. From a more general perspective, Ginsborg (The Role of
Taste in Kant’s Theory of Cognition) argues that the third Critique fills a gap
in the theoretical philosophy of the first Critique, because intersubjectivity
(third Critique) precedes objectivity (first Critique). This claim has been
criticized by Wenzel (Das Problem der subjektiven Allgemeingültigkeit des
Geschmacksurteils bei Kant 57–70) and Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 113–18).
More independent of Kant’s own philosophy, Cohen (‘Three Problems
in Kant’s Aesthetics’) and Rind discuss the judgments ‘This rose is beautiful’
versus ‘Roses in general are beautiful’ and why ‘beautiful’ is not an
objective predicate. Wenzel (Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics 39 –49) focuses
on the peculiarity of the judgment of taste’s being singular ‘but’ universal.
Dörflinger (142– 60) also discusses this issue. Again in a wider perspective,
Heidemann (125–216) puts Kant’s notion of ‘free play’ into the context
of a philosophy of play, including views from Heidegger (278–372).
Specifically regarding paragraph 9, Guyer (Kant and the Claims of Taste;
‘Kant’s Distinction between the Beautiful and the Sublime’) argues that
there must be a two-step process underlying the judgment of taste, with
the first leading to pleasure and the second to intersubjective validity.
This view has been criticized by Ginsborg (The Role of Taste in Kant’s
Theory of Cognition; ‘On the Key to Kant’s Critique of Taste’), Baum,
Wenzel (Das Problem der subjektiven Allgemeingültigkeit des Geschmacksurteils
bei Kant 33–46, 169–78), and Allison (‘Pleasure and Harmony in
Kant’s Theory of Taste’). Ginsborg has offered an alternative account,
seeing a self-referential aspect in the judgment of taste. This in turn has
been criticized by Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 113–18), Wenzel (Intro-
duction to Kant’s Aesthetics 57–70), and Kulenkampff (Kants Logik des
ästhetischen Urteils 178–82). Guyer (‘Harmony of the Faculties Revisited’
162–93) has given an overview of the positions, distinguishing between
pre-cognitive and multi-cognitive approaches, and has offered a third of
his own, a ‘meta-cognitive’ approach that stresses the relevance of the
subject concept: ‘This F is beautiful’. Ginsborg (‘Lawfulness without a
Law’) explains how imagination can conform to rules in the sense of
exemplifying them, which sheds a new light on the relation between
concepts and synthesis in empirical cognition and a new perspective on
the notion of free play as well.
5. The A Priori Principle: Purposiveness

For Kant it is universality that makes us enter transcendental philosophy.
Paragraph 9 gave us the ‘key’, and now that the door is open, we must
find the a priori grounds. These belong to the third moment: ‘relation’.
In the first Critique, relation led to causality. Here it leads to ‘purposiveness’
(Zweckmäßigkeit). There, in the first Critique, we found an a priori concept
of the understanding (causality); here we find an a priori principle of the
power of judgment. Both take central positions. As there are no rules in

matters of taste, this a priori principle cannot be a rule and also should not
give rise to one. It must be less determined and without concepts, a
‘purposiveness without purpose’. When we judge an object to be beautiful,
we find it purposive (1) for a free play between understanding and
imagination, in which these two faculties strengthen and enliven each
other, thus finding each other purposive (2) in reflecting about this object;
and, finally, this in turn is purposive (3) for cognition in general. Thus
purposiveness is involved in three ways. In the diagram below, the three
arrows correspond, in order from left to right, to the three kinds of
purposiveness explained above:
Kant also speaks of ‘subjective purposiveness’, because it is a feeling of

pleasure, namely the satisfaction in the beautiful, through which we
become aware of this principle. He also speaks of ‘formal purposiveness’,
‘forms of purposiveness’, and the ‘form of the object’. ‘Matter’ on the
other hand is associated with content, emotions, secondary qualities,
qualia, the empirical, and the personal, whereas ‘form’ is related to
indeterminate relations, primary qualities, design, composition, and the
universal. These various form-matter distinctions are all very problematic.
They tend to slide between the subjective and the objective, and they are
not worked out.
The purposiveness underlying the judgment of taste should be ‘without
purpose’. It should be without design or desire, as Kant explains in
paragraphs 10 to 12. Nevertheless beautiful objects happen to suit us and
to be purposive for our power of judgment. They must therefore be
mechanical in their origins, as Kant argues much later, in paragraph 58,
under the heading of ‘idealism of purposiveness’. This applies to objects
of nature as well as of art.
Historically, Model relates Kantian purposiveness and perfection to
Leibniz, Gottsched, and Wolff; and Dickie (85–122) gives a general
account of taste and purpose in Hutcheson, Gerard, Alison, and Hume.
Dickie argues that Kant’s account is unsatisfying.
Systematically, and within Kant, recently Zuckert has offered a detailed
discussion of the third Critique as a whole, in which she focuses on
purposiveness without purpose and on our future-directedness in our
capacity to discern order and unity in diversity and contingency. She
approaches aesthetics more from teleology and the epistemological side in
Kant. Jeng (225–304) offers a general exposition of ‘aesthetic representation
of natural purposiveness’, Wohlfart describes a transition from transcen-
dental purposiveness ‘down to’ aesthetic purposiveness, and Marc-Wogau
(44–213) discusses ‘purposiveness’ in various aspects, such as the inner

and the outer, harmony, organization, and perfection. Tonelli (‘Von den
verschiedenen Bedeutungen’) has criticized Wogau’s accounts and he
offers in nine tables many fine-tuned historical distinctions. He argues
that Kant developed different notions of purposiveness at different times
and in different contexts, and that one should not try to synthesize them
all into one single notion. Wenzel (Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics 60–9)
discusses form and perfection, pointing out how Kant ties purposiveness
to the form of objects in time and space, such as in design, shape, and
composition. He then relates Kant’s arguments to the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities.
Also more systematically, Prauss argues that a certain theoretical,
purposeful intentionality needs to be overcome in our aesthetic attitude,
and Savile (Kantian Aesthetics Pursued) explains that, according to Kant’s
idealism of purposiveness, beautiful objects have mechanical origins. On
this reading, there is an analogy between natural food that happens to be
good for us, and beautiful objects that happen to be ‘spiritual nourish-
ment’. Drawing Kant more out of his domain, Gregor confronts Kant’s
accounts with modern theories of aesthetic formalism, and from a very
different perspective, Baz criticizes Kant for seeing beauty and its value
too much against the background of cognition and our cognitive interests
such that he misses, Baz claims, the point of why we should ‘care’ to make
judgments of taste at all. I think Baz overemphasizes the cognitive side
in Kant and misses the moral aspect. This criticism has also been made
by Hughes.
6. Free and Adherent Beauty

Instead of perfection as an objective criterion for beauty, Kant offers
subjective purposiveness as a principle for our power of judgment. The
first is about the object, the latter about our relation to it. This widens
the scope and creates room for freedom. We do not find a rose beautiful
because it is a perfect rose according to objective rules, i.e., the concept
of a rose and our understanding of roses should not be relevant to the
question of whether or not a rose is beautiful. But this creates a problem
for artifacts. We often find a house, a church, a painting, a symphony, or
some Chinese calligraphy beautiful, and in these cases it is difficult to
abstract from our understanding of those objects. Flowers grow on their
own, but houses do not; they are built by us and for some purpose.
Symphonies are composed and understanding is involved, in the production
as well as in our appreciation. Chinese calligraphy is not only beautiful,
but literally means something. A decoration of a window frame can be
beautiful in itself, but it can also be particularly beautiful as a decoration
of that very window frame. The latter case is one of dependant, or
‘adherent beauty’, pulchritudo adhaerens, the former one of ‘free beauty’,
pulchritudo vaga. Similarly, a variation of a theme in a fugue can be

beautiful in itself (free), but also as a variation of that very theme and in
that context (adherent). Free beauty is pure, whereas not only charm but
also understanding can make a judgment of taste impure, the former
leading to satisfaction in the agreeable, the latter to satisfaction in perfection.
But this becomes particularly problematic when we look at genius and
the arts, because some understanding (of the work of art) seems to be
necessary.
In the context of perfection, Kant discusses another issue, namely
‘normal ideas’, which are empirically derived from individual objects,
leading to different ideas in different cultures. The normal idea of a
beautiful man in Africa is different from the normal idea of a beautiful
man in Europe. Kant introduces the notion of ‘ideal of beauty’ in this
context and argues in paragraph 17 that the human being is the only
possible ideal of beauty and that this is based on connections with a priori
moral grounds. Kant might have been influenced by Winckelmann, who
wrote about the Greek ideal of the human body that we find in Greek
sculptures. Kant, too, singled out the human body, but he turned the
focus from physical education to morality.
Guyer (Kant and the Experience of Freedom 131–60) discusses the problem
of perfection and art in Kant as well as in Mendelssohn and Moritz. In a
later essay (‘Free and Adherent Beauty’), he distinguishes between three
different interpretations of adherent beauty and discusses them in relation
to form and function. He shows that each of these interpretations makes
sense and that they do not contradict each other. Gammon (Parerga and
Pulchritudo adhaerens) draws on many different sources in Kant, and argues
that the beautiful adheres to the good. Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 290–8)
and Wenzel (Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics 69–76) discuss the problem
whether artistic beauty can be free or whether it must be adherent.
Already Schaper (Studies in Kantian Aesthetics; ‘Free and Dependent Beauty’)
focuses on this issue. She argues in particular that Kant’s theory is not
especially, as is often claimed, suitable for abstract, non-representational
art, and that free beauty is not aesthetically preferable to dependent
beauty. In any case, whether an object is one of free or of adherent
beauty depends also on our attitude. Derrida (44–94 of the French ed.)
frequently refers to Kant and his notion of adherent beauty when he
discusses paintings and their frames and parerga.
7. The Sensus Communis

In everyday life, but also in philosophy, we sometimes refer to the
‘common sense’ or gesunder Verstand (sound and healthy understanding)
when searching for an acceptable basis for our arguments and views. This
notion goes back to the Latin ‘sensus communis’, which has a complex
history, involving at least the following two strands: Aristotle spoke of
koina aistheta, ‘common sensibles’ (objects that can be perceived by more

than one sense, such as shape, which can be felt and seen), and he spoke
of koine aisthesis as that faculty of the mind in which the five senses are
united and where we become conscious of what we perceive. This
expression was translated into Latin as ‘sensus communis’. The second
origin derives from Cicero. He spoke of ‘sensus communis’ in the context
of rhetoric and politics, and what he meant by the term is close to what
is understood by ‘common sense’ in British traditions. (Shaftesbury was
particularly influential here.) Thus we have an intra-subjective Aristotelian
(in the soul of one person) and an inter-subjective Ciceronian source
(between different persons) for the term ‘sensus communis’. Kant was familiar
with Cicero and the British traditions. He also used the German
‘Gemeinsinn’ (common sense) and ‘gesunder Verstand’ (healthy understanding)
in this context. Nevertheless, Kant meant the sensus communis to be taken
neither as a sense nor as a form of understanding. Instead, he connects it
with taste: If there is such a thing as a sensus communis, it must be the
‘effect’ (Wirkung) of the free play (§20, 238). We create and experience
the sensus communis when we make a judgment of taste. At least we get a
taste of it, because after all it is only an ‘idea’ of a ‘communal sense’
(gemeinschaftlicher Sinn) that we might still have to develop (§40, 293).
Both the sensus communis and taste rely on communicability and one’s
ability to reflect about and to put oneself into the position of another,
thereby broadening one’s view. It is through these features that Kant
connects taste with the enlightenment (§40) and with morality (§59).
Kant distinguishes between the sensus communis aestheticus and the sensus
communis logicus. It is the former that he is concerned with here.
Thus we find in Kant both the Aristotelian and the Ciceronian
ideas: The free play involves our senses and our consciousness, and it also
involves society in our reflecting about others and in our claiming
universal communicability and demanding agreement. The second aspect
is the dominating one in Kant, but, perhaps unawares, he also makes
a connection back to Aristotle.
Gadamer offers rich historical accounts of the sensus communis, especially
in Vico, and he makes broad connections to truth, experience, and culture
(Bildung). Also Wenzel (‘Gemeinsinn und das Schöne als Symbol des
Sittlichen’) explores the historical roots of the sensus communis. He goes
back to Aristotle, explains how he has been commented on by Aquinas,
and then shows how the problems can still be found in Kant. Remaining
more within Kant’s text, Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 144 –59) and Savile
(Aesthetic Reconstructions 142–61) reconstruct Kant’s arguments and discuss,
as does also Fricke (Kants Theorie des reinen Geschmacksurteils 161–76), the
relation between the aesthetic and the cognitive domain. From a different
angle, Makkreel (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant 154–71) relates
the sensus communis to aesthetic and teleological ‘orientation’, the human
sciences, and the life-world. Systematically, Kant’s account of the sensus
communis can be read as an attempt to justify the judgment of taste’s claim

to universal validity, and Guyer (Kant and the Claims of Taste 248 –73) reads
and criticizes Kant in this way.
8. Genius and Aesthetic Ideas

When we see a king, how do we recognize him as such? Maybe we do
so by seeing his clothes, his followers, his banner, or the castle in which
he lives. Kant speaks of ‘attributes’ here. An eagle on a banner for instance
can serve as an ‘attribute’ of a king, because this animal suggests power
and strength. It has sharp eyes by which it surveys everything and sees
what is happening on the ground while flying high up in the sky. The
eagle suggests many ‘supplementary ideas’ (Nebenvorstellungen) that suit our
idea of a king and thereby give support to that idea. The eagle gives us
the impression that we can ‘see’ the king in all his might. This is an
example of an ‘aesthetic idea’, something we can see and that strives to
express an idea of reason that is otherwise difficult to make present to
the mind. Artists make much use of such aesthetic ideas. They use them
to give us images of justice, death, infinity, eternity, the creation, and
God, for instance. They express these ideas. A poem can make us see a
natural scene in a way that suggests love, death, or fate. Some colors may
be happy or sad. Tones in music may be associated with colors in the
minds of the listener. What we see or hear enlivens our imagination
and our ideas. It gives depth, meaning, and ‘spirit’ (Geist) to a poem,
painting, or a fugue. This is even true of modern art. For instance, an
exhibited objet trouvé, by Joseph Beuys or Andy Warhol, also conveys
meaning.
Such ‘aesthetic ideas’ are counterparts of ‘ideas of reason’. The former
can be perceived through our senses, but no single concept can grasp
their richness. Ideas of reason, by contrast, can be thought of, but not
perceived. Each has what the other lacks. For the concept of a ‘chair’
there is a chair that I can point to and sit on and thereby ‘demonstrate’
the concept. But for our ideas of God and justice there are no such
objects that I could point to. For art it is crucial that these two ideas
(aesthetic and rational) enrich, enliven, and support each other. They
elevate us. Such ideas can be found in all cultures, and the interplay
between them helps to make ideas of reason communicable.
Hitting on the right expressions when writing a poem, or finding the
right notes in a musical composition, or the right colors and motives for
a painting, requires not only technique, practice and taste, but also ‘spirit’
(Geist), and sometimes genius. Such genius is ‘the inborn predisposition
of the mind (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art’
(§46, 307). A genius cannot fully explain how he or she did it, and it is
only post factum, after the work has been produced, that a certain style or
rule begins to surface when other artists begin to imitate and follow such
a genius. When that occurs it is clear that a genius has set new
standards, and the new work of art has become an exemplar for others
to emulate.
From a historical perspective, Schlapp is still the richest source for
our understanding of the development of Kant’s theory of genius. Also
Bäumler discusses a broad range of material on taste, genius, wit, and the
logic of invention in eighteenth century Europe, and Tonelli (‘Kant’s Early
Theory of Genius’) reconstructs Kant’s early ideas of genius against
the cultural background of the time, offering many details and fine
distinctions. An older text, but still full of interesting and original ideas,
is Basch (401–99). He discusses various examples of art in relation to
Kant’s account, and he also develops a theory of feeling of his own, based
on these discussions.
More textually based discussions of genius and aesthetic ideas include
Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste), who explains the place of art and genius
in Kant’s theory of taste, and Wenzel (Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics 94–
101), who elucidates why fine art must look like nature and nature like
fine art, and how genius relates to taste. Gibbons focuses on imagination
in relation to genius and fine art, and Lüthe on association in experience
and the production of art in relation to aesthetic ideas. Makkreel
(Imagination and Interpretation in Kant 118–29) explains aesthetic ideas in
relation to symbolic presentations, and in a recent essay (‘Reflection,
Reflective Judgment’ 223–44) he discusses exemplarity in relation to
reflection and prejudice and criticizes Longuenesse for aligning reflective
and determining judgment too closely. Also Verhaegh and Rogerson
(‘Kant on Beauty and Morality’) are concerned with aesthetic ideas, the
former drawing connections between aesthetics and truth, and natural
beauty and aesthetic ideas; the latter showing that beauty is basically an
expression of aesthetic ideas and thereby linked to subjective finality,
morality, and the supersensible. In a broader perspective, Kuypers discusses
the role of art in the third Critique as a whole and also in relation to the
other two Critiques.
Somewhat more removed from questions of interpretation within
the third Critique, in his last chapter, Crawford (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory)
focuses on art appreciation, creativity, and criticism, and similarly Kemal
(Kant’s Aesthetic Theory 135–51) discusses art in culture and community.
McCloskey confronts Kant’s theory of art with examples from Pushkin
and Shakespeare and expressionist ideas from Collingwood; Gould
compares Kant and Wordsworth on genius; Gaiger brings in the art critic
Greenberg’s form-content distinctions and his ideas about conventions in
art; and Cheetham points out a large and mixed variety of receptions
of Kant’s aesthetics in art and art history. With more emphasis on
systematic philosophy, Kivy and Weatherston explain how Kant’s theory
of aesthetic ideas can be applied to music, and why Kant missed doing
this himself.
9. Beauty as the Symbol of Morality

Aesthetic ideas function similarly to examples, schemata, and symbols,
which Kant introduces in paragraph 59. Each gives an intuition for a
concept: examples for empirical concepts, schemata for pure concepts of
the understanding, and symbols for pure concepts of reason. Symbols
work indirectly. Kant gives the example of a hand-mill as a symbol of a
despotic state. The coffee beans undergo a fate similar to the common
people of the state. Both are subjected to a single person’s will. It is not
the object itself but our way of reflecting about it that makes it into a
symbol. Our language is full of symbols, words that have secondary
(abstract) meanings derived from primary (concrete) meanings.
Based on this general account, Kant explains why beauty is a symbol
of morality. An object of beauty is an object of the senses, and morality
is a concept of reason. But in both cases our judgment involves reflection
about others, and this creates the link between beauty and morality,
making beauty into a symbol of morality. This link is indirect, and there
is no guarantee that taste and morality will always go together. Some
people have taste but are bad, and others have no taste but are good. But
due to the indirect link between beauty and morality through our acts
of reflection, there is justified belief in the moral value of aesthetic
education.
In a closer reading of Kant’s text, Cohen (‘Why Beauty is the Symbol
of Morality’) finds support already in paragraph 8 for what Kant claims
much later in paragraph 59 (that beauty is the symbol of morality), and
Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 195–267) discusses beauty, duty, interest,
and the transition from nature to freedom. Whereas Crawford (Kant’s
Aesthetic Theory) and Guyer (Kant and the Claims of Taste 312–50) argue
that Kant used the connection between beauty and morality to complete
his deduction ( justification) of judgments of taste, Allison (Kant’s Theory
of Taste) and Wenzel (Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics 113–19) argue against
this view. Recently there has been some work on symbolism in relation
to Kant: Rueger and Evren argue that symbolism can not only be found
in the sublime but also in judgments of taste, because natural beauty is a
symbol of the systematicity of nature. In a more general exposition of
Kant’s views, Zammito (306–26) sees Kant’s accounts in the light of man
as an end-in-himself and the unity of mankind, and applying Kant’s views
more broadly, Henrich connects taste not only with morality, but also
with human rights, and Nuyen reads Kant’s symbolism as metaphorical
meaning.
10. Beauty of Nature versus Beauty of Art

There is beauty of nature, and there is beauty of art. Which is to be
preferred? Is one of them more suitable than the other to be a symbol of
morality? Morality involves thinking of others and communicability;

and aesthetic ideas, as we have seen, help us communicate our ideas
of reason. Furthermore, these aesthetic ideas can be found in art and
not in nature. Thus one might think that it is art that is to be preferred
over nature when it comes to beauty being a symbol for morality. But
this is not the result Kant arrives at. ‘If a man who has enough taste
to judge about products of beautiful art with the greatest correctness
and refinement gladly leaves the room in which are to be found those
beauties that sustain vanity and at best social joys and turns to the
beautiful in nature, in order as it were to find here an ecstasy for his spirit
in a line of thought that he can never fully develop, then we would
consider this choice of his with esteem and presuppose in him a
beautiful soul, to which no connoisseur and lover of art can lay claim’
(§42, 299–300). Art involves understanding, and there is always the
danger of vanity in showing one’s knowledge or possession of objects
of art. Nature, by contrast, is freely given to us and no understanding
is presupposed. Hence this danger does not arise. Furthermore, the
beauty of nature creates an ‘intellectual interest’ in us. It shows us that
we fit into nature and should preserve it as it was given to us – which
can serve as a warning to us today. In its beauty, nature ‘speaks’ to us and
‘hints’ that we can fit into nature as morally free agents and may realize
our moral ideas.
The beauty of nature and the beauty of art are intrinsically linked: ‘Nature
was beautiful, if at the same time it looked like art; and art can only be
called beautiful if we are aware that it is art and yet it looks to us like
nature’ (§45, 306). Although the beauty of nature has an advantage
over the beauty of art in relation to morality, we nevertheless pursue art,
science, and cultural education in general. This might seem contradic-
tory. But the arts lead us out of the mere animal realm (§83), and they
can increase our ability to see beauty in things, no matter whether in art
or in nature. Appreciation of natural beauty does not come automatically.
Thus it seems we need both kinds of beauty.
Guyer (Kant and the Experience of Freedom 229–74) defends Kant’s
seemingly old-fashioned preference of the beauty of nature. In particular
he defends Kant’s view against Kemal (Kant and Fine Art). Brandt (‘Die
Schönheit der Kristalle’) focuses on paragraph 58, and in particular
discusses the beauty of snowflakes and other forms of crystallization.
These are ‘free formations’, and Brandt relates them to the ‘free play’ of
the faculties and explains their role in the dialectic. Wenzel (‘Gemeinsinn
und das Schöne als Symbol des Sittlichen’) compares the two kinds of
beauty, especially with respect to morality and the final end of mankind,
and shows how they are interrelated. More recently, Rueger (‘Kant and
the Aesthetics of Nature’) argues that nature is without purposes, ‘blind’,
and ‘mechanical’, and that the moral significance of its beauty derives
from this.
11. The Sublime

Although the sublime is an important philosophical idea in itself, it does
not play a central role in Kant’s third Critique. It is treated in a mere
‘appendix’ (§23, 246). There are two reasons for this. First, the desired
a priori principle of purposiveness has already been established in the
discussion of the beautiful, and, second, the sublime does not work as
directly as does the beautiful. There is a certain turn and shift of
perspective in our experience of the sublime. This can be summarized in
a two-step account: In the first step, we experience something that is too
large or too forceful for our imagination, such as the pyramids in Egypt,
St. Peter’s dome in Rome (§26, 252), towering mountain masses, the
raging sea (256), overhanging cliffs, towering thunder clouds, flashes of
lightning, volcanoes, hurricanes, lofty waterfalls, or the dark and boundless
sea (§28, 261). But in the second step we find something inside ourselves
that is even larger and stronger, something altogether different, namely
certain ideas of reason, such as infinity, completeness, perfection, morality,
or the idea of mankind as an end in itself. If we hold on to such ideas
and do our best to realize them, we are in a sense immune to the
limitations of our sensibility and the physical threat from outside. We then
have shifted the domain from the perceptual and physical world to reason
and the intellectual, from nature to freedom. It is actually not the storm
or the ocean outside that is sublime, but reason in us.
Kant distinguishes between two kinds of sublime, the mathematical and
the dynamical sublime, depending on whether we refer what we see to
the power of cognition (Erkenntnisvermögen) or to the power of desire
(Begehrungsvermögen). The former kind of sublime is about size, the latter
about force. Seeing something large or complex, our imagination is
pushed to its limits. We cannot apprehend and comprehend it all at once.
Although we can mathematically and logically add one part to another,
this does not help aesthetically. We are overwhelmed. The experience
might make us think of increasingly larger objects, a tree, a mountain, the
earth, the solar system, the Milky Way, and other galaxies (§26, 256).
There is no end to this, and we are lead to the idea of infinity in accord
with reason’s demand for totality and completeness. This is the mathematical
sublime. The dynamical sublime works differently: A physical force
outside (e.g., the fierce storm) is counterbalanced by our thinking of free
will. Here the shift is more radical, from nature to morality, whereas in
the case of the mathematical sublime, we merely move from finite size to
completeness and totality.
Kant analyzes the sublime, similarly to beauty, according to quantity,
quality, relation, and modality. Quantity leads to considerations of
aesthetic size and the mathematical sublime. Quality refers to the feeling
of being overwhelmed, which leads to the feeling of respect for our
vocation according to reason. Relation is about force and the dynamical
sublime, and leads to freedom and morality. Thus there is a development

in Kant’s analysis of the sublime, starting from quantity, going through
quality, and reaching its highest point in relation (free will and morality).
Modality finally is realized in the presumed necessity of intersubjective
agreement. All four aspects work together and are interrelated in any
judgment of the sublime. In every such judgment, a counterpurposiveness
for imagination turns into a purposiveness for reason. In the spirit of the
Enlightenment, we should for instance not side with any religion of
submission and rejection, which would be superstition, but instead
find the sublime in us, based on a good and God-pleasing disposition
(Gesinnung, §28, 263–4).
As we have seen, the mathematical-dynamical distinction of the sublime
has its roots in the table of categories from the first Critique. But there is
a further connection. Kant distinguished in the first Critique between
mathematical and dynamical synthesis (A 160/B 199, and the footnote
in B 201). The former is a composition of homogeneous parts that do
not necessarily belong together, whereas the latter is a combination of
heterogeneous parts that nevertheless do necessarily belong together. This
distinction reappears in the analysis of the sublime. Think for example of
the stones that comprise the pyramid. They are all alike (homogeneous
parts) but do not intrinsically (not necessarily) belong together. Thus a
mathematical synthesis is involved in the mathematical sublime. And think
of the wind and the trees that bend under its pressure. Cause and effect
are different (heterogeneous parts) but linked to each other (necessarily).
Here a dynamical synthesis underlies the experience of the dynamical
sublime. The free will (morality) in us, that this might trigger, is then a
force on an altogether different level, uniting imagination and reason.
Recently, Pillow has written substantially on ‘sublime understanding’,
arguing for the central role of the sublime within Kant’s aesthetics and
also beyond, in particular in relation to Hegel. Aesthetic ideas and the
sublime both lead to ideas of reason, and it is especially the mathematical
sublime that Pillow sees in works of art, in our interpretative responses
to their boundless and ineffable contents and their inexhaustible and
open-ended meanings. It is ‘sublime reflection’ and less reflection about
beauty, he argues, that underlies our experience of aesthetic ideas and our
understanding of our never finished, shared, cultural worlds. Pillow also
ventures brief glances at Bourdieu, Davidson, Eco, Goodman, Lyotard,
and Ricoeur.
Starting more in the past, Coleman (85–127) points out the ‘ancestors’
of Kant’s account of the sublime and criticizes ‘presuppositions’ and
‘defects’ he sees in Kant. Similarly, Crawford (‘Place of the Sublime’)
shows that most of the elements of the Kantian sublime can be found
already in Longinus, Burnet, Addison, Burke, Hogarth, and others. Guyer
(‘Kant’s Distinction between the Beautiful and the Sublime’) by contrast
explains how Kant exploits logical, linguistic, and epistemological versus
phenomenological and psychological aspects of the sublime. Crowther

draws a line from morality to art, and Allison (Kant’s Theory of Taste 302–
44) offers a step-by-step analysis of the relevant sections in Kant and
explains why the sublime is merely an appendix but still highly relevant
for morality. Makkreel (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant 67–77)
connects instantaneous aesthetic comprehension with Kant’s notion of
degrees of intensity from the first Critique, and also Lyotard suggests
various connections to the other two Critiques. Wenzel (Introduction to
Kant’s Aesthetics 106–12) explains the mathematical-dynamical distinction,
and Myskja applies Kant’s theory of the sublime to Becket, especially his
novel Molloy.
12. The Ugly

Kant’s aesthetics focuses on the beautiful, not the ugly. One therefore
wonders whether or not it is supposed to include the ugly as well. Can
the arguments he gives for the beautiful be modified so that they successfully
apply to the ugly? There might be disinterested displeasure and a claim to
universality also in a judgment about the ugly. But what about the
free play and purposiveness? Maybe there is a disharmonious free play
underlying the experience of the ugly. But does this make sense? And
what about the connection to morality? Is the ugly a symbol of the
morally bad? Kant does not address any of these questions, and different
interpreters of Kant have answered them differently.
Although Kant does indeed talk of ‘negative judgments of taste’ and
‘negative pleasure’, one might wonder how real the negative is, whether
it can stand on its own feet or whether it is merely a negation or privation
of the positive. From his other writings and the lecture notes, we get a
rather clear picture that he thinks of the ugly as being as real as the
beautiful, similar to the way that the negative numbers are as real as
the positive numbers, displeasure is as real as pleasure, hate as real as and
love, blame as real as praise, and the morally bad as real as the morally
good. Already in 1772, Kant writes: ‘Ugliness is something positive, not
merely lack of beauty, but the existence of something opposite to beauty’
(Logic Philippi) and as late as 1792 he still said, ‘Ugliness is something
positive, as well as beauty’ (Logic Dohna-Wundlaken). Having seen this, the
question now is whether Kant’s arguments from the third Critique work
for the ugly. In particular, one has to look into the details of paragraph
9, where Kant introduces the notion of communicability, the relation to
cognition, and the free play, and offers the ‘key’ to the critique of taste.
If one wants to argue for independent and a priori grounds for the
ugly, the problem is this: On the one hand, it seems most natural to
connect the ugly and displeasure with disharmony. On the other hand, a
disharmonious free play does not seem to be a ‘play’ any more, and
furthermore, if we give up the harmony between the faculties, in so doing
it seems we also give up the link with cognition, a link that appears
to be necessary to justify the claim for communicability and universality.
On the one hand, Brandt (‘Zur Logik des ästhetischen Urteils’), Shier,
Guyer (Values of Beauty 141–62; ‘Harmony of the Faculties Revisited’)
argue that Kant’s arguments cannot be successfully applied to the ugly.
Guyer for instance argues that the judgment about the ugly cannot be
pure but must be impure, mixed with disagreeable or morally bad aspects.
Either harmony or purity should go, he claims. He also gives an overview
of ‘precognitive’ and ‘multicognitive’ accounts of the free play in the
secondary literature (‘Harmony of the Faculties Revisited’ 166–70). On
the other hand, Strub, Hudson, Lohmar, and Wenzel (‘Kant Finds
Nothing Ugly?’; Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics) argue in favor of an a
priori basis for the ugly: Wenzel (‘Kant Finds Nothing Ugly?’) discusses
this basis explicitly against the objections of Shier, Lohmar offers an
account of the ugly as fascinating (das faszinierend Häßliche), and Strub
offers a theory of the two faculties playing independently of each other.
Recently, McConnell has made the unusual proposal that the free play
must in any case be harmonious, even in the case of the ugly.
13. Beauty in Mathematics

Kant says that a rose can be beautiful, but not as a rose. The concept of
a rose should not play any role in matters of taste. We can look at a rose
and forget that it is a rose, but when it comes to mathematics this
becomes problematic. What will be left if we have to abstract (take away)
all mathematical concepts? Can we find a mathematical proof beautiful
without understanding and paying attention to the concepts and rules
involved? Considerations of this kind led Kant to the conclusion that
there is no beauty and even no genius in mathematics. For Kant, Newton
was a great man but not a genius, because what he discovered and
‘expounded’ (vorgetragen hat) can be learned, whereas ‘one cannot learn to
write inspired poetry’ (§47, 308). Newton can explain what he did,
Homer cannot.
It seems to me that Kant overemphasized this difference between
Newton and Homer. Indeed, we cannot explain poetry or music the way
we can explain mathematics. Nevertheless, ‘expounding’ a proof is one
thing, but finding one is another. Not everyone is capable of the latter.
Kant says that ‘mathematics by itself is nothing but rules’ (Reflection 922),
but I do not think this is quite right. In a proof one makes choices: when
to substitute which element into what formula and when to use which
rule. We freely decide where to start and how to proceed. We certainly
should not violate the mathematical rules, but there is still much room for
choice and freedom. It is this kind of freedom that makes it hard to find
a proof, and this also explains why there are different proofs for one and
the same theorem. The course of mathematics is not fixed in advance. It
has a history, and it is not obvious beforehand in which direction this

history will be going. Where do mathematicians get their ideas from?
They are not written into the axioms. In moments of discovery and
creation, I think there is a ‘free play’ involving concepts, rules, examples,
diagrams, and pictures. Even if the objects themselves are given by rules,
what we do with them is not determined in this way. Hence I think
there is room for aesthetics in mathematics. We can creatively play with
mathematical rules and be a genius or a child again. Kant’s notion of
purposiveness is quite suitable here. If beauty then plays a role in mathe-
matical research, it will leave its traces in the theories ‘expounded’.
Before the mid-1780s, Kant still thought, as most people do, that
there is beauty and genius in mathematics and the sciences. But with the
development of his third Critique, he changed his view. I think he overdid
this, maybe because he wanted to set himself apart from the rationalists,
or to protect mathematics from shallow aestheticians.
From a historical perspective, Zammito points out that Kant did not
favor the approach of Herder and the Sturm und Drang movement, and
that it might be for this reason that he set the sciences apart from genius
– to protect them against interpretations from that side, as it were.
Giordanetti gives more detailed historical accounts of Kant’s ideas
about genius, art, and the sciences, and Wenzel (‘Beauty, Genius, and
Mathematics’) adds some systematic considerations, also from the point of
view of a mathematician, arguing that Kant overdid the separation
between mathematics and genius. Winterbourne compares schematism in
mathematics with symbolism in art.
14. Kant’s Aesthetics in Comparative Context: Confucius and Chinese

Philosophy as an Example
Kant is one of the most influential thinkers not only in Germany but also
outside Germany, Europe, and even the Western world. Kant scholarship
is expanding. In this last section, I choose China and Confucius to give
an example of comparative studies. Thus this last section is different in
kind from the previous ones. I focus on one tradition only, Confucianism,
which narrows the perspective compared to what one could do here.
But stepping into another culture such as China is also already a way of
widening the perspective compared with staying within Western traditions.
It is well known that Kant’s philosophy was influential in China during
the 19th and 20th centuries, especially through Hegel and Marx, but it is
less well known that Kant already knew of Confucius through Leibniz
and Wolff in the 18th century. In matters of aesthetics, Kant (especially
his notions of disinterestedness, free beauty, and the sublime), Schiller,
Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche were discussed in China during the 20th
century, and the teachings of Confucius are now being revived in China;
they are compared as well as combined with ideas from Kant, especially
his ethics, but also aesthetics. This most likely will have repercussions in
the West during the 21st century. Instead of imbedding Kant in the past,
with Hume and Burke for instance, or showing his influence on his
followers such as Hegel, I will step a little out of the more immediate
cultural context and also project a little into the future.
Kant was interested in the a priori grounds of our power of judgment.
The ability to make judgments of taste is part of what makes us human,
and although different cultures have different standards of taste and different
ideals of beauty, we all make such judgments. Kant’s distinction between
the three kinds of satisfaction (Wohlgefallen) – in the agreeable, the
beautiful, and the good – however becomes particularly problematic
when applied to other cultures. What would correspond to the notion of
‘beautiful’ in Chinese? How should this term be translated? Are concepts
the same for all of us, no matter which culture and language we grow up
with? I am thinking here not only of particular, empirical concepts such
as ‘chair’, ‘rose’, ‘dignity’, or ‘benevolence’, but also of the concept of a
concept. This matters, because philosophy is to a great extent, if not
completely, conceptual analysis. Kant’s transcendental philosophy operates
on a high level of abstraction and idealization, and its application can be
problematic, particularly in other cultures.
If we study the passages in Confucius that use the expression ‘mei’,
usually translated as ‘beautiful’, we will notice close ties with morality,
virtue, and custom. Mei is usually associated with shan and ren (moral
goodness) and li (ritual). Yi (the arts), such as yue (music) and she
(archery), were not just part of, but also got their meanings from, ritual
and proper behavior. Beauty and the arts are not as independent and free
(of interests) as we find in Kant. For Confucius they are expressions of
inner feelings, virtue, and self-cultivation. The harmony and regularity of
music should be an indication of harmonious inner feelings, including
moral ones. But in Kant we see a radical separation between beauty and
morality. The satisfaction in the beautiful is different in ‘kind’ (§5) from
the satisfaction in the good. One is without, the other with interest. Free
play pertains to the former, metaphysics of morality to the latter. The
Kantian demand of disinterestedness goes far. It also excludes the good (as
a justifying ground for beauty). Although there is a similarity in acts of
reflection underlying the two judgments, namely about other people and
about ideas (aesthetic and moral), and although beauty ends up being the
symbol of morality in Kant’s philosophy, he nevertheless insists on the
distinction: Regarding their justifying grounds, beauty and morality
should be independent from each other. One might therefore wonder
whether Confucius missed this difference between beauty and morality,
and whether he would have agreed with Kant; or whether Kant was
wrong and overemphasized the separation; or, as a third option,
whether the respective ideas and concepts of Kant and Confucius do
not even match from the start, i.e., that ‘mei’ does not mean the same as
‘beautiful’ and that the concept of morality in Kant is not the same as
in Confucius.
Confucius said: ‘Humaneness is the beauty [mei] of the community’
(4.1), and ‘What ritual values most is harmony. The Way of the former
kings was truly admirable [beautiful, mei] in this respect’ (1.12). The
harmony Kant talks of in his ‘free play of the faculties of cognition’ here
finds a counterpart in the Confucian performance of rituals. The latter is
a physical and outwardly visible act and not an inner play of faculties. But
it should be performed with the right inner attitude. There is an ethical
undertone here, and this also is the case in the previous example, where
it is the ‘humaneness’ of the community that Confucius finds beautiful.
In general, Confucius often talks of beauty of manners and behavior, and
the question arises whether Kant’s aesthetics can account for this, or
whether an involvement of the good in connection with manners and
behavior might make this impossible. Matters are less complicated regarding
another passage that can, I think, be well explained in Kantian terms:
Someone asked Confucius: ‘Suppose here is a beautiful piece of jade.
Better to put it in a box and store it away? Or to find someone willing
to pay a good price and sell it?’ (9.13), suggesting that he, Confucius, is
like a precious piece of jade and that he should try to find suitable
employment with a king and thereby ‘sell’ himself. The ‘good price’
would have to reflect the right kind of morality of the king. Confucius
replied: ‘Sell it! Sell it! I’m waiting for a buyer’. Confucius’s moral character
is here compared with the aesthetic qualities connoisseurs see in a valuable
piece of jade. Thus the latter is an aesthetic idea, in Kant’s sense of the
term, for the former.
Recently, the Journal of Chinese Philosophy published a special issue
on Kant and Confucius (33.1 (2006)), and the collection The Pursuit of
Comparative Aesthetics: An Interface between East and West (2006), edited by
Hussain and Wilkinson, also contains several essays devoted to these two
philosophers. This Collection contains an essay by Karl-Heinz Pohl, which
focuses on naturalness, regularity, natural laws, and living rules in Chinese
aesthetics. Pohl points out similarities in the understanding of the notions
of genius, spirit, the ineffable, and the interrelationship of art and
nature, in Kantian and Chinese aesthetics. He also points out differences,
regarding emphases on originality versus perfection, and regarding analytic
and systematic theorizing versus suggestive and unsystematic ways of
presentation. In the special issue of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy
mentioned above, Wenzel (‘Beauty in Kant and Confucius’) discusses
six passages from the Analects where Confucius uses the expression ‘mei’
(beautiful). He analyses them in the light of Kant’s conceptions of
disinterestedness, free play, and purposiveness. Some of those passages in
Confucius express a strong link between beauty and moral behavior that
might be more than just a symbolic link in Kant’s sense. Other passages
seem to offer ideal examples of what Kant calls ‘aesthetic ideas’.
Short Biography
Christian Helmut Wenzel has studied and worked in Germany, the USA,
France, India, and Taiwan. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the
USA and a doctorate in philosophy from Germany. He has written two
books, one of which is An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics. Core Concepts
and Problems, with foreword by Henry Allison (Blackwell, 2005). He has
also published in the British Journal of Aesthetics, the History of Philosophy
Quarterly, the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, and the Philosophical Investigations.
Besides Kant, he works in philosophy of language, Chinese philosophy,
and philosophy of mathematics. As an Alexander von Humboldt scholar
he was at Harvard and Duke University, and he also been visiting scholar
at Stanford. He is fluent in German, English, French, and Chinese, and
now Full Professor at National Taiwan University in Taiwan.
Notes
* Correspondence address: National Taiwan University, Department of Philosophy, 1
Roosevelt Road, Section 4, Taipei, Taiwan, 10617. Email: wenzelchristian@yahoo.com.
1
Quotations in this article follow the English translation in The Cambridge Edition of the
Works of Immanuel Kant, in particular the Critique of the Power of Judgment, translated by Paul
Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2000). References to this Critique
are given by paragraph numbers followed by page numbers of the Akademie edition.
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Kant's Aesthetics: Overview and Recent Literature

Article in Philosophy Compass · May 2009

Christian Helmut Wenzel

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Kant’s Aesthetics: Overview and

1. The Background and the Problem

this direction. Others followed empirical considerations, but also argued

2. The Four Moments in General

to be analytic in method, analyzing the judgment of taste against the

the concept of our understanding as a faculty of using concepts, which

3. Disinterestedness and the Three Kinds of Satisfaction

4. Subjective Universality and Free Play

Kant’s aesthetics an extension of objectivity, including individuality and

5. The A Priori Principle: Purposiveness

power of judgment. Both take central positions. As there are no rules in

Kant also speaks of ‘subjective purposiveness’, because it is a feeling of

(44–213) discusses ‘purposiveness’ in various aspects, such as the inner

6. Free and Adherent Beauty

pulchritudo vaga. Similarly, a variation of a theme in a fugue can be

7. The Sensus Communis

koina aistheta, ‘common sensibles’ (objects that can be perceived by more

communis can be read as an attempt to justify the judgment of taste’s claim

8. Genius and Aesthetic Ideas

9. Beauty as the Symbol of Morality

10. Beauty of Nature versus Beauty of Art

morality? Morality involves thinking of others and communicability;

11. The Sublime

sublime, and leads to freedom and morality. Thus there is a development

phenomenological and psychological aspects of the sublime. Crowther

12. The Ugly

13. Beauty in Mathematics

has a history, and it is not obvious beforehand in which direction this

14. Kant’s Aesthetics in Comparative Context: Confucius and Chinese

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 380–406, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00214.x

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