Lee 1931
Lee 1931
Lee 1931
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KANT'S THEORY OF AESTHETICS
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538 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XL.
I
The first two Critiques had revealed realms between which
"an immeasurable gulf is fixed"; and yet there must be some
ground of unity or of synthesis of the two.2 Kant attempted to
supply this synthesis in the Critique of Judgment. The special
investigation of the Critique of Pure Reason is the concepts of
the understanding, and it reveals the realm of nature. That of
the Critique of Practical Reason is the ideas of reason, and it
reveals the realm of freedom. Judgment is a mediating link be-
tween the understanding and the reason, and if a priori principles
of judgment can be found, these will afford the ground of the
needed synthesis; the realms of nature and of freedom can be
exhibited in harmony with each other. The critical investigation
which is to disclose the a priori principles in judgment, and to
discover whether they are objective or subjective, constitutive or
regulative is best served by the consideration of " those judgments
that we call aesthetical", that is, the judgments of taste.
The importance of Kant's theory of aesthetics lies in the fact
that it lays the foundations for a complete and adequate demarca-
tion of the aesthetic experience from the intellectual by showing
that the aesthetic is what pleases without a concept (or the inter-
vention of a mediating idea) ; 4 and from the moral by showing
that the aestheticis what pleases without desire. Kant also shows
that the aesthetic experience always involves the apprehension of
form, and form, is the unity in a manifold.6 The apprehension
of form is immediately pleasing, but the pleasure is regarded not
as a merely subjective state, but as if it were a part of the object."
It is true that he holds the apprehension of beauty to be a judg-
ment, but he is thoroughly aware that it is not intellectual. The
2 Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, Bernard's translation, p. 13. All
the page references in this paper not otherwise assigned are to the Critique of
Judgment, Bernard's translation, second edition, London, 1914. Although I
sometimes depart from Bernard, comparison with the German can readily be
made from the page references to Bernard.
3 See pp. 2, 3 and 4 of the Preface.
4 P. 67.
i P. 55.
6 Pp. 73-76.
7 pp. 33, 56.
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No. 6.] KANT'S THEORY OF ESTHETICS 539
II
This is not a good method of procedure. It is based upon a
faculty psychology which assumes that the three Critiques are
investigations of parallel subject-matter. But they are not. In-
tellectual activities are different from valuing activities: cognition
8 Kant continually insists on this. Among various passages, see especially
pp. 8o and 157, I58.
9 Pp. 15-17 and 42. There may well be grave doubt that this division is
anything but a schematical device (despite the footnote on p. 42), and that it
is even consistent with other Kantian analyses. But this criticism will not be
followed up in this paper.
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540 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL.XL.
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No. 6.] KANT'S THEORY OF ESTHETICS 54'
19 P. 103.
20 P. 71.
21 P. i6g.
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542 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XL.
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No. 6.] KANT'S THEORY OF ESTHETICS 543
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No. 6.] KANT'S THEORY OF AESTHETICS 545
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546 THE PHILOSOPHICALREVIEW [VOL.XL.
Ss3P. 96.
84 P. 96.
85 See pp. 56 and 58.
86 P. iog. Italics mine.
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No. 6.] KANT'S THEORY OF AESTHETICS 547
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548 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
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