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The Supersensible in Kant’s «Critique of Judgment»

by Julie N. Books (Author)
©2016 Monographs 112 Pages
Series: American University Studies, Volume 222

Summary

In this close analysis of Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics in his Critique of Judgment, Dr. Julie N. Books, explains why Kant fails to provide a convincing basis for his desired necessity and universality of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. Drawing upon her extensive background in the visual arts, art history, and philosophy, Dr. Books provides a unique discussion of Kant’s supersensible, illuminating how it cannot justify his a priori nature of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. She uses examples from the history of art, including paintings by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Constable, to support her views. This book will make a significant addition to courses on the philosophy of Kant, aesthetics, philosophy of art, metaphysics, the history of Western philosophy, ethics, psychology, and art history.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Judgments about Beauty, the Sublime, and the Agreeable
  • Chapter 2: Kant’s Four Moments of Judgments about Beauty and How Aesthetic Judgments Are Synthetic A Priori Judgments
  • Chapter 3: Hume’s Views and How Standards of Taste and Beauty Vary
  • Chapter 4: The Supersensible, the Nature of Aesthetic Judgments, and the Faculty of Common Sense
  • Chapter 5: The Failure of the Supersensible
  • Chapter 6: Motives for the Supersensible
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography

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Acknowledgments 

Thanks to my philosophy teacher Bruce Aune for encouraging me to write this book. Thanks also to my father, husband, and the editors at Peter Lang Publishing for their help with getting this book ready for publication. Finally, thanks to my teachers, employers, friends, and pets for their support.

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Introduction 

In his Critique of Judgment, the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant claims aesthetic judgments about beauty should be necessarily agreed to by everyone. However, most people today would reject Kant’s claim because they believe aesthetic judgments about beauty are based on subjective feelings that vary so much among individuals that there can be no necessary and universal agreement. Kant agrees that aesthetic judgments about beauty are based on subjective and variable feelings, but he still believes that despite this subjectivity and variability, we can expect and even demand necessary, universal agreement to our aesthetic judgments about beauty. To justify his claim, he bases his a priori nature of aesthetic judgments about beauty on the supersensible, his indeterminate concept that is supposed to provide the basis for his necessity and universality of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. In this book, I will argue that there can be no necessary, universal agreement to our aesthetic judgments about beauty, so Kant’s supersensible fails to justify his a priori nature of our aesthetic judgments about beauty.

In the Introduction, I will explain some of Kant’s most fundamental tenets, such as his transcendental idealism, and his other ideas that are relevant to this book, such as how we have knowledge of objects through his mental process of three-fold synthesis. In Chapter 1, I will discuss Kant’s judgments about beauty, judgments about the sublime, and judgments about the agreeable. In Chapter 2, I will discuss Kant’s four moments (or features) of pure judgments of taste about ← 1 | 2 → beauty, including their universality and necessity. I will also discuss his reasons for believing aesthetic judgments about beauty are synthetic a priori judgments. In Chapter 3, I will discuss the aesthetic views of David Hume, who believed beauty is relative to the perceiver. Kant was reacting against his views, for he said Hume awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber.” I will also show how standards of taste and beauty vary over time by giving some examples from the history of art. In Chapter 4, I will explain how Kant thinks his concept of the supersensible solves his antinomy of taste. I will also discuss how his nature of aesthetic judgments as involving a free play of our mental faculties and his faculty of common sense fail to provide a credible basis for the necessity and universality that he believes aesthetic judgments about beauty have. In Chapter 5, I will discuss how the supersensible fails to provide the ultimate basis for his a priori nature of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. In Chapter 6, I will explain some possible motivations Kant may have had for introducing the supersensible. Finally, I will conclude that Kant fails to justify his a priori nature of aesthetic judgments about beauty through his nebulous notion of the supersensible.

Details

Pages
112
Year
2016
ISBN (PDF)
9781453916766
ISBN (ePUB)
9781454199366
ISBN (MOBI)
9781454199359
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433131912
DOI
10.3726/978-1-4539-1676-6
Language
English
Publication date
2015 (December)
Keywords
Kant Critic, Caravaggia Ruben
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2016. 112 pp.

Biographical notes

Julie N. Books (Author)

Julie N. Books, Esq., received her A.B. with honors from Princeton University, her J.D. from The College of William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law, her M.A. in philosophy from New York University, and her PhD in philosophy from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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Title: The Supersensible in Kant’s «Critique of Judgment»
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126 pages