Editing Immanuel Kant (section)

=== Aesthetics ===
{{See also | Kant's teleology}}
[[File:Immanuel Kant.jpg|thumb|Engraving of Kant by Friedrich Rosmäsler, 1822, from a painting by Todd Schorr]]

Kant discusses the subjective nature of aesthetic qualities and experiences in ''[[Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime]]'' (1764). Kant's contribution to [[aesthetics|aesthetic theory]] is developed in the ''[[Critique of Judgment|Critique of the Power of Judgment]]'' (1790), where he investigates the possibility and logical status of "judgments of taste". In the "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment", the first major division of the ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', Kant used the term "aesthetic" in a manner that resembles its modern sense.<ref>Critique of Judgment in "Kant, Immanuel", ''[https://ia601704.us.archive.org/23/items/encyclopedia-of-philosophy_202010/Volume%205.pdf Encyclopedia of Philosophy]'', volume 5, Macmillan, 2006, accessed on 16 November 2024</ref> In the ''Critique of Pure Reason'', to note essential differences between judgments of taste, moral judgments, and scientific judgments, Kant abandoned the term "aesthetic" as "designating the critique of taste", noting that judgments of taste could never be "directed" by "laws ''a priori''".<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' A22/B36</ref> After [[Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten|A. G. Baumgarten]], who wrote ''Aesthetica'' (1750–58),{{efn|Beardsley, Monroe. "History of Aesthetics". ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Vol. 1, section on "Toward a unified aesthetics", p. 25, Macmillan 1973. Baumgarten coined the term "aesthetics" and expanded, clarified, and unified Wolffian aesthetic theory, but had left the ''Aesthetica'' unfinished (See also: Tonelli, Giorgio. "Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten". ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Vol. 1, Macmillan 1973). In Bernard's translation of the ''Critique of Judgment'' he indicates in the notes that Kant's reference in § 15 in regard to the identification of perfection and beauty is probably a reference to Baumgarten.}} Kant was one of the first philosophers to develop and integrate aesthetic theory into a unified and comprehensive philosophical system, utilizing ideas that played an integral role throughout his philosophy.<ref>German Idealism in "History of Aesthetics" ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Vol 1. Macmillan, 1973.</ref> In the chapter "Analytic of the Beautiful" in the ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', Kant states that beauty is not a property of an artwork or natural phenomenon, but is instead consciousness of the pleasure that attends the 'free play' of the imagination and the understanding. Even though it appears that we are using reason to decide what is beautiful, the judgment is not a cognitive judgment,{{efn|Kant's general discussions of the distinction between "cognition" and "conscious of" are also given in the ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (notably A320/B376), and section V and the conclusion of section VIII of his Introduction in ''Logic''.}} "and is consequently not logical, but aesthetical".<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §1</ref>

A pure judgement of taste is subjective since it refers to the emotional response of the subject and is based upon nothing but esteem for an object itself: it is a disinterested pleasure, and we feel that pure judgements of taste (i.e., judgements of beauty), lay claim to universal validity.<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §§ 20–22</ref> This universal validity is not derived from a determinate concept of beauty but from ''common sense''.<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §40</ref> Kant also believed that a judgment of taste shares characteristics with a moral judgment: both are disinterested, and we hold them to be universal.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guyer |first=Paul |title=Kant and the Claims of Taste |year=1997 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0674500358 |pages=15–20}}</ref> In the chapter "Analytic of the Sublime," Kant identifies the [[Sublime (philosophy)|sublime]] as an aesthetic quality that, like beauty, is subjective, but unlike beauty, it refers to an indeterminate relationship between the faculties of the imagination and reason. It also shares the character of moral judgments in its engagement with reason.<ref>{{cite book |last=Clewis |first=Robert R. |title=The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom |year=2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521760867 |pages=48–52}}</ref> The feeling of the sublime, divided into two distinct modes (the mathematical and the dynamical sublime),<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §24</ref> describes two subjective moments that concern the relationship of the faculty of the imagination to reason. Some commentators argue that Kant's critical philosophy contains a third kind of the sublime, the moral sublime, which is the aesthetic response to the moral law or a representation, and a development of the "noble" sublime in Kant's theory of 1764.<ref>{{cite web |last=Clewis |first=Robert |year=2009 |title=The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item2326741/?site_locale=en_US |access-date=8 December 2011 |archive-date=20 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020224616/http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item2326741/?site_locale=en_US |url-status=live }}</ref>

The mathematical sublime results from the failure of the imagination to comprehend natural objects that appear boundless and formless, or appear "absolutely great".<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §§23–25</ref> This imaginative failure is then recuperated through the pleasure taken in reason's assertion of the concept of infinity. In this move the faculty of reason proves itself superior to our fallible sensible self.<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §§25–26</ref> In the dynamical sublime, there is the sense of annihilation of the sensible self as the imagination tries to comprehend a vast might. This power of nature threatens us but through the resistance of reason to such sensible annihilation, the subject feels a pleasure and a sense of the human moral vocation. This appreciation of moral feeling through exposure to the [[sublime (philosophy)|sublime]] helps to develop moral character. Kant developed a theory of [[Humour|humor]],<ref>Kant, ''CPJ'' §54</ref> which has been interpreted as an "incongruity" theory. He illustrated his theory of humor by telling three narrative jokes in the ''Critique of Judgment''. He thought that the physiological impact of humor is akin to that of music.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Jakobidze-Gitman|first=Alexander|title=Kant's Situated Approach to Musicking and Joking|journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies|year=2020|volume=10|pages=17–33|doi=10.25364/24.10:2020.2}}</ref>

Kant developed a distinction between an object of art as a material value subject to the conventions of society and the transcendental condition of the judgment of taste as a "refined" value in his ''Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim'' (1784). In the Fourth and Fifth Theses of that work he identified all art as the "fruits of unsociableness" due to men's "antagonism in society"<ref>Kant, ''UH'' 8:20–22</ref> and, in the Seventh Thesis, asserted that while such material property is indicative of a civilized state, only the ideal of morality and the universalization of refined value through the improvement of the mind "belongs to culture".<ref>Kant, ''UH'' 8:24–26.</ref>