Table Of ContentPOETICS, SPECULATION, AND JUDGMENT
The Shadow of the Work of Art from Kant to Phenomenology
Jacques Taminiaux
translated and edited by Michael Gendre
"Jacques Taminiaux has demonstrated his preeminence as a historian
and philosopher of post-Kantian continental philosophy. In this book,
he explicates the emergence of aesthetic judgment in Kant's thought,
traces the theoretical provocation it provided for accounts in its wake
in German Idealism, and finally, shows the effect of these considera
tions on developments in more recent accounts. To this end Taminiaux
provides important readings of Schiller, Hölderlin, Schelling, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty.
"Taminiaux's discussions of the interface between issues concerning
the end of metaphysics, the problem of speculation, and the question
of the death of art are especially informative. His analyses throughout
are unparalleled, and the book is to be recommended for the insights it
provides to issues concerning the history and impact of aesthetics.
"The book also provides insight to the itinerary of Taminiaux's own
thought, covering issues which the author has treated over a period of
three decades and whose timeliness recurs precisely because he is still
willing to put his analyses to the test. His insight regarding questions
of the history of aesthetics and its relevance for contemporary issues is
unparalleled." —Stephen Watson, University of Notre Dame
Jacques Taminiaux is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and at
the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, where he is the Director of the
Center for Phenomenological Studies. He is the author of Heidegger and
the Project of Fundamental Ontology, also published by SUNY Press.
A volume in the SUNY series in
Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
ISBN 0-7914-1547-3
POETICS,
SPECULATION,
and JUDGMENT
SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Dennis J. Schmidt, Editor
POETICS, SPECULATION,
JUDGMENT
and
The Shadow of the Work of Art
from Kant to Phenomenology
Jacques Taminiaux
Translated and Edited by
Michael Gendre
State University of New York Press
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1993 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York
Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Production by Dana Foote
Marketing by Bernadette LaManna
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Taminiaux, Jacques, 1928—
Poetics, speculation, and judgment : the shadow of the work of art
from Kant to phenomenology I Jacques Taminiaux: translated and edited by Michael
Gendre.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary continental
philosophy.)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-1547-3 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-7914-1548-1 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Aesthetics, Modern—18th century. 2. Aesthetics, Modern—19th
century. 3. Aesthetics, Modern—20th century. 4. Aesthetics,
Ancient. I. Series.
BH151.T36 1993
111 '.85'0903—dc20 92-35025
CIP
10 987654321
Contents
Preface vii
1. Speculation and Judgment 1
2. The Critique of Judgment and German Philosophy 21
3. Speculation and Difference 41
4. Between the Aesthetic Attitude and the Death of Art 55
5. The Nostalgia for Greece at the Dawn of Classical Germany 73
6. Fire and the Young Hölderlin 93
Ί. Art and Truth in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche 111
8. The Hegelian Legacy in Heidegger’s Overcoming of Aesthetics 127
9. The Origin of “The Origin of the Work of Art” 153
10. The Thinker and the Painter 171
Index 187
Preface
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Dennis Schmidt for his kindness
in suggesting that some of my essays on philosophers and art be published in
this collection.
These pieces are the result of many years of teaching at the Uni versite de
Louvain and at Boston College. Perhaps they have no greater merit than to
attest to some extended readings in the authors investigated, and therefore
should only claim to be reading notes. In any case, judgment should be
passed by the readers themselves.
Since these texts bear on philosophers—who all attempted to be origi
nal—and since furthermore they were written over more than two decades, it
is possible that collected they form a disparate assortment. At any rate, I find
it useful to point out that I decided to unite them under the title Poetics, Spec
ulation, and Judgment because in close proximity they allow two axes of
thought to come to the fore in the philosophy of art: the speculative axis and
the judicative axis. Regarding the history of philosophy from its Greek ori
gins, these two axes are already outlined, on the one hand, in Plato’s critical
attitude toward the artists of his time and, on the other hand, in Aristotle’s
reaction against the views of his master. From the perspective of speculation
adopted by Plato, art is without value and should be allowed to die if it does
not lead to the ultimate knowledge of essences and of the ground aimed at by
the philosophers. Such knowledge aspires to self-sufficiency and, conse
quently, validates a view disparaging human plurality as well as the world of
appearances to which this plurality is connected. In contrast, from the per
spective of judgment adopted by Artistotle, art is accepted as what it is, and
is deemed to be worthy of this acceptance not because an access is being pre
pared in it for some metaphysics, but rather because art concerns the finite
condition of human beings, their plurality, the phenomenal world that they
inhabit together, and because it sheds light—if not on the impossibility of the
self-sufficiency sought by metaphysicians—at least on the limits and the
blind spots inherent in their pretensions to reach what is ultimate and a
totality. It is striking that these two philosophical perspectives on art find
themselves reproduced under various shapes and forms in modern and
viii I Poetics, Speculation, and Judgment
contemporary philosophy. In short, the essays brought together in this col
lection attempt to examine some modern and contemporary versions of these
two perspectives—the former leading to the depreciating of art in the name
of some absolute, and the second leading, in the name of human finitude, to
the acknowledgment that we are taught by art.
I also wish to express my gratitude to Michael Gendre for the patience
and attention he devoted to this translation.
The papers have been lightly edited since their first French or English publication. All words
or remarks in square brackets appearing in the footnotes are translator’s notes of original words.
Speculation and Judgment
Let me formulate at the very outset the question with which this essay
will be dealing: Is there a link between the way philosophers approach the
political realm and the way they consider the fine arts?
That there is indeed a link is suggested at the very beginning of our philo
sophical tradition by the fact that the earliest political philosophy as well as
the earliest philosophy of art were both articulated in one and the same text,
namely, Plato’s Republic. Whatever their divergences, most interpreters ad
mit that this simultaneous presence is no mere coincidence. In addition they
often concede that the justification for taking up these two topics together is
to be found in the most decisive pages of the dialogue, namely, the story of
the cave, in which Plato sets forth in a metaphorical manner his concepts of
truth and of being. Concerning Plato, I propose to express the link in one
word: speculation.
To be sure, the origin of the word speculation is not Greek but Latin. It
stems from speculum, which means “mirror.” Moreover, the systematic use
of the word only appeared in modern philosophy, and rather late at that,
namely, in German idealism. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is probably the
first major text in which words such as speculation and speculative are sys
tematically and repeatedly used. But in Kant they convey a negative and de
rogatory connotation: They characterize ironically a way of philosophizing
that trespasses the limits of the human mind. In a deliberate reaction against
the Kantian emphasis on these limits, however, Hegel later grants to the same
words the highest and most affirmative worth. In fact, my first intention was
to focus this essay on the confrontation between Hegel and Kant regarding
the political and the artistic realms, and to show that in Kant’s stand toward
This paper was written in English by the author for the Dotterer Lecture given in the De
partment of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, spring 1991.
