The Kantian Aesthetic: From Knowledge to the Avant-Garde

216 Pages·2010·1.32 MB·English

by  Paul Crowther

THE KANTIAN AESTHETIC
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The Kantian Aesthetic
From Knowledge to the Avant-Garde
PAUL CROWTHER
1
1
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. TheTranscendentalDeduction:ObjectiveKnowledgeand
theUnityofSelf-Consciousness 9
2. ImaginationandtheConditionsofKnowledge 35
3. PureAestheticJudgement:AHarmonyofImaginationand
Understanding 60
4. TheUniversalityandJustificationofTaste 89
5. AdherentBeautyandtheScopeofPerfection 116
6. FromAestheticIdeastotheAvant-Garde:TheScopeof
FineArt 137
7. TheKantianSublimeRevisited 173
Finale 199
Bibliography 202
Index 205
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Introduction
Itisgenerallyrecognizedthat,sincethe1970s,workonKant’saesthetics
hasatlast reachedalevelofintensityandexcellencewhichapproaches
that of work done on his epistemology and moral philosophy. Major
booksand/orpapersbyDonaldCrawford,PaulGuyer,MalcolmBudd,
Gary Banham, Henry Allison, Be´atrice Longuenesse, Eva Schaper,
Salim Kemal, Rudolf Makkreel, Hannah Ginsborg, Antony Savile,
Mary McCloskey, Douglas Burnham, Robert Wicks, Rachel Zuckert,
and many others, have added inestimably to our understanding of
Kant’s aesthetics. Amongst these, Guyer’s and Allison’s works merit
particularpraisethroughtheirquiteextraordinarydepthofengagement
withKant’sthought.
However,thisgreat upsurge ofscholarshiphascomeat aprice.The
price is a widespread interminablist tendency in the interpretation of
Kant.Interminablistisnotatallapeevishcharacterization.Oneofthe
greatproblemsoftheCritiqueofthePowerofJudgment(hereafterreferred
toasthe‘thirdCritique’)isthatforeveryformulationofoneofKant’s
major ideas, alternative—sometimes contradictory—presentations of
thesamenotioncanbeoftenfoundelsewhereinthetext.Kant’smajor
Anglo-American and German commentators then tend to expend a
massiveamountofinterpretativeenergyinsearchingoutwaystomake
him read consistently—often by relating his ideas to those found in
otherworksfromtheCriticalcorpus.Ifapossiblegroundforconsistency
emerges,thenthebattleistakentohavebeenwon.
The upshot of this is that Kant’s aesthetic is often reduced to
interminable toings and froings between his texts without, as it were,
the theory being cashed out in terms of what it has the real potential
to do—namely, solve general aesthetic problems. Put in a nutshell,
interminablismisthetendencytoseeKant’saesthetictheoryastheproblem
tobesolvedratherthanabasisforproblemsolving.
This creates two wide-ranging difficulties. On the one hand, the
energy expended on making Kant’s aesthetics internally consistent
2 TheKantianAesthetic
distracts from a proper degree of critical scrutiny and revision of his
key concepts and arguments—i.e., a level of critique which would
maximize theirefficiencyinsolvingproblemsingeneralaesthetics.On
the other hand, interminablist approaches tend to avoid a sustained
use of concrete examples which would show how the aforementioned
concepts and arguments both illuminate, and are illuminated by, our
livingexperienceofaestheticphenomena.
Embedded in these difficulties is a more specific worry. Be´atrice
Longuenessearguesthat
The predicate ‘beautiful’ does not express a reality—namely the positive
determination of a thing, known through our senses. Rather it expresses a
feeling of pleasure brought about in the judging subject by his own mental
activity in apprehending the object. This pleasure, albeit occasioned by the
object,iselicitedmoredirectlybythereceptivityofthejudgingsubjecttoher
ownactivity.¹
Rachel Zuckert has drawn attention to similar approaches in other
distinguished interpreters of Kant’s aesthetics (namely, Henry Allison
andHannahGinsborg).Shethenraisesaproblemthatcanbetakento
applytoLonguenesse,also:
thoughtheyaretextuallygrounded,theyrenderKant’saccountunsatisfactoryas
adescriptionofaestheticexperience:[Theyhold,ineffect,that]aestheticjudg-
mentandpleasurearepurelyself-referential(aboutthemselves/eachother/their
ownuniversalcommunicability)andthuspeculiarlyempty.Itisdifficulttosee
whyweshouldbelievethatthisiswhatwe’reexperiencing,claiming,orfeeling
inaestheticexperience.²
The point is, then, that interminablist approaches are unacceptably
self-referential. Amplifying Zuckert’s points, one might claim that
they not only fail to engage with aesthetic phenomena in concreto
(as noted earlier), but tend, indeed, to shrink (and thence distort)
¹ Be´atriceLonguenesse,‘Kant’sLeadingThreadintheAnalyticoftheBeautiful’,inRebecca
Kukla (ed.), Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 196–7. The mental state that she describes is one of the major
Kantianinterminabilia.SometimesKantemphasizesitas thesubjectiveaspectofaesthetic
judgement(asinLonguenesse’sowncharacterization),butatothertimeshefocusesonthat
structureofpurposivenesswithoutpurposeinthephenomenalmanifoldwhichisresponsible
forstimulatingthementalstateinquestion.
² RachelZuckert,KantonBeautyandBiology(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,
2007),189.ThisisoneofthemostoriginalandprovocativestudiesofKant’saestheticstohave
appearedinrecentyears.Inparticular,Zuckertshowsanadmirablewillingnesstoillustrate
herpointswithconcreteexamples.
Introduction 3
themsoastofitthe—attimesprofoundlystrained—Kantianarchitec-
tonic.
Interminablist approaches have a further unfortunate consequence.
TheytendtobeconstrainedbyanarrowconcentrationonKant’sown
main interest—the theory of taste. His theories of fine art, and the
sublime,inconsequence,receivelessattentionbecauseitisfeltthatthey
aremarginaltothismainconcern.³
Now,itisrightandproperthatKant’saccountoftasteshouldoccupy
centre-stageinone’sinitialorientationtowardshisaesthetictheory.This
isbecausethelogicalbasicsofhisapproacharesetoutthere.However,
in terms of general problems in contemporary aesthetics, the question
oftasteandbeautyseemratherlesscentralthantheyoncewere.Hence,
theenergyexpendedoninterpretationwithinthestricttermsofKant’s
Critical aesthetics is problematic in a further sense, in so far as it is
focusedontheareaofhistheorythatisnolongerofthemostpressing
contemporaryconcern.
It is vital that the points I am making should not be taken as some
sortofblanketdismissalofscholarlyexegesis.Rather,Iamarguingthat,
through interminablism, an opportunity is lost. For it seems a shame
that when so much valuable work is, at last, being done, it tends to
focuson theinternalintricaciesof Kant’stheory,rather thanengaging
moredirectlywithmoregeneralproblemsinaestheticsandquestionsof
methodintheunderstandingofthearts.
Theseworriesmightinvitethefollowingresponse.Thealternativeto
interminablismamountstolittlemorethanawillingnesstoreviseKant.
But why should such revisionism be regarded as a Kantian aesthetic?
Professor Allison has observed, judiciously, that the great factors in
the formation of Kant’s Critical philosophy are his doctrine of the
transcendentalidealityofspaceandtime,theprimacyoffreedom,and
the purposiveness of nature.⁴ However, my own feeling is that whilst
these factors are of the greatest moment in explaining the genesis and
structureof Kant’sCriticalphilosophy per se, theyare notdecisive for
itsgeneralviability—oratleastnotinrelationtoaesthetics.
Thereis,however,afurtherfactorwhichisdistinctively Kantianand
which,indeed,couldbearguedasgivinghisphilosophyitsgreatestand
³ Thisis,forexample,thepositiontakenbyHenryAllisoninhisbookKant’sTheoryof
Taste(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2001),8.
⁴ Ibid.6.Interestingly,onthissamepage,AllisonnotesthedifficultieswhichKant’sown
interminablecharacterizationsof‘purposiveness’presentedforthewritingofKant’sTheoryof
Taste.