In this lecture, the lecturer discusses Kant's solution to the problematic feature of judgments of taste, Kant's defense of formalism about beauty and the challenges in justifying agreement in judgments of taste, Kant's concept of imagination in sense experience, Kant's perspective on the relationship between music, delight, and the beauty of universal validity, Kant's concept of play and its relation to acquiring knowledge, and Kant's thoughts on judgments of the sublime in the 18th century.
Judgments of taste are subjective yet have a universal aspect due to disinterested pleasure and the expectation of agreement.
Pleasure in the sublime arises from the accord between imagination and reason, distinguishing between mathematically sublime and dynamically sublime.
Deep dives
Kant's Solution to the Problematic Features of Judgments of Taste
Kant explains the problematic feature of judgments of taste, which is their subjective universality. Judgments of taste are subjective in the sense that they are not based on concepts from the perception of an object, but rather on some fact about the judge, such as pleasure. Pleasure itself is not based on concepts. Judgments of taste also have the feature of universality, meaning that the judge believes everyone else ought to agree. Kant argues that judgments of taste have this feature because they are based on disinterested pleasure and because people argue over whether things are beautiful, implying that everyone ought to agree. Kant believes that this universality explains why we talk about beauty as a property of objects, despite it not being a property. He also discusses how our pleasure in beauty arises from the harmonious free play of our imagination and understanding, without the application of concepts to what we perceive.
The Deduction of Justified Judgments of Taste
Kant explains that in order to be justified in believing that everyone ought to agree with our judgment of taste, we need to be a priori justified in believing that everyone can take pleasure in the object. This can be achieved if we are justified in thinking that our pleasure comes from the harmonious free play of our imagination and understanding. Kant argues that our pleasure in beauty arises from the imagination combining representations without the application of concepts that represent what unites those representations. He suggests that this harmonious free play can be justified a priori if it is a mental condition that enables us to apply concepts to what we perceive, similar to cognitive judgments. By believing that others are capable of being in the same mental condition, we can be justified in thinking that everyone else can take pleasure in the object.
Kant's Explanation of the Sublime
Kant discusses the category of the sublime, which signifies a kind of disturbing feeling or rapturous terror. Similar to judgments of taste, judgments of the sublime are also based on pleasure and possess universality. Kant explains that pleasure in the sublime arises from a accord between the imagination and reason, a faculty distinct from understanding that deals with concepts known as ideas. He distinguishes two types of the sublime: mathematically sublime, which relates to the inability to hold certain representations in our imagination, and dynamically sublime, which involves perceiving nature as mighty and fearful without fearing it. Kant argues that the pleasure in the sublime comes from a combination of displeasure and pleasure, and that only the human mind is sublime, not nature.
Implications of Kant's Aesthetics
Kant highlights that our expectation of agreement in judgments of taste and the sublime is not certain on any given occasion. While we cannot be certain about the sources of our pleasure, we can consider whether there are any interests that may motivate our judgments. Furthermore, Kant suggests that when explaining the possibility of certain phenomena, he might be assuming their possibility and focusing on how they occur. He also stresses the importance of his distinction between cognitive judgments and judgments of taste, as well as the role that reason plays in the experience of the sublime. Overall, Kant's aesthetics explore the subjective universality of judgments of taste, the deduction of justified judgments, and the unique pleasure derived from the sublime.
James Grant, lecturer in philosophy, University of Oxford concludes his discussion of Kant's Critique of Judgement in the fifth lecture of the Aesthetics series.
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