The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)

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The Demands of Taste in Kant’s Aesthetics

Brent Kalar

Continuum

The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics

Continuum Studies in Philosophy: Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin Aesthetics in Kant, James Kirwan Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Mature, Justin Skirry Kierkegaard's Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts Leibniz Re-interpreted, Lloyd Strickland Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson Platonism, Music and the Listener's Share, Christopher Norris Popper's Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney Rousseau's Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson St Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John M. Mattox St Augustine of Hippo, R. W. Dyson Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala Wittgenstein's Religious Point of View, Tim Labron


Brent Kalar

continuum

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 11 York Road London SE1 7NX

80 Maiden Lane Suite 704 New York NY 10038

© Brent Kalar 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Brent Kalar has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 0-8264-8890-0 (hardback)

Typeset by BookEns Ltd., Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk

To my parents, Allen and Barbara Kalar

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Contents

Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

I What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste? 1. Overview of the Chapter 2. Hume's Problems with Taste 3. The Humean Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste: Guyer 4. The Normative Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste 5. The Two Demands in the Judgement of Taste 6. Conclusions

26 32 35

II The Problem of Free Play 1. Overview of the Chapter 2. Introduction to the Harmony of the Faculties in Free Play 3. Background to Free Play 4. A Preliminary Interpretation of Free Play: Allison 5. Problems with the Preliminary Interpretation 6. Conclusions

37 38 41 50 55 64

III The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness 1. Overview of the Chapter 2. The Form of Purposiveness: A Preliminary Account (Critique of Judgment §§10-15) 3. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure in the Beautiful: Opening 4. Excursus on the Subjectivity of the Beautiful 5. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure in the Beautiful: Closing 6. Free and Adherent Beauty and the Ideal of the Beautiful 7. Conclusions

9 11 19

65 66

71 73 78 82 89

viii

Contents

IV Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas 1. Overview of the Chapter 2. Aesthetic Ideas: Opening Remarks 3. The Standardness Condition 4. The Originality Condition 5. Standardness and Originality in the Form of the Beautiful 6. Standardness and Originality in Free Play 7. Conclusions

91 92 96 102 106 112 119

V Pleasure and Justification 1. Overview of the Chapter 2. Free Play and Pleasure 3. The Problem of the Deduction 4. The 'Official' Deduction of Taste in §38 5. The Transcendental Deduction of Taste: §21 6. Conclusions

120 121 127 133 137 145

Notes Bibliography Index

147 167 173

Acknowledgement

The present study of Kant's theory of the foundations of taste began as a revision of my Ph.D. thesis for publication, but ended, as such projects often do, as a completely new book. While The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics contains very little of the original text of my earlier thesis, is structured differently, and changes several key claims, I believe that it nevertheless could not have been written had I not first done the dissertation. Accordingly, I owe significant thanks to the individuals with whom I studied Kant in graduate school for making the present work possible. I would like first to thank my dissertation committee — Stanley Cavell, Christine Korsgaard and Richard Moran — for their years of encouragement and support, intellectual and otherwise. My debts to each of them are unfathomable. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Henry Allison and Charles Parsons to my thinking about Kant. Both of these eminent Kant scholars were very generous in allowing me to sit in on their Kant seminars in the late nineties, for which I will be forever grateful. I was especially fortunate to attend a year-long seminar on the Third Critique given by Professor Allison in 1998—99 that dramatically improved my understanding of Kant's aesthetics. More disturbingly for someone trying to complete a Ph.D. thesis, the experience of Professor Allison's vast erudition and keen analytical intellect made me question, for a while at least, whether I could hope to improve on his interpretation of Kant's theory of the beautiful. While I no longer agree with his reading in its entirety, Professor Allison's influence remains, I trust, evident throughout what follows — particularly in my endorsement of what I call the 'normative' reading of the judgement of taste and the 'intentionalistic' reading of aesthetic pleasure. My thinking about Kant's aesthetics began to evolve away from my dissertation largely as a result of repeatedly teaching the Third Critique to undergraduates and graduates at the University of New Mexico. I would like to thank the students in my aesthetics courses for useful interchange. I would also like to express my gratitude to my colleagues at the University of New Mexico, especially Russell Goodman and Iain Thomson, for stimulating discussions about Kant. I also owe special thanks to colleagues John Taber and Mary Domski for their useful comments on earlier drafts. Professor Taber was instrumental in keeping this project on track, and in providing muchappreciated encouragement and moral support. I am indebted to Professor

x

Acknowledgements

Domski's expert knowledge of the First Critique for several improvements to Chapter II, and I am sorry that I could not incorporate or deal adequately with more of her criticisms and suggestions. Most of all, I would like to thank my parents, Allen and Barbara Kalar, for their love, encouragement and support of my academic career throughout the years. This work is dedicated, with much love and gratitude, to them.

Abbreviations

Citations of Kant's works and Hume's 'Of the Standard of Taste' are given parenthetically in the text, using the abbreviations below. In all citations of Kant except for those of the Critique of Pure Reason, two page references are given. The first cites the page number(s) of the relevant volume of the standard Akademie edition of Kants gesammelte Schriften. The second cites the page number (s) of the translation from which I have quoted (sometimes with slight modifications). Critique of Pure Reason, however, which is found in Akademie edition, vols. 3—4:, is cited according to its own standard method, by the page numbers of both the first or 'A' edition (1781) and second or 'B' edition (1787), followed by the page number(s) in the translation by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. The key to the other abbreviations, together with the year of original publication, and (for Kant) the number of the Akademie edition volume for each work, is given below. Full source information is provided in the bibliography. CJ CPR DWL FI GW JL MM PFM ST

Critique of Judgment (1790) (0.0 Critique of Practical Reason (1788) (V) 'The Dohna-Wundlacken Logic' (1792) (XXIV) 'First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment' (1790) (XX) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) (VI) 'The Jasche Logic' (1800) (IX) Metaphysics of Morals (1797) (VI) Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) (IV) 'Of the Standard of Taste' (1757)

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Introduction

Immanuel Kant is widely recognized to be a seminal figure in the history of philosophical aesthetics. This is not because he was the first to inquire into the nature of beauty, art, genius or the sublime. Philosophers had been doing that since at least Plato. Nor was he the first to produce a 'system' of aesthetics. Others, including Hutcheson, Burke and Baumgarten, could have claimed to have done that earlier than Kant. Rather, Kant is a founding figure because he was the first to construct a system of aesthetics centred around a problem that is truly unique to this discipline: the problem of the 'subjective universality' of the beautiful. 1 Kant is concerned throughout the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment with either laying out the elements or examining the implications of his solution to this problem. His particular views about the nature of the beautiful — many of which took on a life of their own in the subsequent history of European and world culture — all need to be understood in light of this overarching project. What exactly is this project? Kant is concerned to show that the judgement of taste regarding the beautiful, 2 despite being 'subjective', possesses a valid or justified claim to universality. As I just mentioned, philosophers had been contemplating the nature of beauty long before Kant. Some questions that they had considered included: What features make something beautiful? Is beauty a real feature of the world, or something that exists merely in our perception of it? Are judgements of the beautiful capable of universal validity? Typically philosophers had taken one of two divergent paths in their answers to these questions. Either they viewed beauty as objective and regarded judgements of the beautiful as universally valid, or else they viewed beauty as subjective and regarded judgements of the beautiful as having merely private validity. Kant's contribution to aesthetics was his unique third path. Kant argues that beauty is subjective, but also that the judgement of taste about the beautiful is capable of universal validity. In his view, the beautiful is not a feature of objects themselves, but merely represents the way in which we respond to objects. This is the significance of Kant's claim that the judgement of taste about beauty is a merely 'aesthetic' judgement: it is one based on the pleasure that we take in an object, which is a purely subjective sensation. On the other hand, the judgement of taste also has a peculiar implication: it demands the agreement of everyone. This is what Kant terms the 'universal validity' or 'universal communicability' of the judgement of taste. This unique combination of positions on the nature of the

2


beautiful and judgements of taste is what sets the task for the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment', how can a judgement that is based merely on the pleasure that we take in an object demand the agreement of everyone? Kant's aesthetics is of interest not only for its answer to this question, but also for the distinctive conception of the beautiful that Kant formulates in his attempt to provide this answer. In attempting to make sense of the beautiful as the subjectively universal, Kant in effect invented the first distinctively modern conception of the aesthetic. Unsurprisingly, scholars have differed over the interpretation of virtually every aspect of this conception. They have disagreed not only about the nature of Kant's solution to the problem of subjective universality and whether this solution is successful, but even about the nature of the problem itself. The basic issue in the latter domain concerns how the universal validity of taste is to be understood. According to what is still probably the most widely held reading, the universal validity of the judgement of taste is an implied theoretical or factual claim that one may expect all other subjects to agree with it, at least if they fulfil certain conditions. The leading advocate of this reading has been Paul Guyer, who first advocated it in his landmark 1979 study, Kant and the Claims of Taste. Against this reading, an increasing number of commentators in recent years have advocated a view of universal validity according to which it consists, not in a theoretical claim, but rather in a normative demand for agreement — i.e., a requirement that everyone ought to agree, whether or not one actually expects them to do so.3 I shall argue in what follows on the side of those who see the universal validity of the judgement of taste as an irreducibly normative feature of such judgements. Normativity relates to what one ought to be, do, think, choose, desire, feel, and so on.4 When we ascribe normativity to a particular form of judgement, we take it that this form contains an 'ought'. But making such an ascription raises the question: what sort of'ought'? It also raises the question (though this is less often noted) of how many different 'ought'-claims are being made in the judgement. These are two critical questions for understanding the semantic content of Kant's judgement of taste. In my answers to these questions, I conclude that the 'ought' implied in the Kantian judgement of taste is actually complex, involving two separate demands or 'imperatives'. First, there is a demand to take pleasure in a given object] in addition to this, however, there is also a demand to attend to that object. I refer to these as the 'pleasure-imperative' and the 'attentionimperative' respectively. These two distinct imperatives, in my view, flow from two distinct sources of normativity. Whereas the former claim is given a uniquely aesthetic grounding, the latter, I argue, must for Kant be grounded in morality. This implies that, whereas the first 'ought' is a peculiarly aesthetic 'ought', the second is actually not aesthetic at all, but rather moral in character. In this study, for reasons that I shall discuss shortly, I restrict my attention to the first, distinctively aesthetic imperative. Normativity for Kant always requires a rational or justificatory grounding, and in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, this grounding takes the form of a 'transcendental deduction' of taste. The deduction is, in my view, the

Introduction

3

culmination of the central discussions of the Critique] it is also one of the most controversial parts of Kant's aesthetics. Contradicting the negative assessment of this argument common to many contemporary readings, a major aim of the present study will be to defend the deduction as a successful endeavour. Achieving this purpose will require, of course, a precise grasp of the problem with which the deduction deals, as well as an exact understanding of the argument itself. In my view, the sole objective of the transcendental deduction of judgements of taste is to show that the pleasure-imperative is legitimately posed in a judgement that reflects a particular sort of aesthetic response. Provided that the experience of an object at the basis of my judgement of taste is in fact of a certain specific type, I am warranted in issuing a demand which says that everyone else ought to take pleasure in this object as well. Understanding how the deduction works thus requires us to undertake an examination of the ground of aesthetic response itself. Kant's strategy for discovering this ground leads him into an investigation of what we might call the 'subjective' and 'objective' poles of the beautiful. The subjective pole is Kant's theory of the psychological process involved in the pleasurable response to the beautiful, which is centred around his notion of the 'harmony of the faculties in free play'. The objective pole, on the other hand, is what we might call the 'phenomenology' of the beautiful object, which for Kant is centred around the notion of an object's 'form of purposiveness without a purpose'. In order to understand how Kant vindicates the normative demand contained in a judgement of taste, we need to delve deeply into these two accounts. The notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play is undeniably central to Kant's theory of taste. This notion explains not only our pleasurable response to beautiful objects, but also the normativity of the judgement resulting from this response. Kant maintains that the pleasure in the beautiful is accounted for by the fact that the mental faculties of the understanding and the imagination are engaged in a 'free' yet 'harmonious' 'play' in the aesthetic experience. The aesthetic harmony of these two faculties is supposedly related to the way in which the same faculties cooperate in cognitive (or 'knowing') perception, in which the imagination 'synthesizes' a manifold of intuition for the sake of the conceptual needs of the understanding. This cryptic suggestion has occasionally been regarded as something of an intellectual embarrassment. It has been seen, that is, as an obscure foray into speculative psychology that should be replaced with, or reinterpreted as, something that is less offensively psychologistic.5 In my own view, one cannot avoid the fact that the theory of the harmony of the faculties in free play is, in some sense, a speculative psychological theory; the only question is — in which sense? It is well known that Kant accepts the view, common in the eighteenth century, that the mind is composed of several discrete 'powers' or 'faculties', each of which is differentiated according to its own proper function. 6 Less often explicitly noted, however, is that this notion of a faculty is intrinsically normative. This is because one cannot say what a particular faculty is without assigning it a task. Sensibility is just the power of receiving sensations or being affected by objects, the understanding is just the power of judging

4


determinatively or conceptualizing, the imagination is just the power of representing in intuition what is not directly present to the senses, the will is just the power of choosing a course of action, and so forth. But by virtue of assigning it a task, one places the faculty in question under a norm of success or failure in performing that task. One can therefore speak of a 'bad' or 'poor' understanding, which would be one that grasps things poorly, or a 'weak' will that fails to make effective choices, and so on. I can summarize my view of the normativity at the source of the pleasure-imperative by saying that it is rooted in this notion of the proper functioning of the cognitive faculties, and is therefore a 'quasi-cognitive' normativity. I thus concur with Mary McCloskey's comment that, for Kant, 'failure to comply with the demand [of taste] would amount to refusal to exercise one's cognitive powers to the full and to be only partially alive to the world'. 7 By calling this normativity 'quasi-cognitive', I mean to indicate that (1) it has an intimate relationship to the norms governing the faculties as they engage in cognitive perception, yet (2) the 'success' of the faculties in the aesthetic experience is not determined by whether they manage to accomplish the task of cognition. Because the normativity involved is merely quasi-cognitive, it is, to my mind at least, still properly considered a uniquely aesthetic brand of normativity. An important point to note in this connection is that, since the notion of a faculty is itself intrinsically normative, the normativity in question here is normative 'all the way down': i.e., at no point can it be reduced to a factual claim. Is a normative faculty psychology of this sort objectionably speculative? That depends, in my view, upon whether one is prepared to countenance the notion that our discursive practices of making knowledge-claims also commit us to acknowledging the existence of certain 'transcendental' functions of the mind, and that the understanding and imagination, construed as Kant understands them, are among these conditions. In other words, it depends upon whether we are prepared to entertain the notion of 'transcendental' psychology. A 'transcendental' psychological theory, as exemplified by the transcendental psychology of the First Critique, is one that purports to describe a priori the necessary metaphysical conditions of experience by appeal to certain 'transcendental' or experience-constitutive functions of the mind. 8 These 'transcendental' functions are the functions that any mind such as ours, in which a manifold of given intuition must be grasped through concepts of the understanding in order for cognition to occur, must necessarily perform — regardless of whatever particular laws of association might obtain. In short, 'transcendental' psychology spells out what is involved in the concept of a 'discursive' intellect in general.9 An 'empirical' psychology, by contrast, would attempt to discover the particular, contingent laws according to which the mind actually associates ideas.10 The doctrine of the free play of the faculties is best thought of as a doctrine belonging to transcendental, rather than empirical psychology. In his theory of harmonious free play, Kant is basing his account of our experience of the beautiful on the 'transcendental' functions of the faculties, as opposed to any laws of empirical association. As such, it ultimately will derive

Introduction

5

whatever legitimacy it enjoys from whatever warrant for positing transcendental functions of the mind can be derived from the successes of Kant's epistemology. Obviously, this immensely large issue is not one that can be considered here. The notion of the form of purposiveness is just as essential to Kant's theory of taste as the notion of the harmony of the faculties. In the official deduction of taste provided in §38, Kant is quite clear that only a pleasure that 'is connected with our mere judging of the form of the object' can be the basis for a legitimate demand on the pleasure of everyone (CJ 289/155). This notion of aesthetic form has, of course, been immensely influential in the history of aesthetics through the 'formalism' of Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Clement Greenberg, and their respective followers. For the most part, this familiar brand of formalism emphasizes the formal arrangement of an object over its representational content. While this twentiethcentury view has its affinities with Kant's, the careful reader must quickly notice that the form—matter contrast that Kant draws is decidedly different from the one drawn by modern formalism. Kant contrasts the form of purposiveness, not with the 'subject-matter' represented, but rather with the perfections, charms and emotions embodied or expressed in our representation of an object. This leaves him with what appears to be a very Spartan notion of beauty, one that involves only the mere appearance of design, as this is embodied solely in the spatiotemporal configuration of an object. Commentators have found this view to be particularly objectionable, since it excludes from aesthetic consideration features such as the colours of a painting and the choice of instruments in a musical composition that seem to be essential to the beauty of such things. In what follows, I attempt, if not exactly to justify, then at least to rationalize what Kant was doing in advocating what has come to be known as his 'restrictive' formalism. Like many previous commentators, I regard this exclusion of the 'matter' of colours and tones as derived from Kant's overarching philosophical goal of underwriting the universal validity of taste. Such universal validity can only hold of a judgement if it is based on the form of purposiveness alone, and it is for this reason that Kant thinks that the form of the beautiful must be restricted to the spatiotemporal design. Yet unlike other commentators, I do not regard this as an ill-considered conclusion stemming from an erroneous inference from the First Critique — the inference, in short, that because space and time are the a priori and hence necessary 'forms' of appearances, only they can be the ground of a universally valid judgement. Instead, I try to show how Kant's restrictive formalism is rooted in his deeper analysis of what the form of purposiveness actually involves. Therefore, to a certain extent, I defend Kant's restrictive formalism, suggesting that it is a legitimate aim of an aesthetic theory to advocate some revisions in our ordinary intuitions about the beautiful, if it does so for the sake of a 'worthy' purpose — such as Kant's purpose of carving out a subset of our judgements of beauty that make good on these judgements' semantic claim to universality. This conclusion, however, depends, as I have just suggested, upon a deeper analysis of what the form of purposiveness involves. The most distinctive feature of my interpretation of Kant's theory of taste, as I see it, is the central role that I

6


give to his notion of an 'aesthetic idea' in explaining the nature of each of the two poles of aesthetic response. Kant claims that beauty is not just the form of purposiveness; it is also 'the expression of aesthetic ideas' (CJ 320/189). I argue that this latter conception is both significantly more important and significantly more complex than has generally been acknowledged. Most commentators have viewed Kant's doctrine of aesthetic ideas as exclusively or primarily a part of his theory of fine art, and emphasized their relation to the so-called 'rational ideas' of God, the highest good, freedom, moral perfection, and the like. Some have thought of the aesthetic ideas as simply Kant's version of symbols or metaphors, and argued that their essential function is the 'exhibition' of the rational ideas to the senses.11 In my view, aesthetic ideas must rather be regarded as the means through which we experience the form of an object as beautiful in the first place. They are therefore much more basic to Kant's account of beauty than has usually been supposed. Moreover, their symbolic function is much less essential to the conception of aesthetic ideas than has generally been thought. I argue that the conception of an aesthetic idea that appears in the discussion of fine art must be paired with the discussion of the 'aesthetic standard idea' in §17 to yield an expanded account of what an aesthetic idea is for Kant that can explain why he thinks that all beauty is the expression of such ideas. I then go on to use this expanded conception of aesthetic ideas to develop an enriched conception of the form of the beautiful. Much of what I have to say in this study will be controversial. The meaning I derive from Kant's theory of taste is not, I think, one that is obvious on a first reading (I certainly did not see it on my first reading); I hope, however, that it becomes obvious — or something like it — after it is pointed out to the reader. Some will wonder whether I am offering this reading as an 'interpretation of the author's intentions', or rather as a 'reconstruction' of Kant's text. I would reply by agreeing with Paul Guyer when he says that 'there can be no interpretation of Kant's theory of taste without some reconstruction of it'. 12 I should note, however, that readers expecting a line-by-line commentary on the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment will be disappointed. Mine is a problem-centred reading, and a quite limited one at that. I have wished to find something in Kant's thought that was defensible and philosophically pertinent, and this has led me to adopt a restricted focus. There are several attention-worthy topics in Kant's aesthetics that I refrain from discussing, but one of these in particular deserves special comment: the connection that Kant makes between beauty and morality.13 There has been an increasing emphasis in recent years on the centrality of this connection to Kant's aesthetic theory.14 Even Guyer, who initially was the greatest counter-influence to this trend, has since crossed over to the view that 'the real heart of Kant's aesthetic theory and the underlying motivation for its creation is the connection to his moral theory.' 15 I do not wish to deny that, in Kant's mind, the connection of taste to morality was essential to the systematic significance of the Third Critique for his critical philosophy, nor do I wish to deny that, without this systematic aim of 'completing the critical system' by linking theoretical and

Introduction

1

practical philosophy via the concept of the moral purposiveness of nature, the Critique of Judgment probably would not have been written. 16 Nevertheless, I do wish to demur respectfully from those who find anything defensible or philosophically alive in this area of Kant's thought, which rests, as I understand it, upon the shaky foundation of his moral religion. On my reading (and very, very roughly), Kant argues that the beauties of nature and (less obviously) fine art can be viewed as signs of the existence of a moral God. Since, for Kant, at least 'moral' or 'practical' faith in God is morally required for the rational pursuit of the ultimate moral end of humanity, the highest good, the existence of beauty, as a buttress for that faith, is of moral interest to us. The cogency of this view depends not only on Kant's notoriously weak 'moral proofs' for the existence of God,17 but also on a strained analogy between the characteristics of beauty, on the one hand, and those of morality, on the other.18 Neither of these doctrines has much to recommend it, in my view. Thus, I conclude that Kant's attempt to connect beauty and morality has to be regarded as ultimately unpersuasive. In light of this conclusion, some may find it troubling that Kant quite clearly seeks to base what I am calling the 'attention-imperative', or the demand to attend to (as opposed to take pleasure in) the object, on this attempt to connect pleasure in the beautiful with morality. While I shall argue that the deduction of taste is a success as far as it goes, it only goes so far as to justify the pleasureimperative; it does not explain or justify why we ought to devote our attention to, or, in a word, value objects that can afford us this pleasure. Kant thought that the answer to this additional question resided in the realm of morality, but in my view, he was wrong. This leaves the attention-imperative ungrounded. Some dyed-in-the-wool Kantians may lament this result, but to my mind, it merely shows that Kant does not, after all, possess all the answers to every question. For the answer to this one, I believe we simply need to look elsewhere. Finally, I conclude this introduction with a guide to the five chapters that follow. In the first chapter, I investigate the question of what is actually implied in a judgement of taste, according to Kant. In order to clarify what is distinctive about Kant's conception of this type of judgement, I examine in some detail the contrasting conception of David Hume. Hume has a view of taste that, in a superficial respect, is similar to Kant's. As a consequence, commentators have frequently assumed that Kant and Hume are in agreement over the nature of taste — specifically, that they agree about what the universality of taste consists in. Against this, I argue that Hume and Kant actually view this universality very differently. Whereas Hume views it as a matter of empirical fact about how human beings are actually caused to respond under certain specific circumstances, Kant views it as a thoroughly normative requirement to respond in an appropriate way. I argue that Hume's approach leads the effort to vindicate the universality claim in the judgement of taste down a dead end — a conclusion that is further supported by an examination of Paul Guyer's Humean reading of Kant. Fortunately, the textual evidence favours a normative reading, which suggests the possibility of a more favourable assessment of Kant's project than

8


Guyer allows. Finally, in this opening chapter, I analyse the content of the normative claim in a judgement of taste according to Kant. In this section, I spell out in detail why I conclude that the 'ought' implied in the Kantian judgement of taste is actually complex, involving two separate demands or 'imperatives'. In the second and third chapters, I investigate the subjective and objective poles of Kant's theory of the beautiful, respectively. In Chapter II, I examine Kant's introduction of the crucial conception of the harmony of the faculties in free play into the argument of the Third Critique, and lay out the theoretical background to this notion in Kant's cognitive psychology. I then consider Henry Allison's attempt to make sense of free play, and conclude by considering a series of questions that arise from that attempt. In Chapter III, I follow a similar course, only this time in relation to the objective side of the beautiful, the form of purposiveness. Here again I point out several questions that appear to arise in connection with this conception. The common conclusion that I arrive at in both of these chapters is that our understanding of the ground of the beautiful for Kant needs to be enriched if we are to fill in the gaps in the account that inevitably arise on the more standard readings. This conclusion leads me, in the fourth chapter, to argue for a more central role for the aesthetic ideas in Kant's conception of the beautiful. Here I analyse Kant's conception of an aesthetic idea, and apply that analysis to show how aesthetic ideas are involved in both the form of purposiveness and free play. All beauty, according to Kant, involves the expression of aesthetic ideas, which, I argue, has certain implications for what he takes our experience of the beautiful to involve. Objects that 'express aesthetic ideas' involve two constitutive elements that are in tension with one another; I call these elements the conditions of 'standardness' and 'originality'. These, on my reading, are for Kant the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of beauty. This enriched conception of the beautiful allows us to answer the questions raised previously about free play and the form of purposiveness, as well as give a plausible account of Kant's vindication of the universal validity of taste. I undertake the latter task in Chapter V, which deals with the transcendental deduction of taste. My reading of the universal validity of the judgement of taste as involving a complex imperative, with the pleasure-imperative as primary, has crucial implications for how I view the task of the deduction. The argument of the deduction does not have to be a vindication of an expectation of universal agreement in particular judgements, as Guyer and others have alleged. Rather, it only needs to validate the 'subjective principle' of the harmony of the faculties in free play — i.e, show that a judgement that conforms to this principle is an appropriate response, and therefore can appropriately demand a similar response from everyone else. The 'demand' here, of course, has to be understood as an instance of the uniquely aesthetic sense of normativity outlined above. If its actual aim is properly understood, however, then the deduction of taste can be seen to be a success.

Chapter I

What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?

1. Overview of the Chapter Kant is frequently given the credit for founding modern aesthetics. But to the extent that that founding depends upon the uncovering of a distinctive problematic, a strong case can be made that Kant must share the credit with David Hume. There is, of course, a venerable tradition in Kant interpretation, especially in the English-speaking world, that attempts to understand Kant's problems and theories in relation to those of the great Scottish philosopher. This is no less true in aesthetics than it is in epistemology or moral philosophy. To many interpreters of Kant's aesthetics, he shares with Hume a common conception of the central philosophical problem in the field. This problem is one that arises from some peculiar implications that aesthetic judgements of the beautiful allegedly have. Following the conventions of the eighteenth century, both Kant and Hume describe aesthetic judgements of the beautiful as judgements of taste. Both, furthermore, draw on this metaphor in their understanding of the nature of judgements regarding beauty. Aesthetic appreciation, on their view, shares something important with the taste of the tongue and palate: it is rooted in the feeling of pleasure (or pain, in the case of negative judgements). This feature of aesthetic appreciation implies, for both authors, that beauty is not an objective property, but rather, in some sense, a projection onto the object of the subject's inner state. This purported subjectivity of the beautiful then gives rise to the problem of the objectivity of judgements of (aesthetic) taste: if pronouncements about beauty are not really about objects at all, what becomes of their pretensions of being true or false, correct or incorrect? Both Kant and Hume recognize some version of this question as a genuine problem, and attempt to solve (or at least defuse) it. It is tempting, therefore, for commentators to infer that they construe the problem in the same way. This tendency is encouraged by Kant's presentation of an 'antinomy of taste' that seems strikingly similar to Hume's way of presenting the problem of taste as a conflict between two 'species of common sense'. Commentators have quite naturally assumed that Kant must be simply picking up where Hume left off —

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attempting to give a more adequate solution to the same problem. 1 This assumption seems to be further supported by the fact that both philosophers appear to argue for a conception of pleasure in the beautiful as possessing the property of'universality'. The further assumption is thus made that Kant and Hume have the same idea in mind when they attribute this property. Call this the 'Humean reading'. Although it probably remains the dominant interpretation, the Humean reading has not gone uncontested. One prominent indication that Kant thinks of the universality of the judgement of taste differently from Hume is to be found in the highly visible connection that Kant makes between judgements of taste and morality. Kant speaks in some passages as if the universality implied in a judgement of taste were morally grounded. This connection has led some commentators to the conclusion that the universality of taste for Kant is actually a moral universality. 2 Call this the 'moralistic reading'. If the moralistic reading is correct, it would tend to suggest that Kant's radical differences with Hume over the nature of morality must be replicated in the domain of aesthetics. In particular, it suggests that judgements of taste may have the irreducibly normative character that separates moral judgements from mere expressions of feeling or sentiment. In this chapter, I argue that the Humean reading of Kant's theory of taste is mistaken, but also that the moralistic reading, while correct about the irreducibly normative character of the judgement of taste, is one-sided and hence misleading. My aim here is thus twofold. First, I shall defend a normative reading against the Humean interpretation. This defence has both a negative and a positive phase. The negative component of my defence, which occupies most of this chapter, will highlight the philosophical disadvantages of reading Kant as a Humean. The positive component will focus attention on the overwhelming textual evidence in favour of the normative reading. Lastly, I shall defend the normative reading against an objection to it that has been raised by Paul Guyer. The second aim of this chapter is to provide an account of the normative content of the judgement of taste, as Kant sees it. Here I confront an apparent ambiguity in Kant's characterizations of this content, and argue that the judgement of taste should actually be understood as containing two distinct demands. These are the demands that a particular object (1) ought to be found pleasing, and (2) ought to be granted one's attention. I call these the pleasure-imperative and the attention-imperative, respectively. The position that what, on a superficial reading, appears to be a single, unitary demand should actually be construed as two distinct demands is forced upon us, I argue, by the divergent and apparently inconsistent ways in which Kant describes this imperative. As indicated above, Kant speaks in some passages as if the normativity of taste were moral in nature. This fact is what gives impetus to the moralistic reading. In other places, however, he appears to deny unequivocally that the normativity of taste is moral. The best resolution of this ambiguity, I suggest, is to read Kant as actually describing two different imperatives, the pleasure-imperative and the


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attention-imperative. In my view, the attention-imperative pertains to the use the moral frame of mind makes of aesthetic experience and consequently, is properly the domain of Kant's moral philosophy rather than aesthetics proper. Since only the pleasure-imperative has a specifically aesthetic basis, it alone will be the focus of this study.

2. Hume's Problems with Taste Modern aesthetics arguably begins in 1757 with the publication of Hume's seminal essay 'Of the Standard of Taste'. In this short work, Hume defines for the first time a distinctive philosophical problem that arises in the sphere of art and criticism. The problem arises from an apparent inconsistency to be found within our modern common-sense assumptions about art-critical judgements. Hume opens the essay with the familiar observation that there is a great variety of taste and critical opinion in the world: Men of the most confined knowledge are able to remark a difference of taste in the narrow circle of their acquaintance . . . But those, who can enlarge their view to contemplate distant nations and remote ages, are still more surprised at the great inconsistence and contrariety. (ST 226—227) Critics may appear to agree in general propositions, with qualities such as 'elegance, propriety, simplicity, and spirit in writing' being praised on all sides, and 'fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false brilliancy' being blamed; but when it comes time to apply these generalities to particular cases, 'this seeming unanimity vanishes', and it turns out that individual critics had each meant different things by these terms (ibid.). Our natural response to 'whatever departs widely from our own taste and apprehension' is to condemn it as 'barbarous' (ibid.). However, once we discover that the other side has the same opinion of our taste, we become more hesitant about pronouncing positively in our own favour (ibid.). An attitude of tolerance (perhaps originally stemming from prudence, rather than conviction) leads to what Hume calls 'the principle of the natural equality of tastes' — roughly, the view that all tastes are of equal worth, that no one person's taste is better than another's (ST 231). This principle is buttressed by a 'species of philosophy' whose influence has percolated down and become a part of common sense (ST 229). According to this view, taste is not actually a matter of 'judgement', but rather of 'sentiment' (ST 229—230). This claim can be confusing, because of course there are 'judgements' of taste. The point is that these 'judgements' are not like other judgements in respect of having a capacity for truth or falsity, correctness or incorrectness. This is because judgements of taste are really just expressions of sentiment, and 'all sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, whenever a man is conscious of it' (ST 230). The claim here can be parsed as follows. Feeling or sentiment is a non-representational mental state —

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unlike the mental image that underlies a perceptual judgement, it is not 'about' anything. Because a feeling or sentiment does not even purport to represent 'what is really in the object', there is no possibility of it accurately or inaccurately, correctly or incorrectly representing it (ibid.). Hume is therefore obviously speaking loosely when he says that 'all sentiment is right'; what he really means to say is that the criteria of right and wrong do not properly apply to sentiments — they are not the type of thing that can be right or wrong. Beauty 'is no quality in the things themselves', but rather exists 'merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty' (ibid.). The notion that beauty exists outside of the mind and is an independent property of objects is an illusion; it is actually a projection of an inner state onto external objects. It would thus seem that there can be no fact of the matter regarding whether something is 'really' beautiful or not, any more than there is a fact of the matter about whether something is 'really' sweet or bitter; it may be sweet to you, but bitter to me, without either of us being incorrect. From this premise, Hume concludes (speaking for the 'species of philosophy' under consideration) that 'every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment [of beauty], without pretending to regulate those of others' (ibid.). So says one type of common sense, according to Hume. But there is, he affirms, another 'species' of common sense that opposes it (ibid.). While we may, in certain circumstances, be untroubled by a judgement (sentiment) that deviates from our own, there are other cases in which 'the principle of the natural equality of tastes is totally forgot', and the deviant sentiment is pronounced 'absurd and ridiculous' (ST 231). These are cases in which a comparison of two greatly disproportionate objects is made: Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as Teneriffe, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. (ST 230—231) The doctrine of the natural equality of tastes implies that we cannot rank any work above any other. But this is absurd; some works are just obviously superior. If one does not like Hume's examples of Ogilby and Milton (and certainly the Bunyan—Addison pair might appear questionable to us), one can choose a disproportionate pair more to one's own liking. But surely such pairs exist — critical common sense tells us that. Anyone who cares about literature in any serious way at all would find the claim that Ogilby is a better poet than Milton to be simply wrong. Mary Mothersill has called this the 'Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon'. 3 If the intuitions underlying this phenomenon are correct, then judgements of literary merit or beauty must be the types of things that can be right or wrong after all. This is the philosophical problem that Hume discovered: the two 'species of common sense' — the principle of the natural equality of tastes and the Ogilby— Milton Phenomenon — cannot both be right; at a minimum, one or the other


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needs to be modified. Assuming that one wants, as far as possible, to preserve the basic intuitions contained in each, the problem becomes one of accounting for the possibility of the correctness or incorrectness of a judgement that is based on a sentiment. This account will simultaneously lead to the establishment of a 'standard of taste', which Hume describes as 'a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision afforded, confirming one sentiment and condemning another' (ST 229). That is, Hume suggests that the successful resolution of the conflict between the two species of common sense will also provide us with the practical means of arbitrating between conflicting judgements of taste. Indeed, the resolution of the conflict for Hume seems to go hand in hand with the discovery of a standard of taste. If we can establish a standard of taste, then we can show that a judgement based on a sentiment can be correct (if it accords with the standard) or incorrect (if it does not). Conversely, unless we are able to establish a standard of taste, it is hard to see, given the great variety of taste, what positive reason we would have to believe that judgements of taste have the capacity for correctness or incorrectness. Hume's strategy for solving the problem depends upon an analogy between judgements of taste and colour-judgements. Accepting the Lockean view that colour, like beauty, is merely a 'phantasm of the senses', not a property of objects themselves, Hume observes that it is nevertheless possible to speak of the 'true' or 'real' colour of a thing (ST 234). The basis for this possibly is the existence of a universal human colour-sensibility. If there were likewise a universal human sensibility of beauty, we would have grounds for speaking of the 'true' or 'real' beauty of a thing, even though beauty is not actually an objective property. Are there grounds for supposing that there is such a sensibility? Hume thinks that there are. To begin with, we have the 'rules of composition' which have been handed down by critics throughout the ages as standards governing art and taste (ST 231).* Where do these rules come from, and how are they established? As a good empiricist, Hume naturally claims that they must be established through experience, or not at all: It is evident that none of the rules of composition are fixed by reasonings a priori, or can be esteemed abstract conclusions of the understanding, from comparing those habitudes and relations of ideas, which are eternal and immutable, (ibid.) The principles of taste are rather derived from 'general observations concerning what has been universally found to please in all countries and all ages' (ibid.). Any purported rule of criticism must thus be subject to falsification by experience; if it turned out to be the case that 'our pleasure really [did] arise from those parts of [an author's] poem which we denominate faults, this would be ... an objection to those particular rules of criticism, which would establish such circumstances to be faults, and would represent them as universally blameable'; for if 'they are found to please, they cannot be faults' (ST 232). Hume concludes with a universalizing pronouncement:

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The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities . . . are calculated to please, and others to displease. (ST 233)

So, according to Hume, universally valid principles of taste exist, and are well founded to the extent that they accord with our common experience of what has been found universally pleasing and displeasing in art. But if such universalities do in fact exist, if'some particular forms or qualities are [naturally] calculated to please, and others to displease', whence the great variety of taste? Hume has an answer: 'if [the particular forms or qualities] fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in the organ' (ibid.). That is, if the particular forms or qualities that are naturally calculated to be universally pleasing fail to please in a given instance, the explanation must be that there is some external hindrance or internal disorder that is interfering with the normal operation of the subject's sensibility. This account makes the perception of beauty exactly parallel to the perception of colour. Just as 'the appearance of objects in day-light, to the eye of a man in health' is considered to be the 'true and real' colour of these objects, the sentiments that arise 'in the sound state of the organ' ought likewise to be regarded as the hallmark of 'the perfect' (or true) beauty (ST 234). Just as the universal human colour-sensibility will result in a uniform perception of grass as green, unless there is a specific and identifiable obstacle in the subject (such as colour-blindness or a disease such as jaundice), so too will the (supposed) universal beauty-sensibility result in a uniform perception of Milton as superior in beauty to Ogilby, unless there is a specific and identifiable obstacle to appreciation. Hume identifies a number of possible obstacles to the correct perception of beauty. The most important of these is a lack of 'delicacy of taste', which is defined as a degree of sensitivity in which 'the organs are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape them; and at the same time so exact as to perceive every ingredient in the composition' (ST 235). Other obstacles to appreciation include: an improper time or place for appreciating the object, and lack of 'a perfect serenity of mind', or 'due attention to the object' (ST 232—233). To these Hume adds lack of practice in viewing a given type of object, prejudice against a given author, and a weak reasoning capacity (ST 241). The individuals, rare as they may be, who are free of such defects are the 'true judges' or critics (ibid.). It is from the collective judgement of these true critics that the rules of composition and principles of taste are derived; their judgement is 'the true standard of taste and beauty' (ibid.). To sum up: Hume seeks an explanation of the Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon that preserves his view that taste is based on a sentiment. He is therefore tasked with explaining how a sentiment can be wrong, as when a subject prefers Ogilby to Milton. Hume's view is that the reaction in such a case is wrong in the sense that it deviates from the response that would, as a matter of fact, be caused to occur in the subject according to the universal laws of human nature, if certain artificial


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obstacles had not interfered with that response. The correct response may, in fact, be in the minority. The popular taste may actually prefer Ogilby to Milton; this is still consistent with Milton being more beautiful than Ogilby, if it turns out to be the case that the greater popularity of Ogilby is due to abnormal defects and imperfections in sensibilities of the subjects who possess the popular taste. Hume's strategy thus seems to be fairly straightforward. To make this line of argument convincing, however, he must, of course, give us some reason to believe that disagreements over beauty really are fully explained by the imperfections of some of the judges' sensibilities. Hume makes his task easier late in the essay by admitting that in fact not all instances of disagreement can be explained in this way. He concedes that there are 'two sources of variation' which often serve to produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or blame', yet which cannot be regarded as defects or true abnormalities (ST 243). These sources are 'the different humours of particular men' and 'the particular manners and opinions of our age and country' (ibid.). These two qualifications serve principally to introduce a certain relativity into judgements of taste. You are correct in judging Ovid to be superior to Horace and Tacitus, if this judgement is relativized to youthful readers (ST 244). Similarly, you are correct in estimating Terence's Andria to be an excellent play, if you restrict the scope of your judgement to Greek and Italian audiences (ST 245). In these cases, there is no fact of the matter as to whether Ovid is better than Horace or Tacitus, or Andria beautiful, simpliciter. These concessions aside, Hume clearly believes that, in the bulk of cases, disagreement is fully explained in terms of defects or abnormalities in individual subjects. This belief is rational only to the extent that he has grounds for assuming that there is a universal beauty-sensibility. There appear to be two separate sets of grounds for this belief. The first is based on an appeal to what has come to be known as the 'test of time'. Hume observes that certain works have been 'universally found to please in all countries and places' — that the 'same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two thousand years ago is still admired at Paris and at London' (ST 232—233). There must be some explanation for this remarkable fact, and Hume's favoured account is that Homer appeals to a universal human sense of beauty. He reasons that the passage of time strips away the local opinions and prejudices that distort taste, and leaves behind only the unvarnished, genuine judgement: 'authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator, but his reputation will never be durable or general' (ST 233). On the other hand, the longer the works of a 'real genius' endure, 'the more sincere is the admiration which he meets with' (ibid.). Some works endure, hence there must be a universal beauty-sensibility to account for this fact: 'when [the] obstructions are removed, the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiments, immediately display their energy; and while the world endures, they maintain their authority over the minds of men' (ibid.). The second set of grounds to which Hume appeals is based upon a consideration of the subtlety and complexity of the mental qualities and

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operations which are the preconditions of appreciating the beautiful. The great variety of taste would seem to provide an empirical refutation of the claim that there exists a universal beauty-sensibility. It may, however, still be rational to believe in the existence of such a sensibility in the face of the contrary empirical evidence, if it is also plausible to assume that the sensibility of beauty, if it existed, would be very easily interfered with. In that case, even if there were a universal sense of beauty, a great variety of actual aesthetic responses might occur due to interference. Interference might frequently occur if the mental qualities and operations involved in the sensibility of beauty were very subtle and complex. This, of course, is what Hume in fact claims. The true judge requires a whole host of specific qualities and talents, including 'strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice' (ST 241). Because the acquisition and maintenance of these qualities are intellectually and emotionally demanding, Hume seems to reason, it is plausible to assume that they are easily disrupted. Using the metaphor of a fine-tuned machine, he observes that those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tender and delicate nature, and require the concurrence of many favorable circumstances to make them play with facility and exactness . . . The least exterior hindrance to such small springs, or the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion, and confounds the operation of the whole machine. (ST 232) These observations lead Hume to his desired conclusion, which is that though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if not entirely the same in all men, yet few are qualified to give judgment on any work of art, or establish their own sentiment as the standard of beauty . . . [for] they either labor under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means, excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced erroneous. (ST 241) It is not implausible to assume that the perception of beauty — especially in art — is a 'delicate' capacity, one that can be easily disturbed. The qualities necessary to the 'true judge' are not controversial, and one can readily see how the absence of even one of them could throw off a judgement. Hume's position that the sensibility of beauty, if it existed, would be very easily interfered with seems reasonable, and it does provide him with a means of accounting for the empirical evidence that undermines his theory. It is another matter, however, whether it provides any positive evidence for his belief in a universal beauty-sensibility. We have seen that Hume gives two sets of considerations in support of his thesis that our disagreements over beauty are fully explained by the imperfections and defects in some of the judges' sensibilities: (1) considerations relating to the fact that stable general agreement does tend to emerge in the long run, when defects and disorders supposedly have less of a general influence; and (2) considerations relating to the fact that taste is a delicate operation, requiring


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a rare mental facility, and hence is not widely possessed. It is far from clear, however, whether either of these sets of considerations are sufficient to establish a standard of taste, which, as noted above, is the indispensable means for ensuring the legitimacy of'confirming one sentiment and condemning another' (ST 229). Any attempt to address this issue is complicated by a hitherto unnoted ambiguity in Hume's notion of a standard of taste. In some places, the reference to a 'standard' appears to be simply a generic way of describing those 'rules of art' or 'general principles of approbation and blame' discussed above. In other words, the standard is a, proposition (or set of propositions). This conception of the standard of taste appears to be reflected in Hume's initial definition of it as 'a rule by which the various sentiments of men can be reconciled' (ibid.). But in other places, rather than a proposition, the standard appears to be a particular type of person: the 'true judge' whose sensibility is in the sound state. For instance, Hume says that in each person, 'there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment' (ST 233—234). Here the standard of taste is the ideal critic, whose sentiments are considered to be the touchstone of artistic quality. These two conceptions of the standard imply alternative conceptions of how we might go about adjudicating disagreements about beauty. On the first conception, we discover who the privileged critics are by reference to previously established rules of art: the true critics are those whose judgements (sentiments) conform to the rules. On the second conception, we proceed in the reverse direction: we uncover the rules of art by identifying the true critics independently of those rules, and seeing how they judge. The rules are then validated by (or derived from) their judgements. Unfortunately for Hume's view, whichever way we conceive of the standard, we run into a serious problem, for, in either case, its application seems deeply uncertain. First, suppose that we take the established rules as the standard for determining who are the true critics. Hume seems to endorse this method when he maintains that even if'the beauties of writing had never been methodized, or reduced to general principles, or no excellent models had ever been acknowledged', some judgements would still have been preferable to others; it just would not have been as easy to 'silence the bad critic' (ST 236). But fortunately for us, because such general principles exist, 'when we illustrate [a] principle by examples, whose operation, from his own particular taste, [the bad critic] acknowledges to be conformable to the principle; when we prove, that the same principle may be applied to the present case, where he did not perceive or feel its influence', this critic must conclude that 'the fault lies in himself, and that he wants that delicacy, which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and every blemish, in any composition or discourse' (ibid.). In other words, we use the rules to prove that our judgement is right and consequently to force our opponent to acknowledge that we are the true critics in this case. This passage thus seems to make antecedently established rules the standard for the true critic. Recall that Hume had said that if our pleasure really did arise from a feature that certain purported rules of taste denominated a deficiency, this

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would be an objection, not to our judgement, but to the rules (ST 232). Now, given Hume's subsequent story about the possibility of the pleasure arising from a defect in the judge, the possibility exists that it really would not be an objection to the rule after all. But there is still a problem, which is that there seems to be no certain way to tell which one of these possibilities describes the actual situation in any given case. In other words, there seems to be nothing to prevent the imagined antagonist in the example above from sticking to his guns and simply adopting the position that the rule in question does not apply in the present case. Contrary to what Hume asserts, it really is not clear that his antagonist must conclude that 'the fault lie in himself. He could just as reasonably say that the rule does not apply in the present case, or needs to be modified. After all, the grounds of the rule are still held by Hume to be ultimately empirical. This tends to suggest that the second option, that of basing the rules on the judgement of the true critic, must be Hume's ultimate stance. Indeed, there are places where Hume seems to be saying that it is rather the 'true judge' who should be the standard for the rules. He says, for instance, that wherever this rare character is found, his verdict is 'the true standard of taste and beauty' (ST 241). Hume does not, however, describe how we would go about deriving the rules or principles of beauty from the judgements of authoritative critics. A plausible account might be that we abstract rules from a canon of works that are in turn circumscribed by the consensus approval of the true critics. Of course, this leaves open the question of how we discover who the true critics are. Hume eventually is forced to concede that whether 'any particular person be endowed with good sense and delicate imagination, free from prejudice, may often be the subject of dispute, and be liable to great discussion and enquiry' (ST 242). We simply have to 'produce the best arguments that [our] invention suggests' to us, and 'acknowledge a true and decisive standard to exist somewhere, to wit, true existence and matter of fact' (ibid.). But why do we have to acknowledge this? Hume seems to have forgotten the role that the concept of the true critic is supposed to play in his theory, which is to give us reason to think that there is, the preponderance of the evidence to the contrary, a universal human sensibility of beauty. Now, if the identification, hence the existence, of the true critic is itself uncertain, the concept obviously is unsuited to play this role. In fact, it seems abundantly clear that the arguments over the identity of the true critics will be no less contentious than the arguments over judgements of taste themselves — in fact, it seems likely that they will be exactly the same arguments. Consequently, it is empty to claim that the true critic provides the standard of taste. In order for this to mean anything, we have to have an independent means of locating the true critics, and this is lacking. The conclusion we must draw is that Hume has given us little or no positive reason to believe either that there exists a universal standard of taste, or that there is a universal sensibility of beauty that would enable judgements of taste to be correct or incorrect. In sum, the content of a judgement of taste for Hume is a factual claim about what sentiment would occur in an idealized set of circumstances, namely, those


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embodied in the actual judgements of the true judges. This interpretation of the content creates the possibility of the judgement reflecting or not reflecting a 'real existence and matter of fact', and hence being correct or incorrect. The problem is that the judgement of taste, understood in this way, is a factual claim that does not appear to admit of confirmation. Hume is committed to the claim that judgements of taste correspond to certain natural facts, but there is no way to verify this claim. Hence, in the end, he does not give us any sufficient reason to accept that the supposed facts exist in the first place.

3. The Humean Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste: Guyer At present, a very influential reading of Kant's theory of taste understands it as similar in important respects to Hume's theory. Kant, it is said, is responding to 'Hume's challenge', and conceives of the judgement of the beautiful in a way precisely parallel to Hume. The judgement of taste, that is, involves for both thinkers an ascription of pleasure to all other subjects universally. Kant attempts to ground this ascription in a manner different from Hume, but he meets with no more success than his predecessor. Or at least so says the 'Humean' reading of Kant's judgement of taste, as represented by its principal exponent, Paul Guyer. In this section, after some preliminary observations regarding the prima facie plausibility of the Humean reading, I shall consider Guyer's particular interpretation of Kant in some detail. We will see in Guyer a perfect illustration of how the Humean reading of Kant's theory of taste leads to a negative assessment of the outcome of that theory, providing us with reason to pause before accepting the Humean view. In the next section, I shall adduce some textual evidence that belies Guyer's interpretation, and suggests an alternative reading. Kant's presentation of what he describes as an 'antinomy of taste' gives a major impetus to the Humean reading, for there is a striking similarity between Hume's conflict between two species of common sense and Kant's antinomy. The antinomy is a conflict between what Kant calls two 'commonplaces' (Gemeinort) — a term that practically spells out Hume's 'common sense' (CJ 338/ 210). On the one hand, there is the old saw, 'there is no disputing about [judgements of] taste' (ibid.). As Kant sees it, this means that 'even proofs do not allow us to decide anything about such a judgment' (ibid.). One cannot, in other words, 'hope to produce [an] agreement according to determinate concepts, by basing a proof on them'; I cannot force you to agree with my taste by proving that mine is correct (ibid.). This would seem to lead to the situation that Hume describes as the natural equality of tastes: if I cannot prove that one taste is better than another, they must all be equal. This conclusion is opposed, however, by another 'commonplace': 'one can quarrel about taste' (CJ 338/211). Kant says very little about what this 'quarrelling' amounts to, or why he is so confident that one canquarrel about taste. But we might easily imagine that he is thinking about the sorts of disproportionate comparisons of artists and their

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products that Hume was thinking of when he pointed out the Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon. In sum, Kant's claim that there is no disputing about tastes bears comparison to Hume's doctrine of the natural equality of tastes; and, likewise, his claim that we can still quarrel about taste naturally reminds one of the Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon. Kant's antinomy, then, seems to duplicate Hume's problem of two conflicting species of common sense. There is undoubtedly an affinity between Hume's conflict between two species of common sense and Kant's antinomy of taste. This similarity may lead one to believe that the bases of the conflict or antinomy are also similar for each philosopher. In fact, a cursory glance at Kant's text supports this impression. To begin with, both philosophers hold that judgements of taste are based on a subjective feeling of pleasure (or displeasure). For Kant, this seems to be the most basic feature of the judgement of taste. The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment begins with the 'Analytic of the Beautiful', which is divided into four 'moments'. Each of these four moments develops one important feature of the judgement of taste. The 'First Moment' concerns the claim that the judgement of taste is 'aesthetic', which means that its 'determining basis cannot be other than subjective' (CJ 203/44). Kant goes on to observe that the only type of mental representation that is always subjective is the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and that this type of representation is the basis of a judgement of taste (CJ 204/44). He seems to agree with Hume regarding the non-representational and (hence) non-cognitive character of the feeling of pleasure, claiming that it is the only type of representation that 'designates nothing whatsoever in the object'; rather it always has reference only to the subject and his internal state. Hence pleasure does not contribute anything to cognition (ibid.). On these points, Kant once again seems to be in perfect alignment with Hume. Hume and Kant also both agree that the feeling of pleasure at the basis of the beautiful is in some sense universal. The 'Second Moment' contains Kant's initial exposition of what he calls the 'demand for universal validity (Anspruch auf Allgemeingu'ltigkeit]' belonging to the judgement of taste (CJ 214/57). 5 According to Kant, the object of a judgement of taste contains 'a basis for being liked that holds for everyone' (CJ 211/54). He claims that it would be ridiculous if someone who prided himself on his taste tried to justify it by saying: This object (the building we are looking at, the garment that man is wearing, the concert we are listening to, the poem put up to be judged) is beautifuiyor me. For he must not call it beautiful if only he likes it. (CJ 212/55) In this respect, Kant maintains, the beautiful must be carefully distinguished from what is merely 'pleasant' or 'agreeable' (das Angenehm). As regards the latter, he says, everyone acknowledges that his judgement is based merely on a private feeling without universal pertinence; hence, 'if [someone] says that canary wine is agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to me' (ibid.). By contrast, 'if he proclaims something to be beautiful, he requires the same liking from others' (CJ 212/55).


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Since both Kant and Hume claim that the pleasure in the beautiful is universal, it is natural to construe this claim as meaning the same thing for each. This conclusion seems to be further supported by the fact that Kant appears also to share Hume's view that there is a universal beauty-sensibility. The belief in the existence of such a sensibility might seem to be embodied in Kant's idea of a 'common sense' or 'sensus communis'. This notion is first introduced in the 'Fourth Moment', where it is contrasted with 'the common understanding that is sometimes also called a common sense' (CJ 237/87). As he makes clear later on (in §40), Kant is not speaking here of'common sense' in the ordinary meaning, where it refers to 'the very least that we are entitled to expect from anyone who lays claim to the name of human being' — that is, the most minimal capacity for intellectual comprehension and prudential judgement (CJ 293/160). In fact, he is not referring to an intellectual capacity at all. Rather, Kant is referring to a shared sensibility, 'something that makes . . . our feeling in a given representation universally communicable (allgemein mitteilbarY (CJ 295/162). 6 It must be admitted that this notion sounds awfully similar to Hume's conception of a universal human nature that gives rise to a shared set of responses to the beautiful. Kant, like Hume, recognizes that the claim to universal validity implied by a judgement of taste requires justification. His attempt to justify the universality of the pleasure in the beautiful takes the form of a transcendental deduction of taste. According to the Humean reading, Kant offers in this deduction an a priori argument in place of Hume's attempt at an empirical argument; but basically, the goals of the two philosophers are the same. The Humean way of construing Kant's deduction of taste is as an argument designed to warrant the prediction of a uniform response to certain objects, at least in ideal circumstances. The most influential version of the Humean reading is that of Paul Guyer, who explicitly maintains that Kant's theory of taste should be understood as a response to Hume's problem. 7 According to Guyer, Kant is primarily concerned, like Hume, with the possibility of a judgement of taste reflecting or not reflecting a 'real existence and matter of fact': namely, the fact of universal agreement in response under certain specified conditions. The rigour with which Guyer builds his case has made his reading justly influential; however, by his own admission, on his interpretation, Kant's project has to be regarded as a failure. This conclusion will provide us with motivation to reconsider whether, in fact, Kant is actually dealing with the same problem as Hume. Let us, then, consider the main points of Guyer's reading of Kant. Kant's theory of taste is divided into two main parts: the 'analytic' and the 'deduction' of the judgement of taste. Guyer regards the main task of the analytic as that of providing two sets of criteria: (1) a set of'defining criteria' for the judgement of taste, and (2) a set of'justificatory criteria' for such judgements. 8 The defining criteria are the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste; the justificatory criteria are the disinterestedness and form of 'finality'of the judgement. It is the former criteria that concern us presently. 9 Universality and necessity are 'defining criteria' in the sense that they specify what makes a particular judgement a judgement of taste, and function as the aesthetic 'criteria by which

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this form of judgment may be distinguished from a mere report of one's response to any object'.10 Guyer observes that the universality and necessity of the beautiful appear to be essentially the same thing in Kant's aesthetics.11 But what does Guyer think Kant means when he attributes universality and necessity to the judgement of taste? He quite explicitly takes Kant to be following the lead of Hume in comparing the beautiful to colour. 'When I call something red,' Guyer notes, 'I am not just describing how it appears to me, . . . but rather describing how I expect it will appear to anyone in certain circumstances.' 12 The beautiful is to be understood in analogous terms. According to Guyer, the claim to universality implicit in a judgement of taste is to be understood in terms of a, factual prediction about the mental states of other human beings. To claim that one's aesthetic judgement of an object is universally valid is to claim that 'under ideal circumstances, any human observer of the object would necessarily take the same pleasure in it that the person making the judgment of taste does'. 13 Later, Guyer reiterates this point, calling the judgement of taste 'a prediction, but an ideal prediction'. 14 The only reason that the 'imputation of taste to others is indeterminate or ideal' is because of'the uncertainty of its evidence' — i.e., 'one may in fact have been wrong about the source of one's own pleasure'.15 So the judgement of taste is a prediction, albeit an ideal or conditional one. It says that if one was correct in ascribing the source of one's own pleasure, and everyone else who judged also had their pleasure caused by this source, then (we can expect that) everyone would agree. The necessity of taste, then, is a rational necessity that is based upon a causal necessity. The pleasure at the basis of a judgement of taste is, Guyer avers, 'in a sense necessary', because (Kant claims) it is occasioned under circumstances in which any human observer would feel pleasure.16 This causal necessity is what underwrites the rationality of the prediction of universal agreement that is, according to Guyer, the distinguishing feature of the judgement of taste. In this respect, the judgement of beauty is analogous to the judgement of colour. Its universality is to be understood in terms of a hypothetical factual prediction: under such-and-such circumstances, we can expect such-and-such responses to result from universal causal laws. This interpretation of the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste, as Guyer acknowledges, goes against the grain of Kant's text. Guyer admits that the terms in which Kant expresses the criteria of universality and necessity suggest 'not so much expecting the occurrence of a mental state in another person, or attributing a state to another, but rather demanding or requiring something from someone, even imposing some kind of obligation on another'. 17 He acknowledges that Kant speaks in the majority of relevant passages of an 'Anspruch' — a 'demand' for (or an 'entitlement' to) agreement levelled against others in making a judgement of taste.18 Guyer reconciles Kant's language with the interpretation of universal validity as a factual prediction by maintaining that the demand in question is an epistemological requirement, or a requirement of rationality.19 It is equivalent to saying something like the following: if you want to have true or rational beliefs about what things are really green, you 'ought' to


23

judge as green what appears green to an average observer in average circumstances. Likewise, if you want to have true or rational beliefs about what things are really beautiful, you 'ought' to judge as beautiful what a disinterested observer attending to the mere form of the object takes pleasure in. In neither case is the 'ought' a true demand', it rather expresses a hypothetical condition on true beliefs —predictions regarding the sorts of responses that would occur in a certain set of circumstances. The full meaning of the 'ought' is exhausted in the expression: 'unless you judge in this way, you will have false beliefs'. The 'ought' claim itself can thus be reduced to an entirely nonnormative factual claim. According to Guyer, then, the claim in a judgement of taste that requires a transcendental deduction is the factual prediction that, in certain 'ideal' circumstances, everyone will (necessarily) experience the same pleasure. He argues that Kant makes at least three separate attempts to provide the needed argument, all of which fail — and thus fail to 'answer the challenge laid down in Hume's famous essay "Of the Standard of Taste", to which [Kant] was clearly responding'. 20 In order to evaluate Guyer's critique of Kant's deduction of taste, we need first to understand how the former interprets the latter's theory of aesthetic response. The theory of aesthetic response is Kant's account of the ultimate source, in the human psychological apparatus, of the pleasure in the beautiful. Kant argues that, in order for this pleasure to be universal, it must ultimately be based upon a universally valid mental state. I shall take up this theory in greater detail in the following chapters, but for now, the barest sketch — one closely following Guyer's reconstruction — will serve our purpose. On any account, Kant's theory of aesthetic response involves the notion of a pleasure caused by what he terms the 'harmony of the faculties' in their 'free play'. This notion, unfortunately, is notoriously obscure. The 'faculties' in question are the imagination and the understanding, and their 'harmony' evidently has something to do with the relation in which these two faculties stand in the act of cognition or empirical perception. As Guyer notes, according to Kant, this 'harmony' is 'the subjective and merely sensible condition of the objective employment of judgment'. 21 For Guyer, the cognitive relation of the two faculties can be specified as follows. The imagination 'runs through' and 'holds together' a manifold of sensible intuition for the sake of the understanding, and the understanding in turn gives 'unity' to this manifold through a concept. The result of the harmony of the faculties, then, is the unification of a manifold of intuition under a concept.^ The endproduct is an object of perceptual knowledge. The main problem for any interpretation of Kant's theory is to figure out what this cognitive relation of the faculties has to do with the relation of the faculties involved in aesthetic response. How are the two relations similar, and how are they different? One obviously important difference is that the aesthetic harmony of the faculties must inevitably produce a pleasure. Now, Guyer attributes to Kant the view that any unintended or unexpected accomplishment of a goal is necessarily a source of pleasure.23 Building on this reading of Kant, Guyer reasons that an aesthetic harmony of the

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faculties must be one in which the 'goal of knowledge' — i.e., the unification of the manifold — is achieved in an unexpected or surprising fashion. He also notes that Kant characteristically describes the aesthetic response as a pleasure that occurs 'without a concept'. Applying this formula to his understanding of what is involved in the cognitive harmony of the faculties, Guyer concludes that the specifically aesthetic relation of the faculties, in which they are in both 'harmony' and 'free play', must refer to 'a state in which, somehow, a manifold of intuition is run through and held together as a unity by the imagination without the use of a concept'.24 This is an achievement of the goal of knowledge in an unexpected and surprising fashion, since it omits what is normally a necessary condition of unity: viz., the use of a concept. The fact that the faculties in this state are not restricted to a particular 'rule of cognition' (i.e., a particular concept) is the reason, Guyer quite naturally presumes, that Kant calls this harmony a state of'free play'.25 It is with this conception of Kant's theory of aesthetic response in mind that Guyer takes up the deduction. Based on his construal of the content of the judgement of taste, Guyer thinks that the deduction must show that we are justified in attributing specific feelings to particular individuals in particular circumstances. It must, that is, warrant the prediction that everyone will have identical pleasurable (or displeasurable) responses under ideal conditions. As Guyer sees it, Kant attempts to argue from the presupposition of the commonality of the capacity for cognition to the presupposition of the commonality of particular aesthetic responses on particular occasions. The connection between these two assumptions hinges on the further assumption that aesthetic response is based on the capacity for unifying a manifold of intuition. On Guyer's reading, Kant tries to argue that, since both the general capacity for cognition and the capacity for aesthetic response involve the ability to unify a manifold of intuition, one cannot possess the former without possessing the latter as well. In short, if the cognitive capacity is universally shared, so is the capacity for aesthetic response. Since we cannot but assume that ordinary cognitive capacity is universally shared, we must assume the same about aesthetic capacity. Moreover, if there is a universally shared general capacity for aesthetic response, then we can expect that the same objects will cause the same or similar responses in everyone, at least under ideal circumstances. Guyer summarizes Kant's alleged line of argument for this supposed conclusion as follows: first, since the proportion between imagination and understanding is identical in both ordinary cognition and aesthetic response, anyone capable of ordinary cognition is also capable of aesthetic response; and second, since this proportion is produced in everyone by the same objects in ordinary cases of cognition, it must also be so produced in the case of aesthetic response.26 Guyer then immediately attacks this line of argument, pointing out a number of fairly serious problems with it. Two of these seem to be the most important. First, Guyer notes that the argument of the deduction, as he presents it,


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hinges on the notion that both cognition and aesthetic response involve the same capacity to unify a manifold of intuition. But is this really the same capacity in the two instances? As we have seen, there is a crucial difference between them: the cognitive unification takes place by means of a concept, whereas the aesthetic unification does not. But then it would appear that we have not one, but two distinct sorts of capacities: the capacity to unify a manifold of intuition under a concept, and the capacity to unify a manifold without using concepts. Suppose it is true that we must presuppose in everyone a capacity to unify manifolds under a concept. Can we not still consistently deny that everyone likewise has the capacity to unify manifolds without a concept? The argument for keeping the two cases separate seems even stronger when we recall that the latter case, but not the former, also involves the additional capacity to connect a pleasure with an object. How can we suppose that everyone has this additional capacity? So Guyer observes, 'the general ability to unify a manifold under some empirical concept or other will not imply the ability to feel this unity without concepts or detect it in given manifolds with a unique degree of facility'. 27 Second, Guyer objects that even if we grant that the argument warrants the universal ascription of a general capacity for aesthetic response, it doesn't follow that we are justified in attributing specific feelings to particular individuals in particular circumstances.28 In the cognitive case, there is more than one way to unify a given manifold. It is possible to achieve qualitatively different perceptions, based on the different concepts that one uses to organize the data of the senses. For example, different empirical concepts might be used by competing scientific theories to describe the same data. Another type of case more germane to aesthetic perception is the ambiguous figure, like the duckrabbit: here I may unify the same manifold into two separate pictures, depending on how I conceptualize it. There is more than one way to unify a manifold under a concept. There is no reason to suppose that this could not be true of the aesthetic case as well. But if we grant this possibility, we cannot assume, Guyer argues, that the responses of everyone will be the same. For it is conceivable that, while both unifying the manifold without a concept, one person could unify it in one way, and another person could unify it in a quite different way. The two cases might, accordingly, produce quite different 'proportions' of the faculties, or different types or degrees of'harmony'. Why should we suppose that the resultant feelings of pleasure would be the same or even similar in quantity? Hence, it seems theoretically possible that we could all share a general capacity for aesthetic response, yet diverge markedly in our particular judgements of taste. In sum, Guyer concludes that Kant's theory of taste fails to achieve its central aim, which is to answer 'Hume's challenge'. The deduction of taste aims to vindicate the claims of universality and necessity implied in a judgement of taste, but it is unable to do so. This conclusion, however, is clearly a consequence of Guyer's assumption that the aim of the deduction is to ground an a priori factual prediction. But is this actually how Kant thought of the universality and necessity implied in a judgement of taste? Was Kant really attempting to solve

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the same problem as Hume? Or did he perhaps understand the problem of taste in a markedly different fashion?

4. The Normative Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste Hume's project in aesthetics looks like a failure. If we view Kant as attempting basically the same sort of answer — albeit at a transcendental level — to the same problem as Hume, then he also looks like a failure. Is the result of this first conception of modern aesthetics therefore a miscarriage? I would like to claim that the answer to this question is 'no', because the nonsuccess of Kant's project on the above analysis depends entirely upon the construal of his problem as an attempted solution in a Humean vein. If the universality of pleasure in the beautiful is understood as analogous to the universality of colour-perception, Kant's attempt at a deduction of taste does indeed look hopeless. But is this the only way to construe Kant's attempt to justify the legitimacy of 'quarrelling' about taste? The Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon that Hume discovered seems real enough. But did Hume perhaps misunderstand its significance? Could Kant perhaps have had a better grasp of what is really going on in cases such as this, in which we want to insist upon our judgement? The sense that some aesthetic reactions are just wrong can be construed in either of two ways. There is Hume's way: the reaction is wrong because it deviates from the response that would, as a matter of fact, be caused to occur in the subject according to a universal law of human nature, if certain artificial hindrances had not interfered with that response. This approach construes the 'wrongness' in essentially factualterms, in relation to an empirically based conception of human nature. It implicitly relies on the notion of'normal' human responses, but there is essentially no value-content to this notion of'normality'. The content of 'normal' here simply reduces to a prediction of what would uniformly occur — at least in circumstances favourable to the unhindered operation of the human aesthetic capacity. This notion of a reaction that is wrong or abnormal is familiar to us from Hume's favoured example of colour judgements. But there is potentially another, equally familiar way to view an aesthetic reaction as wrong or abnormal, one with an irreducible normative or evaluative content. We can, and often do, ask if a feeling of pleasure or displeasure is warranted or justified — that is, if it is appropriate(to the situation). It seems plausible to think that our aesthetic reactions to the beautiful in nature and art might be evaluated in this way as well. We can ask whether certain objects are theappropriateobjects of aesthetic pleasure or not:oughtthey to be enjoyed (inthis way)? The normative approach to the universality and necessity of the beautiful construes these features as based, not on empirical generalizations, but on an a priori (hence universal and necessary) norm or ground of some sort. Of course, this approach carries with it new problems of its own. For now we need to explain how we discover this norm/ground, and how its claim to normative authority is justified. At the end of the day, these may well be insuperable barriers to


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accepting such an account. But we cannot rule it out in advance of testing it — which is what the Humean reading essentially does. If Kant's text strongly suggests — as it does in fact — that the normative approach is the one he preferred, then the interpreter of Kant should see whether or not, or to what extent, Kant is able to make sense of and justify the (alleged) normative dimension of taste. The alternative to the Humean interpretation, then, is a thoroughly normative reading of Kant. According to this reading, when Kant speaks of the 'universality' and 'necessity' contained in a judgement of taste, he is not referring to an implicit prediction of universal agreement, as Guyer would have it, but rather to an implicit demand that everyone agree. In other words, the normative reading presupposes that judgements of taste are more analogous to moral judgements than they are to colour judgements. In a moral judgement, according to Kant, we neither summarize how things actually are, nor predict how we expect them to be; rather, we issue a demand or imperative regarding how they ought to be. In no way can this 'ought' be reduced to a non-normative factual statement. Moral judgements, according to Kant, are said to contain an imperative (GW 413/24). According to the normative reading, judgements of taste are similar or analogous to moral judgements in this respect. We might, therefore, say that judgements of taste contain an 'aesthetic imperative'. 29 The normative reading asserts the existence of one or more such imperatives. The preponderance of the evidence in the Critique of Judgment supports the normative reading. We have already seen that Guyer himself is forced reluctantly to acknowledge the ubiquity of Kant's normative characterizations of taste. Such characterizations can be found scattered throughout the Critique of Judgment, but they are concentrated in three main places: (1) the discussion of the universality of the judgement of taste in the Second Moment (§§6—8); (2) the discussion of the necessity of taste in the Fourth Moment (§§18—19); and (3) the build-up to and aftermath of the deduction of taste in §§31—40. Let us consider each of these in turn. We have already noted Kant's contrast, in the Second Moment, between the beautiful and the merely agreeable. We have seen that, for Kant, someone may well rest content in reducing his liking for the agreeable to a mere private preference; by contrast, 'if he proclaims something to be beautiful, he requires (mutet . . . zu) the same liking from others' (CJ 212/55). In the present context, it bears emphasis that Kant uses the explicitly normative language of requiring in this passage.30 This is not an isolated incidence. Later in this same passage, Kant continues the point by stressing that the individual proclaiming something to be beautiful 'does not count on other people to agree with his judgment on the ground that he has repeatedly found them agreeing with him; rather he demands (fordert)they agree' (CJ 213/56). The universality of taste, in other words, is not based on empirical facts, as Hume would have it. Rather, its basis is an a priori normative demand. A little further down, Kant adds that 'in making a judgment of taste (about the beautiful), we require (ansinnen) everyone to like the object', and 'in a judgment of taste about beauty we always require (zumutet) others to agree' (CJ 214/57). Finally, he proclaims that 'the judgment of taste

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does not postulate (postulieren) everyone's agreement . . ., it merely requires (sinnt . . . an) this agreement from everyone' (CJ 216/60). All of the terms Kant uses here — Ziimuten,fordern, ansinnen — contain a normative connotation in ordinary German. Moreover, Kant explicitly contrasts this normative content with the factual claim that we can 'count on' or 'postulate' everyone's agreement. It would seem, then, that Kant couldn't have made himself clearer: the universal validity of the judgement of taste is normative, as opposed to being factual or theoretical in nature. The normative reading also gets support from the opening sections of the Fourth Moment, which introduce the notion of the necessity of the judgement of taste. Kant claims here that the beautiful is 'the object of a necessary liking' (CJ 240/90). He explicitly says, however, that the notion of necessity in question 'is not a theoretical objective necessity, allowing us to cognize a priori that everyone will feel this liking for the object I call beautiful' (CJ 236-7/85). Kant thereby unequivocally reaffirms his rejection of the Humean view of the beautiful. The judgement of taste for Kant evidently does not rest on the presupposition that everyone will necessarily like a certain object. Instead, Kant says, 'a judgment of taste requires (sinnt . . . an] everyone to assent; and whoever declares something to be beautiful holds that everyone ought (solle] to give his approval to the object at hand and that he too should (solle] declare it beautiful' (CJ 237/86). Finally, Kant ends this passage with an explicit mention of the idea that the judgement of taste contains or implies something like an aesthetic imperative. He refers explicitly here to 'the ought (Das Sollen) in an aesthetic judgment', which he says we utter in the act of making such a judgement (ibid.). Lastly, we also find a predominance of normative language in the build-up to, and aftermath of the deduction of taste in §§31^fO. In these sections, Kant restates (after the intervening 'Analytic of the Sublime') many of the main features of his analysis of the judgement of taste in preparation for the deduction. Kant once again says that the judgement of taste 'demands (fordert] everyone's assent', and that, in making these judgements, we make a 'demand (Anspruch) that everyone assent' (CJ 280/143; 289/153). In several places in these sections, he repeats his contention that we 'require' (ansinnt, angesonnen) a pleasure or liking from everyone in the judgment of taste (CJ 288/152; 290/155). Finally, in §40, he makes perhaps his strongest claim yet on behalf of the normative character of taste, maintaining that 'we require (zugemutet) from everyone as a duty, as it were (gleichsam als Pflicht), the feeling contained in the judgment of taste' (CJ 296/162). Here Kant goes as far as he ever does in assimilating the moral and the aesthetic imperatives. The evidence of these passages strongly supports the view that a normative demand, as opposed to a factual prediction, is, for Kant, the content that he refers to as the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste. Because he construes the universality of the judgement of taste differently, Kant is not dealing with quite the same problem as Hume. Consequently, the sorts of objections that undermine the Humean theory of taste have no obvious pertinence to Kant. We have seen that, on Guyer's reading, the ultimate aim of


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Kant's theory of taste is to justify the assumption that the same objects will cause the same or similar responses in everyone, at least under ideal circumstances. Guyer then raises objections to the arguments supposedly intended by Kant to support this conclusion. But, according to the normative reading, Kant is committed to no such assumption. Consequently, the objections Guyer raises are not obviously relevant to Kant. Or so it would seem. Guyer, however, has raised the question whether the normative reading is really immune from the objections he makes against the deduction of taste. In the introduction to his Kant and the Experience of Freedom, in which he responds to critics of Kant and the Claims of Taste, Guyer acknowledges that 'we must distinguish between grounds for defending the rational expectation that others will agree with our own aesthetic responses, and grounds for demanding . . . that they ought to agree.'31 He argues, however, that the latter actually depends upon the former — that the defence of the demand that everyone ought to agree hinges on the rational expectation that they will agree. He is concerned to respond specifically to one version of the normative reading in particular: what I have called the 'moralistic reading'. On this version of the normative reading, the aesthetic imperative (the 'ought' implied by a judgement of taste) is a (sort of) moral imperative; the demand of taste is simply a moral demand. 32 Advocates of the moralistic reading had responded to Guyer's objections to the deduction of taste by claiming that any deficiencies in the deduction could be overcome by an appeal to a moral obligation to take pleasure in beautiful objects.33 But there is one fatal flaw in this response, according to Guyer: any moral ground for the desirability of agreement in taste would not itself supply additional reasons for expecting such agreement, but would rather seem to presuppose that we already have adequate grounds for such an expectation, on the general principle that 'ought' implies 'can,' that is, morality can only demand of us what is indeed in our power, [my emphasis]34 In other words, it is a fatal objection to any putative moral demand that the demand is, in fact, impossible to fulfil. Consequently, the moralistic reading must already be presupposing that universal agreement is possible; otherwise, the moral demand to realize this agreement would be illegitimate. But what is the ground for this presupposition? Isn't the moralistic reading just begging the (i.e., Guyer's) question? This is Guyer's challenge. One response to this challenge might be simply to reject the moralistic version of the normative reading. Since I believe that there is a kernel of truth in the moralistic reading, I want to avoid doing that. Instead, I believe the proper solution is to restrict the moralistic reading to cover only part of the normative demand contained in a judgement of taste. In the next section, I shall give a text-based argument for doing this. Before beginning that task, however, I want to address two questions. First, does an advocate of the moralistic reading in fact have to possess an independentproof of the viability of universal agreement, as

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Guyer alleges? Second, assuming that it applies to the moralistic reading, to what extent is Guyer's objection more generally applicable? Does Guyer's objection hold for any version of the normative reading, or only for the moralistic version? In addressing the question whether an advocate of the moralistic reading has to possess an independent proof of the viability of universal agreement in matters of taste, the devil is clearly in the details. There is a standard version of the moralistic reading that does indeed seem vulnerable to Guyer's attack. This version argues that we have a moral obligation to take pleasure in the beautiful because, according to Kant, 'beauty is a symbol of morality'. Advocates of this reading usually claim that, because beauty is a symbol of morality, attention to it prepares us in some way for carrying out our moral duties. 35 This is why the beautiful is the object of a universal moral demand. There are two major questions (at least) that arise in connection with this view: (1) Why should we think that beauty is a symbol of morality? (2) Supposing that it is, how does this fact imply that the beautiful prepares us to be morally good? For present purposes, we can afford to ignore the second question. The moralistic reading runs into trouble with Guyer's challenge because of the answer it seems to be required to give to the first. Kant's claim that 'beauty is a symbol of morality' can be given a variety of interpretations. It seems to be a reasonable propositon, however, that a central part of the symbolic relation between beauty and morality rests upon an analogy between the two.36 Beauty and morality, that is, share certain central features or properties, and this grounds a relation of analogy between them. One of the most important among these properties is the universality of both beauty and morality.37 Here we can see the problem. Beauty symbolizes morality only if it is analogous to morality, but it is analogous to morality only if it is universally valid. Consequently, one cannot, on pain of circularity, base beauty's claim to universal validity on the fact that it symbolizes morality. What is needed is some independentsense in which the beautiful can be said to be universal. For Guyer, this is naturally the Humean sense of universality: an empirical matter of fact regarding universal agreement. I will argue, on the other hand, that there is another independent sense in which the beautiful can be said to be universal — one which is thoroughly normative. This possibility is all that is needed in order to avoid this particular problem, which arises only for this specific version of the moralistic reading. Guyer, however, poses a challenge that claims to be more extensive than the particular problem just discussed. He makes a general point that purports to cover any and all versions of the moralistic reading (and even, it seams, all other versions of the formative reading as well). Guyer's claim is that, in order for a putative moral obligation to appreciate the beautiful to be really and truly universally valid — that is to say, for it to be really morally valid, in Kant's sense — we must be able to show antecedently that what it demands — in this case, universal agreement — is possible. How big a problem is this for the moralistic reading? The answer to this question turns on whether Guyer can give us supporting grounds for his claim, which, as far as I can see, he does not. It is true that Kant


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clearly assumes that "ought" implies "can"; however, this is a distinct claim from Guyer's thesis, which is that the 'can' must be demonstrated independently of the 'ought'. As far as I can see, Guyer's assumption goes beyond anything to which Kant is committed. Why, then, should the advocate of the moralistic reading accept it? It seems perfectly acceptable for one to hold the contrary assumption: ' 'ought' implies 'can'' does not in any way entail that the 'can' must be justified independently of the 'ought'. Moreover, the converse might even be true: an 'ought' claim might even be able to justify, on its own, a 'can' claim. As Guyer is surely aware, Kant himself seems not only to have made the latter assumption, but even to have relied heavily upon it for the crucial arguments linking morality to religion. In the moral proofs for God and immortality, Kant employs the 'ought'-implies-can' claim in such a way as to establish real metaphysical possibilities on the basis of the presumption that certain moral obligations exist.38 His procedure, in other words, is just the opposite of what Guyer claims. There is, consequently, no reason to consider Guyer's challenge to be a general problem even for all versions of the moralistic reading. I have just given reasons for doubting that Guyer's challenge is a general worry for all versions of the moralistic reading; it is, at most, a problem only for one specific version of that reading. But suppose that the moralistic reading was, in fact, susceptible to the difficulty that Guyer suggests. This still would not imply that the normative reading as such was suspect. Guyer concentrates his attention, with good reason, on the moralistic version of the normative reading. While it is true that this version traditionally has been the most widely accepted, moral normativity is certainly not the only possible form of normativity. Beginning in the next section and continuing in the following chapters, I shall demonstrate that there is, for Kant, a purely cognitive or epistemic normativity. The universal demand in a judgement of taste to take pleasure in an object, I shall argue, is ultimately derived from this source. Does the legitimacy of a cognitive or epistemic demand to fulfil a certain cognitive or epistemic goal require an independent demonstration of the viability of that goal? It is no more clear in the cognitive case that this is so than it was in the moral case. In order to distinguish itself from the Humean reading, the 'cognitive' version of the normative reading must presuppose a cognitive or epistemic demand that is normative 'all the way down'; in other words, this demand can at no point be reduced to a disguised statement of empirical fact. The 'ought' in the judgement of taste, as it is in a moral judgement, is always an 'ought' — but in this case, it is a (quasi) cognitive or epistemic ought. 39 This 'ought' no doubt requires legitimation; but it is far from obvious that the legitimating argument needs to take the form of a defence of a prediction of universal concurrence in actual judgements of taste. The exact nature of the required argument will depend, of course, on how one understands the (admittedly obscure) notion of 'cognitive or epistemic' normativity. The sense that will emerge in the succeeding chapters is one in which cognitive normativity, like moral normativity for Kant, is rooted in an a priori notion of the proper or ideal functioning of our faculties. The legitimating argument for the demands of taste, therefore, will depend upon linking judgements of taste to a

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cognitive or epistemic notion of proper function. This notion of'proper function' is not developed in order to defend a Humean prediction of universal agreement — no more than Kant's notion of the proper functioning of the will is developed in order to defend a prediction about how people actually behave. Rather, as with the moral notion, this notion of proper cognitive function is used as an abstract and a priori standard for assessing actual judgements. Despite some superficial similiarities, the problem of legitimating such a standard will turn out to be an entirely separate and independent problem from Hume's problem of justifying the presupposition of agreement among all 'true judges'. Or so I hope to show in the succeeding chapters.

5. The Two Demands in the Judgement of Taste In this final section, I take the normative reading of Kant's judgement of taste for granted, and take up a new issue, that of the specific nature of the normative content of the judgement of taste. The evidence of the passages discussed above suggests that Kant is committed to the existence of an aesthetic imperative contained in the judgement of taste. But whether there is only a single unitary imperative, as these passages might initially suggest, or whether there is in fact more than one such imperative, is a separate issue. I shall argue that, in fact, the appearance of a single unitary imperative is misleading, and that there is actually a fundamental ambiguity in Kant's discussion of the aesthetic imperative. In some passages, he speaks as if it is a moral imperative, or at least in some way dependent upon morality. In other passages, however, he appears to distinguish clearly between an aesthetic and a moral imperative, and to deny that the former has anything to do with the latter. I shall suggest that, in order to resolve this ambiguity, we must distinguish between two distinct imperatives contained within the judgement of taste.40 The first of these is the pleasure-imperative, or the demand that a particular object ought to be found pleasing. The second is the attention-imperative, or the additional demand that one's attention ought to be given to the object. On the account that I shall propose, the first imperative is entirely independent of morality, whereas the second is not. Only the first involves a distinctively aesthetic normativity; the second properly pertains to the use that morality makes of aesthetic experience. Consequently, it is beyond the narrow focus of this study. In defining the 'necessity' contained in a judgement of taste, Kant clearly indicates that it is not to be understood as a moral or practical necessity. In the Fourth Moment (§18) he calls the necessity involved in taste 'exemplary' necessity, which he says refers to 'a necessity of the assent of everyoneto a judgment that is regarded as an example of a universal rule that we are unable to state' (CJ 237/85). We have already seen how Kant denies that this sort of necessity has anything to do with the theoretical necessity on which one might base a factual prediction. However, according to Kant, exemplary necessity is also not 'a practical objective necessity, where, through concepts of a pure


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rational will that serves freely acting beings as a rule, this liking is the necessary consequence of an objective law and means nothing other than that one absolutely . . . ought to act in a certain way' (ibid.). In other words, the necessity of taste is not based on any kind of principle of practical reason, specifically including the moral law. Kant repeats the same point later on in §31, where he denies that the judgement of taste is one 'which says that I ought to carry something out so as to produce a [certain] thing' (CJ 143/280). Once again, any connection between aesthetic and practical normativity is evidently ruled out. In the above passages, Kant seems unambiguously to deny that the aesthetic imperative contained in a judgement of taste is a moral imperative. In other passages, however, he appears just as clearly to endorse the opposite position. In these passages, Kant implies that the normativity of the judgement of taste rests upon a moral basis. First, at the end of the Fourth Moment (§22), Kant considers whether taste might be 'an ability yet to be acquired and [therefore] artificial, so that a judgment of taste with its requirement for universal assent is in fact only a demand of reason to produce such agreement in the way we sense' (my emphasis) (CJ 240/90). This passage seems to directly contradict the last one, where Kant denied that the aesthetic 'ought' involved a rational requirement to produce anything. Admittedly, here Kant is only considering this possibility (that the aesthetic imperative is based in practical reason) as a hypothesis; but his tone indicates that it is a hypothesis that he intends to confirm later on. And in fact, there is a clear attempt to make just such a connection between beauty and morality in §§41^4-2, which discuss our 'interest' in the beautiful. In setting up the problem of these sections in §40, Kant writes: If we could assume that the mere universal communicability as such of our feeling must already carry an interest for us ... then we could explain how it is that we require from everyone as a duty, as it were, the feeling [contained] in a judgment of taste. (CJ 296/162) The 'duty' mentioned here unquestionably refers to the aesthetic imperative that makes up the normative content of the judgement of taste. Kant is saying that in order to legitimate this imperative or demand, we have to show how taste carries an interest for us. Since, in §42, Kant will go on to conclude that this interest is one that is grounded in morality, it would seem that he is committed to the proposition that the aesthetic imperative in the judgement of taste has a moral basis. This conclusion is confirmed in one last place in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant's discussion of'beauty as a symbol of morality' in §59. Here Kant says that 'only because we refer (Riicksicht) the beautiful to the morally good . . . does our liking for it include a claim to everyone else's assent' (CJ 353/228). Once again, he seems to be indicating that the normativity of taste depends upon morality. If we take the aesthetic imperative in the judgement of taste to be a single, unitary demand — say, a demand for 'agreement' in our 'judgements' — then it is difficult to reconcile Kant's conflicting characterizations of this demand. Put

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simply, a demand cannot be at once moral and at the same time independent of morality. There is, however, the possibility that the normative content of the judgement of taste is actually complex — that it contains more than one distinct imperative. On this proposal, the demand for 'agreement' in our 'judgements' is actually ambiguous. I see two possibilities here, which I shall consider in turn. On the more basic level, any such demand must pertain to the pleasure we take in such judgements. As we have seen, Kant, like Hume, is committed to the view that the judgement of taste is based upon a feeling of pleasure (or displeasure, in the case of negative judgements). This is, in fact, what Kant means by his claim that 'a judgment of taste is aesthetic'; the term 'aesthetic' pertains to sensation, and by extension to pleasure (CJ 203—204/44). So having a basis in pleasure is an essential feature of a judgement of taste, insofar as it is aesthetic. Agreement in these judgements can thus only be demanded if the pleasure on which they must be based can be demanded. Consequently, the judgement of taste must contain a 'pleasure-imperative': the demand that a particular object ought to be found pleasing, or that pleasure ought to be taken in it. This imperative captures our ordinary intuition that there is something appropriate about taking pleasure in a beautiful object, or that a pleasure is owed to the object. Kant himself appears to endorse this idea when he says that 'to say, This flower is beautiful, is tantamount to a mere repetition of the flower's own claim to everyone's liking' (my emphasis) (CJ 281-282/145). The idea that pleasure is 'owed' to a particular object is the counterpart of the idea that it can be legitimately demanded. The normative dimension of the judgement of taste must include the pleasure-imperative. But this does not necessarily exhaust its possible content. Ordinary aesthetic discourse allows for, perhaps even requires, a second 'layer' of normativity in the judgement of taste. When we say that something is beautiful, we do not merely imply that the object is an appropriate occasion for pleasure; we also imply that it is somehow important or significant, such that we owe it our attention. We might summarize this point by making the blatantly obvious observation that beauty, in addition to being a property (of the object or viewing subject), is a value. Beauty is something that we treat as if it has a certain inherent dignity and respectability; we expect deference to beauty. Beauty is something in which civilized and humane individuals are expected to take an interest. Someone with no interest in beautiful objects is usually considered to be mildly contemptible, or even somewhat morally suspect. (We might consider, in this connection, the connotations of the word 'philistine'.) Kant himself notes this fact, observing that, when a person demands agreement in taste from someone else, he 'reproaches (tadelt] them if they judge differently, and denies that they have taste, which he nevertheless demands of them as something that they ought to have' (CJ 213/56). Here Kant uses the term tadeln — reproach or rebuke — which is only appropriate within the context of a negative evaluation of someone's conduct. This evaluative dimension of taste is not obviously accounted for by the fact that beauty is a source of pleasure (even a necessary pleasure); many sources of pleasure are held in low esteem. Rather, what seems to be at


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issue is the legitimacy of a distinct 'attention-imperative'. The demand that we give our attention to an object is separable from the demand that we take pleasure in it. They constitute two distinct imperatives. Let me now sum up my position. On the interpretation being proposed here, the aesthetic imperative to 'agree' in our 'judgements' is ambiguous between two different demands. It could mean either (1) we ought to agree in the pleasure we take in the object (a feeling that forms the basis for the aesthetic judgement), or else that (2) we ought to agree in the attention we give to it (an act which makes taking pleasure in the object possible in the first place). Keeping this distinction between the pleasure-imperative and the attention-imperative in mind, we can resolve the tension between Kant's various characterizations of the normativity of taste. When Kant denies that 'exemplary necessity' is a moral necessity, he means to deny only that the pleasure-imperative is grounded in morality. When he says that it is only because we refer the beautiful to the morally good that it commands everyone's assent (and similar things), he is referring merely to the demand on our attention, the attention-imperative. A full defence of this reading would require a detailed working-out of Kant's attempts to ground each of these two distinct imperatives. I shall not attempt to complete that entire task in the present study. Instead, I shall restrict myself to the first and more basic of the two demands, the pleasure-imperative. There are two main reasons for this. The primary reason for so limiting myself is that it is only in the case of the pleasureimperative that Kant uncovers a uniquely aesthetic form of normativity. While it is true that this normativity is rooted in the norms of proper cognitive functioning, it cannot be reduced to merely the norm of successful cognition. The justification of the attention-imperative, on the other hand, is based purely on the instrumental use that morality makes of aesthetic experience. Consequently, it properly belongs, in my view, to moral philosophy rather than aesthetics. Second, I must confess that I do not find Kant's justification of the attention-imperative very convincing. This justification appeals to Kant's particular conception of morality, and even more controversially, to his linking of morality with religion. Since I do not regard these doctrines as a promising basis for an account of the value of the beautiful, I see little besides historical interest in this aspect of Kant's philosophy of taste. For these reasons, the present study deals with the pleasure-imperative alone, and abstracts from the question of the value of the experience of the beautiful. 6. Conclusions In this chapter, I have argued that Kant and Hume, despite superficial similarities, are actually engaged with importantly different projects. Both philosophers recognize a tension between two of our ordinary convictions about taste. On the one hand, taste is connected to the personal liking for an object, while, on the other hand, a judgement of taste claims more than merely personal validity. But while they both see the judgement of taste as being based on a

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universally valid pleasure, they have different conceptions of what that universal validity is. For Hume, the universal validity of taste is reducible to an empirical prediction of universal agreement in response under ideal conditions. It flows from a supposed universal human sensibility of beauty, which, it is hypothesized, would cause universal, empirically verifiable agreement among all subjects in their judgements of taste, were it not for the existence of certain mental defects in particular judges. Hume's theory depends upon an empirical claim — the claim that all 'true judges' would agree in matters of taste; it is on this claim that his hypothesis of a universal beauty-sensibility rests. The problem is that this empirical claim does not seem to admit of confirmation. Hume's positing of a 'true judge' whom we can never certainly identify gives us no reason to presume that there is a universal human sensibility of beauty. Kant, on the other hand, ought not to be read as if he understood the universal validity of the judgement of taste as involving a prediction of universal agreement in human responses under ideal conditions. If we understand him in this way, as Paul Guyer does, we are likely to share Guyer's conclusion: the project of Kant's theory of taste, which is to ground this empirical prediction a priori, is ultimately a failure. Instead, we should take seriously Kant's language that clearly suggests a purely normative reading of the universal validity of taste: when Kant speaks of the 'universality' and 'necessity' contained in a judgement of taste, he is not referring to an implicit prediction of universal agreement, as Guyer would have it, but rather to an implicit demand that everyone agree. This demand should not, however, be construed as a simple moral demand. Rather, it is a complex demand with both moral and non-moral components. The nonmoral component is of particular interest, for it is here that Kant discovers a uniquely aesthetic mode of normativity. Kant's attempt to ground the demand for aesthetic pleasure, we should expect, will look very different from Hume's attempt to ground a universally valid prediction. It is to this attempt that I now turn.

Chapter II

The Problem of Free Play

1. Overview of the Chapter In this chapter, I begin to lay the theoretical groundwork for an account of Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative. Preliminary to this account is an explication of Kant's theory of the sources of pleasure in the beautiful, which is, on my view, composed of two intimately interwoven parts. The first part is Kant's theory of the psychological process involved in the pleasurable response to the beautiful, which one might call its 'subjective pole'. The second part is his theory of what we might call the 'phenomenology' of the beautiful object, or the 'objective pole' of the beautiful. These two components of Kant's theory of taste are often treated separately, but it is my conviction that to do so is a mistake. One cannot, on my view, arrive at an adequate understanding of Kant's views about the psychology of the beautiful without considering his account of its phenomenology. To illustrate this, in this chapter I lay out the basic interpretive problems that arise in considering Kant's psychology of the beautiful, and show how even the best attempt at solving them contains troubling lacunae. In the next chapter, I shall consider additional interpretive problems that obscure our understanding of Kant's phenomenology of the object of beauty. This will set the stage for an enriched account of that phenomenology in Chapter IV, leading to a resolution of the problems. The key concept in Kant's psychology of the beautiful is his notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play. This notion is central to his attempt to explain and justify our aesthetic response to the beautiful, yet it has also long been recognized as problematic. The basic problem can be summarized in this way. Kant wants to justify the claim to universal validity of the pleasure in the beautiful by explaining this pleasure as the result of the mental state of the harmony of the faculties of imagination and understanding. Some such harmony, according to Kant, is also at the basis of empirical perception. 1 Since empirical perception is universally valid, it is arguable that the pleasure in the beautiful, which is (allegedly) based on a similar mental state, must be universally valid as well. This, at any rate, is the argumentative strategy that Kant will employ in the transcendental deduction of taste. On the other hand, the pleasurable perception of the beautiful is also obviously different from a mere empirical perception. Consequently, Kant needs a way to differentiate the

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harmony of the faculties underlying the pleasure in the beautiful from the harmony of the faculties underlying ordinary perception. His way of doing this is to claim that, in the aesthetic case of harmony, the imagination is in 'free play', whereas in the ordinary case it is not. This move gives rise, however, to a major problem in the interpretation of Kant's aesthetics: how are we to understand this metaphor of 'free play'? What does it mean for the imagination to be both free, and yet 'in harmony' with the understanding? How exactly is aesthetic perception of the beautiful like, and how is it unlike regular empirical perception? Is it sufficiently similar to empirical perception to allow the deduction of the universal validity of taste to go through, yet sufficiently dissimilar to preserve the distinction between ordinary perception and perception of the beautiful? These are the main questions that an account of the free harmony of the faculties must strive to answer. In what follows, I examine in some detail the most frequently discussed passages in which Kant lays out his conception of this free harmony, and their background sources in his earlier theoretical writings. Drawing upon the work of Henry Allison and others, I shall outline the sort of explanation of Kant's conception of the harmony of the faculties in free play that seems to follow most directly from these sources, and raise a number of questions about the adequacy of such an explanation. The deficiencies of the preliminary interpretation of free play that I lay out here will then be addressed in the enriched account of free play provided in the succeeding chapters.

2. Introduction to the Harmony of the Faculties in Free Play The notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play is first introduced into the Critique of Aesthetic Judgmentat the end of the Second Moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful, in Section Nine. 2 This section is billed as an 'Investigation of the Question Whether in a Judgment of Taste the Feeling of Pleasure Precedes the Judging of the Object or the Judging Precedes the Pleasure' (CJ 216/61). Kant says that the 'solution of this problem is the key to the critique of taste and hence deserves full attention' (ibid.). In the dense argument that follows, he argues that there must be a 'judging (Beurteilung) of the object' which is the source of the pleasure in the beautiful (ibid.). This 'judging' is evidently distinct from the verdict that we express when we say that an object is beautiful; for Kant has already committed himself to the view that, as an aesthetic judgement, this verdict must be based on a feeling of pleasure, which therefore precedes it.3 In fact, the context makes it quite clear that the 'judging' that is the source of pleasure in the beautiful is nothing of the order of a proposition or statement. Rather, Kant is using the term 'judging' here to refer to a mental state that precedes aesthetic pleasure and is capable of accounting for the universal validity of that pleasure. 4 Kant's initial claim, then, is that there must be a universally valid mental state 'which underlies the judgment of taste as its subjective condition, and the pleasure in the object must be its consequence' (CJ 217/61). He bases this claim


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on the presumption that, without such a basis, a pleasure 'by its very nature could only have private validity' (ibid.). The thought here is presumably the same as the point made in the First Moment (cited in the Introduction and the last chapter) that pleasure is unique among mental states in having a reference only to the subject, and not to the object. Kant's next step is to argue that the basis in question 'can be nothing other than the mental state that we find in the relation between the representational powers insofar as they refer a given representation to cognition in general' (CJ 217/61—62). Since Kant is referring to a 'given representation', the mental state in question must be the relation between the mental powers found in empirical perception. His argument for this conclusion employs a new term, 'universal communicability', that he does not explain.5 The argument proceeds as follows. (1) The pleasure that is expressed in the judgement of taste must be 'universally communicable'. (2) This pleasure must therefore be the consequence of a universally communicable mental state. (3) 'Nothing, however, can be communicated universally expect cognition, as well as representation insofar as it pertains to cognition' (CJ 217/61). (4) The judgement of taste has a 'merely subjective determining basis, i.e., one that does not involve a concept of the object' (ibid.). (5) Therefore, its basis can be nothing other than the mental state in which the cognitive faculties 'are in free play, because no determinate concept restricts them to a particular rule of cognition' (CJ 217/62). This argument concludes that the state underlying pleasure in the beautiful must be the harmony of the faculties in free play, and does so from the combination of two supposed facts. First, because this pleasure is universal, Kant supposes that it can only be based on a state related to cognition.^ Second, because the state on which the judgement of taste is based is revealed through a feeling, rather than through a rule or concept, it cannot actually be a cognition, nor can its universality be derived from the universality of a concept. What the combination of these two facts requires is a mental state that is akin to cognition, without actually being cognition. Free play, as Kant describes it, fits the bill. It involves the interaction of the imagination and the understanding, which are the two faculties whose cooperation is required for cognition. In cognition, the imagination is required to 'combine the manifold of intuition', while the understanding provides 'the unity of the concept uniting the representations' (ibid.). However, in free play, Kant says, these two faculties do not involve the unification of representations under a concept, but rather a 'reciprocal harmony' which 'can reveal itself only through sensation' (CJ 219/63). He equates this 'sensation' with the 'quickening (Belebung] of the two powers . . . to an activity that is indeterminate but . . . yet nonetheless accordant: the activity required for cognition in general' (ibid.). Kant summarizes all of this in the idea of the 'facilitated play of the two mental powers (imagination and understanding) quickened (belebten) by their reciprocal harmony' (ibid.). The notion of free play is thus evidently intended to provide a link between cognition, on the one side, and aesthetic pleasure, on the other. This is the link that will supply the basis for the universal validity of pleasure in the beautiful.

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Unfortunately, the description of free play in §9 can hardly be said to provide us with a clear view of this link. The obscurity that we find in these passages is due to a significant extent to their evident presupposition of a theory of cognition that they do not elaborate. For a fuller account of this theory, we must turn to other sources. In §9, Kant describes the harmony of the faculties as an activity that is 'required for cognition in general' (CJ 219/63). This description alludes to the fact that the notion of the harmony between the faculties is central to the transcendental psychological theory of empirical perception put forth in the Critique of Pure Reason.1 This psychological theory is referred to explicitly in an important passage in the 'First Introduction' to the Critique of Judgment, Section VII. 8 There Kant informs his readers that: Every empirical concept requires three acts of the spontaneous cognitive power: (1) apprehension (apprehensio) of the manifold of intuition; (2) comprehension (^usammenfassung) of this manifold, i.e., synthetic unity of the consciousness of this manifold, in the concept of an object (apperceptio comprehensiva]', (3) exhibition (exhibitio], in intuition, of the object corresponding to this concept. For the first of these acts we need imagination; for the second understanding; for the third, judgment . . . (FI 220/408) Kant is here obscurely referring to the necessary requirements for the simultaneously conceptual and perceptual grasp of an empirical object. This grasp requires the apprehension of a manifold of sensible intuition, the comprehension of this manifold in a single consciousness, and, corresponding to this unified consciousness, the exhibiting (or presenting) of a unified object to the mind. These, according to Kant's theory, are the cognitive processes involved in every act of empirical perception. They require the cooperation — the harmony, in other words — of the imagination and understanding (and judgement). 9 These processes, however, are also involved in what Kant here calls 'an aesthetic judgment of reflection' — that is, a judgement of taste (FI 221/409). According to him, this aesthetic type of judgement has its own harmony of the faculties, which he describes as follows: if the form of an object given in empirical intuition is of such a character that the apprehension, in the imagination, of the object's manifold agrees with the exhibition of a concept of the understanding (which concept this is being indeterminate), then the imagination and understanding are — in mere reflection — in mutual harmony, a harmony that furthers the task of these powers. (FI 221/408-409) This is a rich and evocative passage that holds out the promise of clarifying the notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play — z/~we can first achieve clarity regarding the details of the psychological processes of 'apprehension' and 'exhibition', so that we can see how they might be in agreement or not. For this,


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we must turn to the First Critique. But evidently the notion of'mere reflection' is also crucial here. For an account of this notion, we must turn to Kant's Logic. In the next section, I undertake the task of examining these essential texts.

3. Background to Free Play The mention of 'three acts of the spontaneous cognitive power' in the First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment calls to mind the 'threefold synthesis that is necessarily found in all cognition' that Kant describes in the 'A' Edition version of the transcendental deduction of the categories in the Critique of Pure Reason (A 97; 228). The account of this threefold synthesis is intended to advance the general task of the deduction, which is to show that the a priori or 'pure' concepts of the understanding are 'a priori conditions on which the possibility of experience depends' (A 96; 227). The deduction proceeds by first investigating what Kant calls 'the subjective sources that comprise the a priori foundations for the possibility of experience' (A 97; 227). These 'subjective sources' are the psychological processes by which the mind cognizes empirical objects. The ultimate goal of the A-Deduction is to show that these 'subjective sources' make cognition itself possible. For our present purposes, it is Kant's initial treatment of the threefold synthesis that is most relevant, for he begins the A-Deduction with an account of how these sources of cognition function at the empirical level, that is, how they relate to empirically given representations. The transcendental treatment of the threefold synthesis examines the relation between our cognitive faculties and objects of experience in general.10 The key notion in Kant's account of these processes is synthesis. According to his general definition of this notion, 'synthesis' refers to 'the action of putting different representations together with each other and comprehending their manifoldness in one cognition' (A 77/B 103; 210). On Kant's view, every object of experience involves a synthesis or combination of a manifold of representations to form a 'unity' (A 99; 229). Kant justifies this view about the necessity of synthesis on the grounds that, if'every individual representation were entirely foreign to the other, as it were isolated and separated from it, then there would never arise anything like cognition, which is a whole of compared and connected representations' (A 97; 227—228). In other words, actual knowledge or 'objective' cognition, as opposed to the mere 'subjective play' of discrete representations, depends upon connecting various representations to one another, or putting them together so that they form an integrated unit. 'Synthesis' is Kant's term for this mental process of puttingtogether. He views synthesis as an active process, requiring 'spontaneous' mental faculties of understanding and imagination in addition to the passive, receptive faculty of sensibility, through which we first receive representations. The process of empirical cognition has, according to Kant, three distinct layers or 'moments', and is, consequently, termed a 'threefold synthesis'. In expositing these three moments, Kant proceeds regressively, with each

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successive layer of synthesis considered as a condition of the possibility of the previous one. In reverse order of logical priority, these three syntheses are those of 'apprehension in intuition', 'reproduction in imagination' and 'recognition in concept' (A 98-102; 228-230). u First Kant considers the synthesis of apprehension in intuition. 'Intuition' is his term for that through which cognition relates immediately to objects' (A 19/ B 33; 155). In human beings, this immediate relation 'takes place only insofar as the object is given to us'; and objects are given to us only 'by means of sensibility' (ibid.). An intuition, in sum, is the mind's immediate and receptive relating to an object through a sensible impression (sensation). Kant also notes that every intuition 'contains a manifold [of representations] in itself (A 99; 228). In other words, every sensible intuition contains an inner complexity and articulation of parts, and can be analysed into component elements. A further basic feature of Kant's understanding of human sensible intuitions is their occurrence in time, c as that in which they must all be ordered, connected, and brought into relations' (ibid.). We always perceive sensations in time, or successively. To distinguish the elements in a manifold of intuition, therefore, the mind must 'distinguish the time in the succession of impressions on one another' (ibid.). In other words, I must be aware that and how each representation occurred prior or subsequent to another preceding representation. However, in order for unity to come from the manifold of successive impressions, they must be 'run through' and 'taken together' as 'in one representation' (A 99; 229). The mind, that is, must be capable of comprehending at once the entire series of successively occurring impressions. This 'running through' and 'taking together' is what Kant calls the 'synthesis of apprehension'. Apprehension, however, presupposes a synthesis of reproduction. That is, it presupposes that the preceding impressions are reproducedwhen the mind proceeds to succeeding ones. Kant observes that in order to cognize the drawing of a line, or the time from one noon to the next, T must necessarily first grasp these manifold representations one after the other' (A 102; 230). However, if I were always to lose the preceding representations (the first parts of the line, the preceding parts of time, or the successively represented units) from my thoughts and not reproduce them when I proceed to the following ones, then no whole representation and none of the previously mentioned thoughts [i.e., of the parts of a line, of the time between noons] . . . could ever arise. (ibid.) The 'reproduction' involved here is the representation of impressions that were once, but are no longer, directly sensed or intuited. This function is assigned to the imagination (Einbildungskrqft), which is, according to Kant, 'the faculty for representing an object even without its presence in intuition' (B 151; 256). The imagination, in his view, is essential to our ability to represent to ourselves objects that can be directly intuited only as a succession of discrete parts as unities or wholes. Such objects include not only lines and times of day (the two examples


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Kant mentions in the passage above), but also, presumably, three-dimensional objects, of which I can only get a complete idea by successively observing their different sides, one at a time. In order, that is, to get a complete representation of a three-dimensional object at any given time, I must rely on my imagination to 'fill in' the sides that I am not presently intuiting. This is apparently what Kant means when he speaks of a manifold of intuition necessarily being 'run through' and 'taken together' in our apprehension of it. Apprehension thus essentially presupposes reproduction. This synthesis of reproduction is conditioned in turn by a further synthesis, that of 'recognition in a concept' (A 103; 230). According to Kant, merely reproducing the various parts of an object in the imagination is not enough to grant me a complete, unified representation of it. In addition to this, I must also recognize that these elements belong together. He writes that 'without consciousness that that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain' (ibid.). That is, I must recognize that my representations all belong to the same thing, otherwise I will not cognize a whole object by means of them; my various representations will instead remain disconnected, discrete elements in my stream of consciousness. What is needed is something to unify these various representations. On Kant's view, what performs this unifying function is a concept. Kant appears to conceive of the notion of a concept in two interrelated ways: (1) as a unified or self-identical consciousness, and (2) as a rule. A concept is first described as 'the one consciousness that unifies the manifold that has been successively intuited, and then also reproduced, into one representation' (A 103; 231). In other words, I recognize the various representations involved in a synthesis of reproduction as belonging to a single, unitary object by relating them all to a single, unitary act or instance of consciousness. This does not explain, however, what constitutes this single consciousness (or, perhaps more precisely, what unifies it); nor does it explain the act by which I relate the various representations in the manifold to it. Here is where the second aspect of Kant's notion of a concept comes in. The concept — the unity of consciousness — is achieved through the rule-governed (or law-like) synthetic act of constituting an object of representation (A 105; 231). This is what Kant seems to be saying, at any rate, in the following passage: Thus the original and necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself is at the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of all appearances in accordance with concepts, i.e., in accordance with rules that not only make them necessarily reproducible, but also thereby determine an object for their intuition. (A 108; 233) As I read this passage, Kant is asserting that a concept, which is a unified consciousness, is actualized or brought into being through a mental act that, when considered abstractly and formally, rather than as a concrete act, can be viewed as a rule that guides and structures the process of reproduction. This rule

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is the static and 'reified' expression of a dynamic unifying activity of consciousness. By this activity, consciousness brings about a 'synthesis of appearances' — i.e., an object of perception. At the same time, however, it also brings about its own unity (as a single, unified consciousness). As an example, Kant considers the mathematical concept of a triangle. This concept, on his view, can be regarded abstractly as a particular rule for 'drawing' (in thought) three straight lines, one in accordance with which an object 'can always be exhibited' (A 105; 231—232). In other words, the concept 'triangle', as Kant conceives of it, can be considered as a rule that says something like this: 'Draw three straight lines that intersect at exactly three points.' When this rule is followed by the imagination, a particular structure of successive sensible impressions will always result. The concept, viewed concretely and dynamically, rather than abstractly and statically, is the law-like mental act that unifies these impressions into one integral figure, which it does by governing the synthesis of the imagination in a regular fashion. A concept can thus be characterized as 'a function of synthesis according to a rule' (A 105; 231). But in this act of drawing the triangle, consciousness also actualizes itself as a unified consciousness — i n this case, as the unified consciousness of a triangle. In sum, Kant's position is that, when the imagination acts in accordance with this 'rule', it — the 'rule', which, considered dynamically, is an act of consciousness — not only produces a unified object, but also, and simultaneously, a unified consciousness of the object. The process of conceptualization, on Kant's theory, is thus a 'spontaneous' process whereby consciousness unifies both itself and a manifold of intuition — in the selfsame mental act. The synthesis of recognition in a concept in this way serves as the condition of the reproductive synthesis of the imagination. The regressive account in 'A' of a 'threefold synthesis' necessary for all empirical cognition shows the imagination to be in harmony with the understanding in that it engages in a process of reproduction that is conditioned by and serves the understanding's objective of conceptualizing objects. This account, however, does not exhaust the view of the harmony of the faculties presented in the transcendental deduction. In both the 'A' and 'B' versions, Kant outlines a, further synthesis, which in 'B' he describes as the 'figurative' synthesis (B 151; 256). 12 The positing of this synthesis is evidently intended to explain how an a priori or 'pure' concept of the understanding can serve as a rule guiding the empirical synthesis described above. For this guidance to occur, Kant claims, a figurative synthesis is necessary. The figurative synthesis is a 'synthesis of the manifold of sensible intuition', and is distinguished from 'that [synthesis] which would be thought in the mere category in regard to the manifold of intuition in general, and which is called combination of the understanding' (B 151; 256). Both of these syntheses are claimed by Kant to be 'transcendental', meaning that they are a priori and necessary conditions of the possibility of empirical objects (ibid.). The difference between the two types of synthesis is that the one, but not the other, takes into account the unique features of our human form of sensible intuition. Kant writes that, although the pure concepts of the understanding are related to 'objects of intuition in general', they


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do not determine 'whether this intuition is our own or some other but still sensible one' (B 150; 256). That is, they do not appear to pertain specifically to a power of intuition that has the forms of space and time (a spatiotemporal sensibility), which, as Kant has argued in the Transcendental Aesthetic, is what distinguishes our human form of intuition. This raises the problem (to Kant's mind at least) of how the purely intellectual synthesis which is thought in the pure concepts can relate to, or provide the rules for, the sensible synthesis of an empirical object.13 Kant's answer is to say that there must be an intermediate synthesis, which is the figurative synthesis. The figurative synthesis is also called 'the transcendental synthesis of the imagination' (B 151, 256). The responsibility for this synthesis is assigned to the imagination because of its unique twofold capacity. On the one hand, it 'belongs to sensibility', and therefore is suited to affecting a sensible synthesis (B 151; 257). The imagination, that is, is distinguished from the understanding in that it produces concrete sensible representations — images — rather than abstract intellectual ones. On the other hand, the imagination is also distinguished from the merely passive capacity of sensation. Imagining is like the understanding in that it 'is still an exercise of spontaneity' (ibid.). That is, it is an active, self-caused faculty. This is what makes it suited to affect a transcendental synthesis, which is something a merely passive faculty like sensation could never do. Its role in affecting the figurative synthesis thus implies a new power of the imagination. No longer can the imagination be conceived as merely reproductive. The figurative synthesis requires a productive imagination. Kant writes that 'insofar as the imagination is spontaneity, I also occasionally call it the productive imagination, and thereby distinguish it from the reproductive imagination whose synthesis is subject solely to empirical laws, namely those of association' (B 152; 257). Kant understands the reproductive function of the imagination to be a passive process that is determined mechanically as a result of empirical conditions. The course of our experience, that is, conditions us to have certain expectations and to imaginatively anticipate certain experiences. For example, because I have always experienced three-dimensional objects, such as the chair I am sitting on, to have a bottom side, I am psychologically predisposed or conditioned to imagine that this chair too has a bottom side — even though I am now only actually directly sensing its top side. Kant makes the point that the reproductive synthesis depends upon the association of appearances (A 121; 239). The mechanical reproduction of appearances occurs because I am conditioned to associate certain appearances (or representations) with certain others — for instance, the top side of three-dimensional objects with a bottom side. This does not mean, however, that the possibility of the synthesis of reproduction is entirely accounted for in purely empirical terms. Reproduction ultimately requires a transcendental ground. Kant observes that the association of appearances occurs only because there is an 'affinity of appearances' (A 122; 240). This term refers to the fact that appearances themselves occur with sufficient regularity in the course of our experience to make association possible. Association itself presupposes that appearances are 'associable'. If my experience

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did not contain any regularity, but were instead entirely random and chaotic, I would never form any imaginative associations of certain appearances with others. For instance, if sometimes three-dimensional objects had bottom sides, and sometimes they did not, I would not be conditioned to make this particular reproductive synthesis of representations. Or as Kant writes, 'if cinnabar were now red, now black, now light, now heavy . . . my empirical imagination would never even get the opportunity to think of heavy cinnabar on the occasion of the representation of the color red' (A 101; 229). If experience is based on a synthesis of reproduction conditioned by the psycho-mechanics of association, then the possibility of association in turn is based upon the affinity of appearances. This affinity is, on Kant's account, 'a necessary consequence of a synthesis in the imagination that is grounded a priori on rules' (A 123; 240). Affinity can only be accounted for, on his view, by the action of the pure understanding, which imposes its categories upon appearances. Since the understanding is a merely intellectual capacity, however, it cannot affect appearances directly. In order to bring about a figurative synthesis, it must employ the mediating faculty of the imagination. The imagination, therefore, plays an essential role in accounting for the affinity of appearances. It cannot, however, be the reproductivefunction of the imagination that accounts for the affinity, because this function presupposes it. Consequently, Kant posits an additional function of the imagination, its productive function. The figurative synthesis, then, is an effect of the productive imagination. But what kind of effect is it? What is the productive imagination doing when it affects a figurative synthesis? While there is considerable obscurity surrounding the nature of the figurative synthesis, it seems plausible to connect it with what Kant calls the 'schematism of the pure concepts', which contains the doctrine of the transcendental schemata (A 137/B 176; 271). This connection seems to be strongly suggested, at least, by Kant's own characterizations of the transcendental schemata. First, a transcendental schema, like the figurative synthesis, is described as 'always only a product of the imagination', and specifically, of the 'pure a priori imagination' (A 140/B 179; 273 and A 142/B 181; 274). Second, and again like the figurative synthesis, the transcendental schema is described by Kant as a 'third thing', or 'mediating representation', that links the pure concepts to objects of empirical intuition (A 138/B 177; 272). Since we lack a clear, independent account in the Critique of Pure Reason of what the figurative synthesis is, it seems reasonable to take Kant to be providing this in the schematism chapter. How, then, are we to understand the nature and functioning of the transcendental schemata? While the interpretation of this notion is controversial, Kant appears to imply that the schema is an image of some sort, hence intuitive in character.14 At the same time, however, it contains a sort of universality, which gives it a kinship with concepts. Though a product of the imagination, and hence in some sense an image, a transcendental schema is nevertheless no specific image, but rather 'a general procedure of the imagination for providing a concept with its image' (B 179—180; 273). Because all our empirical intuitions


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occur in time, the procedure in question involves 'translating' the pure concepts into temporal terms. For example, we 'translate' the category of substance into temporal terms by equating it with 'the persistence of the real in time': i.e., in order to conceptualize the empirical manifold as 'substance', we imagine an unchanging, permanent reality that underlies all successively occurring changes (A 144/B 183; 275). Kant gives similar accounts of the schemata of the other categories of quantity, reality, negation, causality, and so forth (A 142—145/B 182—184; 274—275). The various transcendental schemata in this way give, a priori, the intuitive forms that any empirical intuition must have. Here we can see another instance of the harmony of the faculties. In its schematizing function, the imagination provides the original templates into which all of our empirical perceptions must fit. This schematizing function, as Kant conceives of it, is performed entirely for the sake of the understanding and its need to think objects in accordance with the categories. Because of this need, there must be a means of linking the categories with sensible things. As mediating representations, the schemata provide this link. The imagination performs an a priori and transcendental role in producing these schemata, whereby it enacts a 'figurative synthesis'. In enacting this figurative synthesis, the imagination serves the understanding by enabling the latter's a priori rules (concepts) to govern our (synthetic) apprehension of intuitive representations as empirical objects. Although the issue is famously controversial, I believe that Kant's position on the relation of the imagination and the understanding is fundamentally consistent in the two versions of the deduction. The understanding and the imagination are 'in harmony' in the mental activity of empirical perception in the sense that the imagination 'works up' the elements of the sensible manifold in accordance with the rules provided by the understanding. This harmony enables the process of synthetic cognition of empirical objects to occur. The transcendental deduction of the categories does not, however, provide the complete picture of the relationship between the faculties in cognition. According to the view presented in the deduction, the imagination in its synthetic activity follows a concept, which is a rule that is provided by the understanding. What this suggests is a picture according to which the concept must psychologically preexist the synthesis that results in an object of experience. How else, after all, could the imagination follow this rule in carrying out its activity, unless the rule existed prior to the activity? But this picture seems to lead to a problematic result, for it suggests that, in their cognitive role at least, concepts must inevitably preexist experience. What, then, about empirical concepts — concepts which, by definition, do not precede experience? Kant of course acknowledges that, in addition to pure or a priori concepts of the understanding, we possess concepts that are a posteriori, or acquired from experience.15 The cognitive psychology of the deduction makes it deeply puzzling, however, not only what role there can be in cognition for empirical concepts, but even how they can arise in the first place.16 The puzzle can be put in the form of a dilemma. Either empirical concepts govern the synthesis of reproduction, or they

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do not. If they do, then it would seem that they must precede that synthesis, and hence be a priori. In that case, however, they would obviously not be empirical concepts. On the other hand, if empirical concepts do not govern the synthesis of reproduction, then it seems that all reproduction must be guided directly by the categories alone. But this conclusion is problematic in its own right. The problem is that the categories — such as the concepts 'substance' and 'cause' — appear to be too general and abstract to serve as an immediate rule for the synthesis of the empirical manifold. Hannah Ginsborg makes the point that 'we cannot perceive or imagine something as, say, a substance tout court'.11 Every substance that we can perceive or imagine, in other words, is a particular kind of substance: a dog, or kangaroo, or tomato, for instance. But this implies that an empirical concept must also be involved in every application of the concept of substance to the empirical manifold; when I apply the concept 'substance' to an intuition, I must always also be applying the concept 'dog', or whatever particular substance-concept is appropriate, to it as well. Without the empirical concept, it is impossible for me to apply the category, or, alternatively, for the imagination to use the category as a rule of synthesis. So it would seem that reproduction cannot be guided by the categories alone. In short, the cognitive theory presented in the deduction seems to leave us with a deeply unsatisfying account of the role of empirical concepts in cognitive experience. Transforming this incomplete account into a richer and more adequate one turns out, unsurprisingly, also to reveal a more complex picture of the harmony of the faculties. A principal source for this enriched account is Kant's logic lecture course transcribed and edited by G. B. Jasche. In his lectures, Kant presents an independent account of the origin of empirical concepts, or, in his words, of'the generation of a concept out of given representations' (JL 93/591). This account suggests that the imagination is capable of a synthetic activity that does not presuppose a preexisting rule of the understanding, even though it is still, in some sense, 'in accord' with it. The imagination possesses a capacity to schematize without a concept', i.e., to effect a synthesis of the manifold of intuition which can be subsumed under a rule of the understanding prior to any such rule being given. This capacity of the imagination is a necessary condition for the acquisition of empirical concepts, and hence it is necessary for empirical cognition itself. In §6 of the Jasche Logik, Kant considers 'the logical actus of the understanding through which concepts are generated as to their form' (JL 94/592). The 'form' of concepts he equates with their universality, i.e. their characteristic of being 'a representation of what is common to several objects' (ibid.). In other words, it is essential to every concept that it possesses generality or commonality — that it represents or 'covers' many individual representations. It is for this reason that Kant claims that 'it is a mere tautology to speak of universal or common concepts'; a concept, by definition, is a 'universal' or a 'common' representation (ibid.). The key question, however, is how this distinctive feature of 'universality' or 'commonality' first arises in the case of empirical concepts.


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Kant maintains that this 'form' arises through the three 'logical acts' of comparison, reflectionandabstraction(JL 94/592). He illustrates the process through the following example: I see, e.g., a spruce, a willow, and a linden. By first comparing these objects with one another I note that they are different from one another in regard to the trunk, the branches, the leaves, etc.; but next I reflect on that which they have in common among themselves, trunk, branches, and leaves themselves, and I abstract from the quantity, the figure, etc., of these; thus I acquire a concept of a tree. (JL 94-5/592) As it stands, this account seems vulnerable to the charge of circularity. It presupposes that I have the capacity to 'notice' differences among the various types of trees and separate these differences out from the commonalities among them. Furthermore, in the present context, it must be presupposing that I have the capacity to do this without possessing the concept of a tree. But how can this be? In the absence of the concept of'tree', how do I know to direct my attention to the trunk, branches and leaves, rather then other features of the spruce, the willow and the linden that are not distinctive of trees (e.g., the height or colour)? What is the psychological mechanism by means of which I recognize the relevant elements of commonality, if it is not by means of a concept (that I already possess)?18 To answer this question, one might appeal to Kant's account of the schematic function of the imagination.19 We have seen that, according to Kant, the imagination has the capacity, not just to reproduce past sense impressions, but also to produce transcendental schemata — to produce, that is, abstract yet intuitive 'patterns' which represent the necessary form of empirical objects. Given that the imagination has this capacity, one could reasonably suppose that it is also capable of generating empirical schemata: these would be abstract yet intuitive patterns which represent what is common among several individual empirical intuitions. An empirical schema could perhaps be formed through a process of imaginatively comparing various representations. Since it would be imaginative and intuitive, rather than intellectual, such a comparison would not necessarily have to presuppose conceptual knowledge of which features were relevant to a concept. It could proceed by some purely intuitive process, such as the imaginative superimposition of reproduced impressions.20 For example, the empirical schema of a tree could be formed by a process of superimposing reproductions of a spruce, a willow and a linden (along with whatever else) onto one another in the imagination. The schema would result simply from the mind noticing the 'darkest' area of overlap that resulted from this superimposition. By abstracting from everything in the reproduced impressions except this area of overlap, the mind would be left with a schematic image of a tree. The problem of circularity is avoided in this case, since one would not need to know beforehand which features would produce the resulting overlap. The possession of something like an empirical schema of a tree might therefore explain, in a non-questionbegging way, how the mind acquires empirical concepts. It could potentially

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explain, in other words, how one could recognize commonality among a spruce, a willow and a linden without actually possessing the concept of a tree. Once this recognition occurs through the assistance of a schema, an empirical concept may be formed on that basis. Admittedly, this account of how, for Kant, the mind acquires empirical concepts is somewhat speculative. If, however, it (or something like it) is right, then the imagination must evidently possess a capacity to schematize without being governed directly by a preexisting concept. It must possess the capacity to be 'free', in this sense, of the immediate dictates of the understanding. At the same time, however, the imagination must possess a certain inherent tendency to be in harmony with the needs of the understanding, insofar as, in producing empirical schemata, it spontaneously adheres to the understanding's need to bring an intuitive manifold under a conceptual rule. Thus, we may tentatively conclude from this account of the requirements of empirical concept formation that there is a third way in which the faculties are in harmony. We can now summarize the results of this section. There are at least three ways, according to Kant, that the imagination harmonizes with the understanding in the cognitive process. First, there is the synthesis of reproduction. Next there is the transcendental figurative synthesis, whereby transcendental schemata are provided for the pure concepts of the understanding. Finally, there are the empirical schemata provided by the imagination in the process of empirical concept formation. We can now turn to the question of how this background allows us to interpret the notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play.

4. A Preliminary Interpretation of Free Play: Allison The foregoing account of Kant's theory of empirical perception provides us with materials for further explaining his notion of'free play'. The crucial aspect of this theory is the imagination's capacity to schematize without the guidance of a concept. We have seen a respect in which, in Kant's view, this occurs in everyday perception, where the imagination, in order to assist the understanding in deriving empirical concepts, must perform just such a function. We might imagine that, in the aesthetic perception of the beautiful, something similar occurs. That is, we might conclude that, in free play, where once again the imagination spontaneously conforms to the needs of the understanding, the product of the imagination is once again a schema — in this case, the schema of the beautiful. Kant appears to confirm this conclusion in two important passages in the Third Critique. Explicit confirmation is found in §35, in which he states that 'the imagination's freedom consists precisely in its schematizing without a concept' (CJ 287/151). More illustrative, however, is a passage in the 'General Comment on the First Division of the Analytic'. Early in this 'comment', Kant declares that 'in a judgment of taste, the imagination must be taken in its freedom' (CJ


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240/91). This is by now a familiar claim. The significance of the passage, however, stems from the fact that Kant goes on to enlarge on this claim in a highly suggestive fashion: This implies, first of all, that this power is here not taken as reproductive, where it is subject to the laws of association, but as productive and spontaneous (as the originator of chosen forms of possible intuitions). Moreover, although in apprehending a given object of sense the imagination is tied to a determinate form of this object and to that extent does not have free play (as it does in poetry), it is still conceivable that the object may offer it just the sort of form in the combination of its manifold as the imagination, if it were left to itself [and] free, would design in harmony with the understanding's lawfulness in general. (CJ 240—241/91) As I propose to read him, Kant is here alluding to the process whereby the imagination forms the schema of the beautiful. That it is the imagination's schematising function that is signalled by Kant's stipulation that, in a judgement of taste, it is the productive, rather than the reproductive imagination that is acting. The productive imagination is, as we have seen, the power that has schematizing capacity. Moreover, it is precisely this power's cognitive (or 'quasi-cognitive') role that is at issue, for, Kant says, it is 'tied to a determinate form of [the] object'. In other words, the imagination has to work with a given manifold of intuition (this is unlike its situation with respect to poetry — or any creative art — in which the imagination can choose its materials). Its function, therefore, can only be to synthesize this given manifold. Nevertheless, the manifold 'may offer it just the sort of form' as the imagination, if'left to itself, would prefer to design. How are we to understand this claim? The process of schema-formation for Kant is, as we have seen, a process of imaginative synthesis. A crucial question here must be the relation of the synthesis that results in the schema of the beautiful to the synthesis that originally enables the mind to perceive the object itself. According to the account in the Critique of Pure Reason, it would seem that for Kant, every object that we can perceive must be 'recognized in a concept' — i.e., undergo all three steps in the 'threefold synthesis' described above. 21 This implies that the empirical perception of a manifold of intuition as an object requires bringing that manifold under a concept. In the last section, we saw that there is reason to think that this act of conceptualization involves recognizing the unified manifold as a particular kind of substance, e.g., a rose. 22 To be recognized as a rose, a manifold of intuition must, of course, be unified and reproduced in a way that conforms to the general empirical schema of a rose. Yet the present suggestion is that it must also be the occasion for another schema, the schema of beauty. Both of these schemata, so the suggestion goes, must be part of our perception or apprehension of a beautiful rose. What is the relationship of the beauty-schema to the rose-schema? A provisional answer to this question, might be the suggestion that the former schema must 'supervene' on the latter. That is, beauty is perceived as an

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'emergent' quality, or one that, rather than being simply one empirical feature or property among others, instead 'emerges' from the complex 'interaction' of the ordinary empirical features. 23 Insofar as synthesis is primarily perceived as a process of bringing unity to complexity, we can say that the schema of the beautiful adds an extra 'layer' of unified complexity to the manifold. It will take as its 'matter' many of the same sensible representations as the empirical schema for the concept 'rose', but it will unify these in its own unique way.24 We can thus understand Kant's claim that the object 'may offer it just the sort of form in the combination of its manifold' as the imagination, if'left to itself, would prefer to design as follows. The imagination has to deal with a 'determinate form' in that its object has already been subject to a synthesis according to a concept; it has been 'recognized' as, for example, a rose. Yet the imagination is not done with this manifold, for the manifold in this rose contains materials for a. further synthesis.25 This further synthesis, adding an extra layer of 'unity-in-complexity', results in the schema of the beautiful. It is presumably by means of this schema, then, that the mind indeterminately senses the object as beautiful. 26 This conception of what the imagination's freedom in the judgement of taste involves provides us with a way of explaining what Kant meant in the key passage from the First Introduction cited above, in which he describes the harmony of the faculties in free play as a state in which the 'apprehension' of an object's manifold by the imagination agrees with the 'exhibition' of a concept of the understanding. A plausible elucidation of this passage, influenced by the sorts of considerations just adduced, has been given by Henry Allison. Allison glosses the passage in question as follows: the imagination, under the general direction of the understanding, provides an apprehended content that presents itself as containing 'something universal in itself,' that is, something that appears as if it were the schema or exhibition of an 'as yet undetermined concept,' albeit no concept in particular. In such a state, which corresponds with the norm required for cognition without itself amounting to cognition, we might think of the understanding as 'energized' to grasp the rule that seems to underlie this apprehended content, which, in turn, 'inspires' the imagination to exhibit it as fully as possible.27 On this reading, the act of 'apprehension' is the imagination's presentation to the mind of a schema, which, as we have seen, is a schematic image or abstract pattern of features. Because this pattern contains elements that are (at least potentially) common to many objects, Allison characterizes it as containing 'something universal in itself. This apprehension constitutes, in some sense, the 'exhibition (Darstellung) of a concept'. It is, in other words, the presentation of an object to the mind that is an instance or exemplification of a concept.28 This is not, however, the exhibition of any particular, determinate concept, but rather only an 'as yet undetermined concept'. What are we to take this to mean? Allison explains:


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the imagination does not exhibit the schema of a specific concept under which the object can be subsumed in a determinate cognitive judgment. Instead, it exhibits a pattern or order (form), which suggests an indeterminate number of possible schematizations (or conceptualizations), none of which are fully adequate, thereby occasioning further reflection or engagement with the object.29 The schema of the beautiful for Allison is thus something that is essentially conceptually indeterminate; it is not the schema of any specific, individual concept, but rather something that merely suggests an indeterminate number of specific schematizations.30 The imagination that produces such a schema is consequently in 'free play', because it is not restricted in its productive activity by any particular concept. Yet, the imagination still produces a presentation that at least appears as if it were the exhibition of a concept. For this reason, one may say that the imagination in the apprehension of the beautiful is 'in harmony' with the understanding. Allison claims in addition that the 'harmony' in question admits of degrees, such that we can speak of a 'maximal' or 'ideal' sense, and a 'minimal' sense of 'harmony'. As he explains, Harmony, minimally construed, occurs whenever there is any cognitive fit between concept and intuitive representation, that is, whenever the intuition is subsumable under the concept. . . . By contrast, harmony, maximally or ideally construed, occurs when the fit between universal and particular is extremely close, that is, when the understanding's concept is not too indeterminate for the imagination and, conversely, the latter's image exhibits all the essential features thought in the concept. In that case, we can think of the two faculties working together smoothly, like two well-meshed gears with little friction, and the subsumption accordingly proceeds without difficulty.31 Allison is here attempting to address an issue that is basic to any adequate account of free play. Such an account, as noted earlier, must be able to explain how the harmony of the faculties involved in the perception of the beautiful is like, and how it is unlike, the harmony of the faculties in ordinary perception. Allison wants to claim that, in ordinary perception, what we have is merely the minimal degree of harmony; in the perception of the beautiful, by contrast, we have maximal or ideal harmony. His explanation rests upon two metaphors. In the above passage, he uses the metaphor of two gears in a machine. Two gears may be functional in allowing the machine to work, yet still 'grind' together, or be in tension with one another. The other metaphor is derived from a passage contained in a student's notes from Kant's logic lectures, in which Kant reportedly said the following: Imagination and understanding are two friends who cannot do without one another but cannot stand one another either, for one always harms the other.

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The more universal the understanding is in its rules, the more perfect it is, but if it wants to consider things in concrete then [it] absolutely cannot do without the imagination.32 Just as two gears may be functional in allowing a machine to work, yet still 'grind' against one another, so two friends (e.g., a married couple) may need each other's company, yet often generate mutual pain and distress through their interaction. This is the situation with the imagination and the understanding, insofar as, in Allison's words, they 'pull in opposite directions: the understanding toward universality and the imagination toward specificity'.33 As Allison understands Kant's point in the 'two friends' passage, the tension between the faculties is created by the fact that an image — even a schema — is by nature a particular mental representation, whereas a concept is by nature a general one. This creates the constant possibility that the understanding in its endemic quest for universality produces a concept that is too general and indeterminate to be represented adequately in concrete by any particular instance, for example, the concept of a living thing, or [the possibility that] the particular imaginatively apprehended is too idiosyncratic or atypical to represent adequately what is thought in the concept, for example, the image of a three-legged dog.34 This illustration clarifies what Allison means by a 'minimal' and a 'maximal' or 'ideal' sense of harmony. The minimal sense is the bare minimum of'meshing' of the faculties that is required to allow an act of conceptualization of a particular manifold of intuition, hence a cognition, to take place at all. Since we can recognize a three-legged dog as a dog, there is a minimal harmony of the faculties in this case. However, Allison wants to say that the case is not ideal, because a three-legged dog is idiosyncratic or atypical. This suggests that an ideal case of harmony would be one in which the imagination presented the understanding with an example that was a 'perfect' instance of a dog, or a perfect illustration of the concept 'dog'. While it is not clear exactly what Allison thinks this would be, his example suggests something like the pictures, common in dictionaries, which are intended to provide a visual illustration of a term. In contrast to Allison's three-legged dog, my copy of Webster's, for example, contains a picture of a dog next to the entry for that word, and it does indeed have four legs, as well as all of the other 'essential features' of a dog (it even labels them). The dog in the picture is sort of a generic or cartoonish mutt — it is not, for example, a poodle or a Saint Bernard or a Chihuahua. I recognize that this fact about the dog in the picture does make the process of subsumption go more smoothly — I instantly recognize that the picture is a picture of a dog. It is less clear to me, however, that the dog in the picture is a beautiful one, hence whether this sense of 'ideal' harmony corresponds to the perception of the beautiful. Whether or not it does, at least Allison's contrast between a minimal and a maximal/ideal sense of'harmony' is a clear one, and allows him to explain


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how the harmony of the faculties in free play is similar to, yet different from the harmony that is a condition of ordinary cognition. Although Allison's interpretation of the harmony of the faculties in free play seems promising, I shall nevertheless raise several questions about it in the next section. In doing so, I shall treat Allison's view as a representative or stand-in for the approach to free play that links the freedom of the imagination to its productive schematizing function. I regard this approach as basically sound, but nevertheless also see it as raising a number of new questions. I want to use Allison's reading as a starting point for raising those questions. Thus, I shall not necessarily be concerned to critique all of the particular details of his interpretation. Immediately, however, I would like to take note of the fact that there is something rather puzzling or obscure about this account. The obscurity I have in mind concerns the relation of Allison's initial characterization of the harmony of the faculties in free play as the imagination's exhibition of a schema that suggests an indeterminate number of possible conceptualizations, none of which is fully adequate, and his later description of it as involving something like an ideal conceptual subsumption. The first characterization seems to suggest that the subsumption of the schema of the beautiful under a concept (or the 'fit' of particular and universal) is anything but 'smooth' and 'without friction'. Allison suggests, that is, that a succession of conceptualizations may be possible, but that none of them will be fully adequate. On the other hand, Allison's account of maximal or ideal harmony most readily suggests something like the dictionary-illustration case in which the particular presented by the imagination is as amenable to being subsumed under a concept of the understanding as anything could be. How are we to extend this 'ideal subsumption' idea so that it covers a case in which there is no adequate subsumption? On the face of it, Allison's two accounts seem inconsistent. This is a problem, however, that is peculiar to Allison's view. More significant, to my mind, are those difficulties that seem to be endemic to all views of this type. To these I shall now turn.

5. Problems with the Preliminary Interpretation Allison's explanation of what the harmony of the faculties in free play consists in clearly advances our understanding of it. Several questions can still be raised, however, about its adequacy and completeness. An initial problem concerns the explanation of how the schema of the beautiful is produced. According to the model provided by Kant in the Logic, a schema is produced for an empirical concept through a mental act of comparison. If we use the production of a schema for an empirical concept as our model for the production of the schema of the beautiful, it would seem that we are committed to the view that the schema of the beautiful is also formed through an act of comparison. But how are we to envision the relevant comparison in the case of the beautiful? What is being compared when we are

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attending to an object to which we attribute beauty? In attempting to answer this question, it is necessary to examine Kant's definition of 'reflective judgement' in the First Introduction. Aesthetic judgement, according to Kant, is a particular exercise of our faculty of reflective judgement (or 'reflection'), which is a faculty of comparison. The comparison involved in reflection, according to Kant, is always of one of two sorts: To reflect (or consider [uberlegen]]is to hold given representations up to, and compare them with, either other representations or one's cognitive power [itself], in reference to a concept that this [comparison] makes possible. (CJ 212/400) The comparison that results in the schema of the beautiful must be either one or the other, or perhaps both, of these types. It is far from clear, however, (1) what would be involved in either type, and (2) in what sense the pertinent type of comparison is undertaken 'in reference to a concept' that it 'makes possible'. With regard to the first issue, the problem is simply that it is far from obvious how either of the sorts of comparisons mentioned by Kant could be involved in the perception of the beautiful. Let us initially consider the first possibility. Do we compare our representation of a beautiful object with other representations of objects in order to produce a schematic image of beauty? On the most straightforward analogy with the case of concept formation, we would have to be comparing beautiful objects with other beautiful objects (as we compare trees with trees). But, in that case, what feature or features of the representations are we comparing? Evidently something here must be analogous to the similar shapes of objects that make possible a schematic image in the case of empirical concept formation. Individual trees, for example, have similar shapes or features that allow us to form the schema of a tree. Are we to believe that beautiful things all have some similar shape or features as well? This hardly seems plausible. In addition, the textual evidence speaks against this first suggestion. In Section VIII of the First Introduction, Kant says that an aesthetic reflective judgement takes place 'before we attend to a comparison of the object with others' (FI 223/412). On the face of it, this seems to be saying that the comparison leading to the perception of the beautiful is not one that results from a comparison of objects. Both philosophical and textual factors, therefore, seem to tell against the first option. Perhaps then the relevant type of comparison is between the representation of the beautiful object and 'one's cognitive power itself. It is equally unclear in this case, however, how the principal model in Kant's writings for this kind of comparison could be extended to the case of aesthetic reflection. The sole obvious precedent in Kant's writings for this second type of comparison is found in the First Critique discussion of'transcendental reflection' in the section entitled 'On the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection' (A 260-292/B 316-349; 366383).35 'Transcendental reflection' is, according to Kant, 'the action through which I make the comparison of representations in general with the cognitive power in which they are situated, and through which I distinguish whether they


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are to be compared to one another as belonging to pure understanding or to pure intuition' (A 261/B317; 367). Transcendental reflection, in other words, 'compares representations with one's cognitive power' in the sense that it examines them to see if they are intellectual representations, and hence belong to the faculty of understanding, or rather intuitive representations, and hence belong to the faculty of intuition. This activity is thus concerned with the examination of the two fundamental a priori conditions or 'roots' of all our cognitions: concepts and intuitions. 36 The significance of transcendental reflection for Kant is to be located in the fact that it aims at avoiding the illusions that may result from taking intellectual representations (i.e., concepts) to be a species of sensation, or, vice versa, from taking sensitive/intuitive representations (i.e., sensuous appearances) to be a species of concepts. Transcendental reflection is critical for Kant because it is the means for avoiding the fundamental errors perpetrated, according to him, by the Lockean empiricist and Leibnizian rationalist schools of philosophy. 37 As Kant explains it, this mode of reflection proceeds through the use of four pairs of 'concepts of reflection': identity and difference, agreement and opposition, inner and outer, and matter and form (A 263—266/ B 319—322; 368—9). Kant explains how, through the employment of these concepts, one is able to distinguish between intellectual and intuitive representations. 38 While it may have a useful role to play in advancing the program of the First Critique, it is difficult to see how transcendental reflection can be understood as the model for the comparison involved in the production of the schema of the beautiful. The distance between these two mental functions seems, on the face of it, to be just about as great as it is possible to imagine. Transcendental reflection is, essentially, a specialized, 'meta-leveP, critical-philosophical endeavour, while aesthetic reflection is a general, 'object-level', more-or-less everyday process. Moreover, in transcendental reflection, we seem to be very far from the employment of reflection in the production of schemata, which has little or nothing to do with the activity of distinguishing between concepts and intuitions. The notion of transcendental reflection, therefore, does not seem to give us much more of a clue as to how aesthetic reflection might involve a comparison of a given representation with one's cognitive faculties than the notion of reflection leading to empirical concept production gave us a clue as to how aesthetic reflection might involve a comparison of representations with one another. A more promising but also more speculative suggestion is made by Allison, who proposes that what is being compared in free play is 'the actual relationship of the faculties in question with their maximal or ideal relationship'. 39 This is how Allison reads Kant in an obscure remark in the paragraph following the 'three acts' passage of the First Introduction, which reads: 'in a merely reflective judgment imagination and understanding are considered as they must relate in general in the power of judgment, as compared with how they actually relate in the case of a given perception' (FI 220/408). While Kant does not reference an 'ideal' or 'maximal' relationship here (or, indeed, aesthetic judgement at all), the

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passage is certainly compatible with this reading. The notion of a comparison of an actual perception with an ideal perception is, I believe, by far the most promising suggestion yet, but it seems to me that it remains seriously underdeveloped in Allison's account. Several problems arise here. First, this seems to be yet a third characterization of free play in addition to the other two described above. It is obviously related to the second, but is also distinct from it in that it complicates the earlier picture with the suggestion that the harmony of the faculties in free play is not itself the maximal harmony, but rather the effect of the comparison of this ideal with the minimal harmony. If this is so, then Allison owes us more of an account of what it involves than the one he gives. Second, Allison's suggestion would seem to imply that we carry around in our heads something like a representation of the ideal harmony of the faculties with which we are prepared to compare objects. As we have seen, the ideal harmony, on Allison's account, is the perfect balance of ideality and specificity, understood as 'smooth' and 'frictionless' subsumption. Do we carry with us such an ideal? If so, whence do we derive it? More importantly, is this suggestion intelligible as an ideal of the beautiful? At the end of the last section, I suggested some grounds for doubting that it is. Third and finally, in proposing the ideal of maximally frictionless subsumption as, in essence, the inner model and 'archetype' of taste, Allison overlooks Kant's own suggestion, in §17 of the published work, that the ideal of the beautiful is the 'standard idea' of the human figure, regarded as the moral symbol of the vocation of humankind. 40 Kant says that this ideal is 'the highest model, the archetype of taste . . . which everyone must generate within himself and by which he must judge any object of taste' (CJ 232/79). Nothing like Allison's ideal of subsumption is mentioned in this passage. For several reasons, then, we cannot take Allison's suggestion as a sufficient answer to the question of what the reflective comparison involves. There is another question so far left unanswered by the preliminary account of free play laid out above. The process of reflective judgement, as we have seen, always involves a comparison 'in reference to a concept that this comparison makes possible'. But what exactly does the schema of the beautiful have to do with the possibility of a concept? How does it relate to concepts? Allison's position represents the first of the two main possibilities for understanding the relationship of the schema of the beautiful and concepts: one holds that this schema is of such a nature that it can never, in principle, be brought under a concept. Allison, in his account of free play, suggests that this is a schema to which no possible conceptualization is ever 'fully adequate'. 41 One might, however, also understand this relationship somewhat differently. A second option would be the view that we merely abstract from the concept that would capture the schema, for the purposes of aesthetic reflection. The schema, on this second view, is subsumable under a concept, but aesthetic judgement does not consist in this subsumption. While the significance of this choice may not be readily apparent, it ultimately has, as I hope to show, serious consequences for the intelligibility of Kant's notion of free play. In favour of Allison's 'never-in-principle' view, one might cite Kant's


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proscription against objective principles of taste. This proscription is displayed most prominently in the title to §34 of the Third Critique, which declares that 'An Objective Principle of Taste is Impossible' (CJ 285/149). This proscription has come to be one of the most emblematic features of Kant's aesthetics, and is naturally linked with the view that the beautiful can never, in principle, be brought under a concept.42 An objective principle of taste, as Kant understands it, would be 'a principle under which, as condition, we could subsume the concept of an object and then infer that the object is beautiful' (ibid.). An objective principle of taste would, in other words, be a determinate discursive rule that could function as the major premise in a syllogism which led to a judgement of taste as its conclusion, or, alternatively, that could serve as a norm for the correct subsumption of given objects determined to fall under it.43 An objective principle of taste would therefore state a sufficient condition of beauty, proposing that all objects possessing a certain feature were necessarily beautiful (at least to some extent). For example, such a principle might state that all painterly compositions that evince a certain mathematical proportion, such as the Golden Section, are ipso facto (orpro tanto] beautiful. 44 In denying that there are objective principles of taste, Kant is making one of his most significant departures from the neoclassical tradition to which he is generally sympathetic. A commonplace of this tradition was faith in 'valid rules of composition' of the sort endorsed (albeit vaguely) by Hume. Neoclassicists differed over which purported rules were in fact valid, and whether these rules had their basis in reason or experience; but all agreed in the proposition that there were such rules. This proposition, however, Kant expressly denies. On what basis does Kant reject the possibility of objective principles of taste? The most important discussion of this view is found in §§32—34 of the Critique of Judgment, which emphasize that the existence of objective principles of taste is incompatible with the autonomy of taste. In Kant's words, 'to make other people's judgments the basis of determining one's own' — as we do when we rely for our judgement upon principles of taste handed down by the tradition — 'would be heteronomy', but 'taste lays claim merely to autonomy' (CJ 282/146). In using the term 'autonomy', Kant means to be emphasizing that the judgement of taste is based upon a law or principle that one gives oneself, rather than takes on from without. It seems to be a basic feature of Kant's phenomenology of the subjective experience of pleasure in the beautiful that this pleasure is engaged in freely. He observes that 'if someone does not find a building, a view, or a poem beautiful, then, first, he will refuse to let even a hundred voices, all praising it highly, prod him into approving of it inwardly' (CJ 284/147). This refusal is not wilful, but rather based upon the others' lack of the means of authoritative compulsion. The most relevant contrast here is with the pleasure in the good — especially the pleasure that we take in the morally good. Kant remarks that the good, like the beautiful, is often presented as the object of a universal (hence necessary) liking; but, unlike the beautiful, this is done 'by means of a concept' (CJ 213/ 56). When we witness or hear of a morally praiseworthy act — an act of charity or noble selfsacrifice, for example — we are, at least if we have a sufficiently well-formed

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character, naturally pleased. For Kant, this pleasure is conditioned by our recognition that the act is in conformity with a rational principle, and is, in a normative sense, compelled by that principle. That is, even if we are not actually pleased (perhaps because we are morally depraved, or simply depressed), there is still a respect in which it seems right to say that we ought to be pleased — that it is right and appropriate to be pleased in this case. The same is true, as I argued in Chapter I, of the pleasure in the beautiful: even if we are not actually pleased by a beautiful object, it may still be true that we ought to be pleased — that pleasure in this case is right and appropriate. Unlike the pleasure in the good, however, we cannot be 'ordered' to enjoy the beautiful by a rational principle. Principles of the kind adduced by 'Batteux or Lessing' to prove that a poem is beautiful can never compel a favourable response; if one happens actually to dislike the poem, one 'shall sooner assume that those rules of the critics are false, or at least do not apply in the present case, then allow [one's] judgment to be determined by a priori bases of proof (CJ 284—285/148). The pleasure in the beautiful is one we are under no rational obligation to engage in; it is, to that extent, a free or gratuitous liking. Consequently, it cannot be rationally compelled by bases of proof that precede our experience of the object. Kant does not, as far as I can tell, give any additional grounds for this claim about pleasure in the beautiful beyond our ordinary experience of what the basis for this pleasure is. The implications of this view for Kant's theory of taste, however, are profound. As I shall argue presently, it at least seems to lead to the conclusion that the schema of the beautiful cannot be captured by a concept. The rejection of principles of taste naturally leads one to the conclusion that the schema of the beautiful is such that it can never, in principle, be brought under a concept. For, if bringing the beautiful under a concept were possible, would that not also imply that there was a norm of correct subsumption? And would not such a norm constitute a principle of taste? If, for example, the schema of the beautiful could be captured by the concept of a certain mathematical proportion (e.g., the Golden Section), then this would seem to entail that, in order to correctly judge something to be beautiful, one ought to see if it conforms to that mathematical proportion. This, however, would make it a principle that, in order to be beautiful, an object must conform to the proper mathematical formula. Supposing that the schema of the beautiful can be brought under a concept therefore seems equivalent to positing a sufficient condition for the existence of a principle of taste. In order to avoid positing such a principle, then, it would seem that one must eschew the conceptualizability of the beautiful as well. Kant's proscription on principles of taste thus strongly suggests that Allison's view is correct. On the other hand, there are at least two serious problems with the 'never-in-principle' view. The first problem emerges from Kant's claim that the activity of free play furthers the tasks of each of the two faculties (FI 221/409). Alternatively, Kant says that free play is 'purposive' or 'subjectively purposive' (ibid.). We can infer from this that Kant believes that free play is purposive for the understanding as well as the imagination, or that it furthers the task of the


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understanding. The objective of the understanding, as we have seen, is to bring a manifold of intuition under a conceptual rule. How are we to understand the notion of a not-yet-conceptualized schema furthering this goal? Perhaps the most obvious response to this question would be to say that the schema, though in fact unconceptualized, is at least Jit or suited for being conceptualized. In the case of empirical concept formation, we can understand this 'fitness for being conceptualized' of a schema in reference to its having features that can eventually be brought under a determinate concept (for example, the concept 'tree'). But this sort of explanation of the subjective purposiveness of a schema for the understanding is obviously barred if we stipulate that no concept in principle could capture our schema. How, then, are we to make sense of the subjective purposiveness for the understanding in this case? It seems that if there can never be an act of conceptualization — not even eventually — the understanding's essential purpose is in fact being thwarted. But if that is so, how can we say that the schema is 'purposive' for the understanding? It seems, for all intents and purposes, to be hindering, rather than furtheringthe objective of this faculty. 45 We can pose the same problem in terms of \hepleasurability of this experience, which Kant closely associates with its 'subjective purposiveness'. For example, Kant writes that the relation between the faculties brings about a sensation (Empfindung) that 'amounts to subjective purposiveness (without a concept), and hence is connected with the feeling of pleasure (als subjective ^jjueckmdssigkeit (ohne Begriff) mil dem Gefiihle der Lust verbunden 1st)' (FI 224/413).46 Why connect subjective purposiveness with pleasure in this way? The suggestion here seems to be that the pleasure in the beautiful is principally due to the way in which the activity of free play furthers the objectives of our two higher cognitive faculties. The furthering of the faculties' distinctive activities is both 'purposive' for the subject, and felt to be so via the sensation of this furthering, which is experienced (subjectively) as a pleasure. 47 But this view of the result of free play is hard to make sense of if free play involves the production of a schema that can never, in principle, be conceptualized. Why should the contemplation of such a schema be pleasurable for the understanding, rather than disagreeably frustrating? We saw that, in §9, Kant equates the sensation of pleasure with a 'quickening' (or enlivening) of the faculties. Attempting to give an account of what the 'quickening' of the understanding could be caused or motivated by in the situation of free play, Allison suggests that it is the challenge of conceptualizing the schema presented to it by the imagination. As he describes the 'mechanism' involved, 'the imagination in its free play stimulates the understanding by occasioning it to entertain fresh conceptual possibilities, while, conversely, the imagination, under the general direction of the understanding, strives to conceive new patterns of order'.48 The situation Allison describes does indeed seem to be one that might conceivably energize the understanding. But if he is right that no concept is ever adequate to the understanding's needs, this energy all seems wasted, going for naught. Expending energy for a purpose only to fail in fulfilling that purpose does not seem to be a description of a pleasurable activity. Even if, in the short term, the understanding would be pleasantly

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energized by the challenge of finding a concept for an unconceptualizable schema, this pleasure is bound to dissipate under the strain of continual frustration. 49 On Allison's account, it would seem hard to claim that beauty is a pleasure that lasts, let alone one that reinforces and reproduces itself. This, however, is precisely what Kant does claim, that 'we linger in our contemplation of the beautiful, because this pleasure reinforces and reproduces itself (CJ 222/68). Why should we want to linger in a situation that just gets more and more frustrating? 50 In short, the 'never-in-principle' view has a serious problem in giving a convincing account of how free play could be pleasurable. Thus, whether we put it in terms of subjective purposiveness or in terms of pleasurability, a troubling difficulty results for this interpretation of free play. There is a second and perhaps even more basic problem with opting for the view that the schema of the beautiful is such that it can never, even in principle, be brought under a concept. The problem is that it is far from obvious that there could even be such a thing — that this description corresponds to anything we can actually imagine. What, really, are we being asked to imagine here? Perhaps the most likely candidate is something analogous to an original work of an avantgarde artist that launches a brand-new style. It may have seemed that when Pollock completed his first drip painting, for instance, that he had produced something that was 'fit for a concept', yet not subsumable under any preexisting concept. This fact about the first Pollock drip painting, however, does not distinguish it from a new tool or kitchen utensil, or any other empirical object that is the first of its kind. There was never any reason to suppose that it would never be brought under a concept — eventually. And, in fact, along came a second Pollock, and a third, and before long there was a concept for that kind of thing, with rules for its application not fundamentally different from those of any other empirical concept.51 So the Pollock case is not a true example of something that cannot, in principle, be brought under a concept. But if it isn't, what would be? Would anything be? Suppose that, under the pressure of these objections, we are prepared to entertain the idea that the schema of the beautiful, rather than being something that can never be brought under a concept, is merely something that is not brought under a concept in the act of judging the beautiful. In other words, we take the second option described above: this schema such that it is not brought under a conceptfor the purposes of aesthetic perception (i.e., that we merely abstract from the concept that would capture the schema). Taking this option, unfortunately, only leads us into new difficulties. First, as already indicated, any such conclusion would have to be reconciled with Kant's statement that there are no principles of taste. The basis of this problem has already been sufficiently outlined above: there is reason to think that the proscription on principles of taste implies that the schema of the beautiful can never, in principle, be brought under a concept. Second, if we go this route, we threaten to reduce the notion of free play to little more than the freedom that the imagination enjoys in schematizing for any empirical concept. This is far from an insignificant result, for it limits the ability of free play to serve as the feature that distinguishes the beautiful from other


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empirical properties. Although there is always a sort of freedom when the imagination, in reflection, schematizes for the sake of bringing objects under a concept, the freedom of the imagination in contemplating the beautiful must involve something more than just this. If it does not, then we lack any account of what beauty is, apart from this everyday freedom of the imagination in empirical concept formation. But this would imply that beauty is simply a product of that harmony of the imagination and understanding that occurs whenever we form empirical concepts. The problem with this is that it leads to far too broad a conception of beauty. In fact, since the aforementioned mode of harmony between the faculties is a precondition of any act of empirical perception whatsoever, it would seem to imply that beauty is present in every empirical perception. Our second option therefore seems to lead to the highly counter-intuitive conclusion that everything is beautiful. 52 Not only does this conclusion contradict everyday experience and practice, it also runs counter to Kant's own characterization of the taste for beauty as a 'very special power of discriminating' (CJ 204/44). Any account of free play that would lead to the conclusion that we have no basis for discriminating the beautiful from the nonbeautiful is therefore problematic. This problem has some claim to being the central one for any account of free play. We have seen that Kant wants to justify the claim to universal validity of the pleasure in the beautiful by explaining this pleasure as the result of the mental state of the harmony of the faculties. This state — in the threefold way we have seen — is also at the basis of empirical perception. Since empirical perception is universally valid, it is arguable that the pleasure in the beautiful, which is supposed to be based on a similar mental state, must be universally valid as well. On the other hand, the pleasurable perception of the beautiful is also obviously different from a mere empirical perception. Consequently, Kant needs a way to differentiate the harmony of the faculties underlying the pleasure in the beautiful from the harmony of the faculties underlying ordinary perception. His way of doing this is to claim that, in the aesthetic case of harmony, the imagination is in free play, whereas in the ordinary case it is not. Aesthetic perception must be sufficiently similar to empirical perception to allow for its universal validity, yet sufficiently dissimilar to preserve the distinction between ordinary perception and perception of the beautiful. Evidently, a successful account of free play needs to balance both of these needs of Kant's theory. It is far from clear, however, how this can be done. This is still the main question that our account of the harmony of the faculties in free play has yet to answer. In sum, while Allison's schema-based explanation of free play undoubtedly advances our understanding of Kant's explanatory psychology of our response to the beautiful, significant questions can still be raised about its adequacy and completeness. There is an initial question about how we are to envision the activity of reflective judgement in the case of the beautiful. This activity must, according to Kant's stated account of it, involve a comparison; but it is unclear what is being compared when we are attending to an object to which we attribute beauty. This comparison must be either with other objects, or with the

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cognitive faculties themselves. It is difficult to see how it can be the former, since this would seem to suppose a similarity among beautiful objects that does not exist. But it is equally obscure how it could be the latter, since it is far from obvious what a comparison of a representation 'with one's cognitive faculties' could be, and Kant's sole model for this seems to have little in common with aesthetic judgement. Allison's suggestion that what is being compared is the 'minimal' and 'maximal' sense of harmony seems promising, but is vulnerable, as it stands, to its own difficulties. The second major question not adequately answered by the account in the previous section concerns the relation of the schema of the beautiful to the possibility of a concept. The primary issue is whether the schema of the beautiful is subsumable under a concept. There seem to be two options here, neither of which is without serious problems. Either the schema of the beautiful is such that it can never, in principle, be subsumed under a concept, or else it can be, only not in the act of aesthetic perception (so we abstract from its concept in this act). If we take the former option, however, we face two troubling questions. First, how is it possible to understand the activity of free play to be purposive or pleasurable for the faculty of understanding, since it seems, on the above account, not to advance, and even to frustrate its goal? And second, how is it even possible to conceive of a schema that can never, in principle, be brought under a concept? On the other hand, if we take the latter option, we must confront two new problems. First, how do we reconcile this idea with Kant's proscription against principles of taste? And second, how do we, on this account, differentiate the beautiful object from the non-beautiful? Either way, then, our account of free play seems, at a minimum, to be incomplete.

6. Conclusions In this chapter, I have begun to lay the theoretical groundwork for an account of Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative. I have recounted some of the major issues that confront the interpreter of the first part of Kant's theory of the sources of pleasure in the beautiful, his account of the psychological process involved in the pleasurable response to the beautiful (the 'subjective pole'). It is my conviction, however, that we cannot arrive at a completely adequate understanding of Kant's views about the psychology of the beautiful without also considering his account of its phenomenology (the 'objective pole'). This conviction is reinforced by the results of this chapter. What we have found is that there are serious gaps in even the most philosophically sophisticated and textually sensitive account of free play, as long as that account is constructed independently of Kant's phenomenology of the object. In the next two chapters, I will show how a certain reading of that phenomenology provides the key to addressing these lacunae. This will enable me to take on the task of explicating Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative in Chapter V.

Chapter III

The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness

1. Overview of the Chapter The objective pole of Kant's theory of the beautiful is his phenomenology of the beautiful object. The fundamental concept in this phenomenology is his notion of the 'mere form of purposiveness' or, alternatively, 'purposiveness without a purpose'. At the end of the Third Moment, Kant declares that 'Beauty is an object's form of purposiveness insofar as it is perceived in the object without the representation of a purpose' (CJ 236/84). In this chapter, I shall be concerned to investigate a pair of central questions regarding this notion. First, what exactly does Kant understand by the term 'form of purposiveness'? And second, does he have a successful argument, parallel to the argument in §9 showing that pleasure in the beautiful must be subjectively based on the harmony of the faculties in free play, to show that this pleasure must beobjectivelybased on the form of purposiveness? I shall formulate a preliminary answer to the first question based on §§10—15 of the Third Critique, where it is usually assumed to lie. The best answer that we can derive from these sections alone is that the form of purposiveness is the phenomenologically spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object may fulfil. I then conclude that the answer to the second question above clearly must be negative, if we presume to base it solely on §§10—15. That is, Kant does not have a successful argument to base pleasure in the beautiful on the form of purposiveness, if we construe it in this way. This conclusion, however, provides us with some reason to doubt that the conception of the form of the beautiful derived from §§10—15 is really complete. We might be led by this apparent failure to question whether the form of purposiveness is limited to the features just mentioned, and whether the initial characterization of the form of purposiveness represents theentiretyof Kant's view. This impasse will set up an examination of §§16—17, in which Kant's view of the form of purposiveness is significantly complicated by new considerations. I shall examine the problems that have often been noticed in conjunction with these sections. On my view, however, we should take the existence of these complications as an opportunity to rethink Kant's conception of the form of the beautiful itself. This is what I shall go on to do in the next chapter. While the main effort of the present chapter is critical and preparative, this is

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also the most appropriate place to tackle another important issue in Kant's theory of taste: the subjectivity of the beautiful. The very existence of an 'objective pole' of Kant's account of beauty of course calls into question Kant's professed subjectivism. In the course of exploring the two fundamental questions about the form of purposiveness mentioned above, I shall additionally take on the problematic of the subjectivity of taste. There are two principal issues here. I shall first argue that subjectivism is central to Kant's theory of taste. Then I shall attempt to show how Kant's view that beauty is the mere form of purposiveness is consistent with his subjectivism about beauty. These issues will be dealt with in the context of a consideration of one of Kant's possible arguments to show that the form of purposiveness must be the basis of beauty. An implicit assumption of this discussion is that the 'mere form of purposiveness' or, alternatively, 'purposiveness without a purpose' refers to what, in the previous chapter, we were calling 'the schema of the beautiful'. It is, in other words, the apprehended content that is the product of the imagination's activity in free play. This fact describes, in general terms, the basic link between Kant's psychology of the basis of pleasure in the beautiful and its phenomenology. It should be clear that by 'phenomenology', I mean simply the way in which the phenomenon of beauty appears to the subject — appears, that is, 'from the inside'. A basic presumption of Kant's theory is that the beautiful at least appears 'objective' — i.e., as an object distinct from the subject and its states. But this may, of course, be merely an appearance — a kind of illusory projection outward of what is really inside us. In proposing that Kant has an objectivist phenomenology of the beautiful, I am not, therefore, contradicting his assertion of the subjectivityof taste. Since by 'phenomenology', I am referring only to the way the beautiful phenomenon appears to us as an 'intentional object' of consciousness, this does not commit me to the ontological view that beauty is an objective empirical property. In my view, Kant was clearly a consistent subjectivist about the beautiful, and, moreover, his central thesis of the normativity of taste is tied up with his being one. This reading is not, however, completely uncontroversial. Karl Ameriks has raised the question whether Kant's subjectivism was not basically a mistake on his part, and whether it was really in keeping with his most fundamental goals and insights. It is necessary, therefore, to answer Ameriks' challenge by defending that subjectivism and showing how the view of beauty as the mere form of purposiveness is consistent with it. 2. The Form of Purposiveness: A Preliminary Account

(Critique Of Judgment§§10-15) Kant introduces the notion of 'purposiveness without a purpose', or 'purposiveness as to form' in §10 of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, which begins the Third Moment. 1 This section begins with a general discussion of the concepts of a purpose and of purposiveness. A 'purpose (£weck)', Kant says, 'is the object of a


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concept insofar as we regard this concept as the object's cause' (CJ 220/64). In other words, a purpose is the object that an intelligent being (i.e., one who operates according to concepts) aims to produce, or the end or goal at which he or she aims. In this sense, any work of art or human manufacture is a 'purpose', as are the works of God, if there are any. 'Purposiveness (zweckmassigkeit)' is initially defined, rather unexpectedly, as 'the causality that a concept has with regard to its object' (CJ 220/65). This is a somewhat surprising move because, given his ultimate intention to characterize the form of the beautiful, we would have expected Kant to introduce 'purposiveness' as a notion that pertains to a property of an object, rather than of a concept. One can see, however, the appropriateness of defining purposiveness as the causal power to produce an end or purpose. In this case, it refers specifically to the power to be an Aristotelian 'formal' cause: the concept is the necessary precondition of the particular form that an object (the purpose or end) has. The concept of a shoe in the mind of a shoemaker, for instance, is the formal cause or condition of his shoes having a certain size heel, laces, and so forth. This concept of purposiveness, however, is clearly inappropriate for describing a property of the form of beauty, which must be, of course, a sensuous, rather than a conceptual form. Fortunately, Kant quickly broadens his definition to cover other things besides concepts: . . . we do call objects, states of mind, or acts purposive even if their possibility does not necessarily presuppose the representation of a purpose; we do this merely because we can explain and grasp them only if we assume that they are based on a causality [that operates] according to purposes, i.e., on a will that would have so arranged them in accordance with the representation of a certain rule, (ibid.) There are two ways mentioned in this passage in which an object (as well as a 'state of mind' and an act) could be called 'purposive'. First, it may be that the object is in fact a purpose, in the sense described above: the product of an intelligent being who formed it in accordance with a concept. More interesting, however, is the second way: even though the object is technically not a purpose (i.e., it was not the product of an intelligent being), we nevertheless necessarily treat it as such. We do so because this is the only way we can 'explain and grasp' it. Kant does not elaborate on what he means by this phrase, but the more important point in the present context is that 'we can at least observe a purposiveness as to form and take note of it in objects . . . without basing it on a purpose' (ibid.). In short, there is, according to Kant, such a thing as the observable 'look' of being a purpose, which is distinguishable from actually being a purpose. 'Purposiveness' in this second sense could accordingly be described as the appearance of being a purpose. In order to further specify Kant's conception of the form of purposiveness, we need to examine what he contrasts it with: viz., the 'matter', or that content which is excluded as a source of pleasure in the beautiful. It is a well-known fact that Kant's aesthetic theory is often considered to be a forerunner of aesthetic

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formalism', the critical doctrine which favours the formal arrangement of an object over its subject matter, or the design over the representational content. The formmatter contrast in Kant's aesthetics, however, is not easily reducible to this familiar doctrine. There are, rather, three distinct elements with which Kant contrasts the form of the beautiful, none of which can be easily equated with subject matter or representational content. In sections ten and fifteen, Kant contrasts the form of purposiveness with the purpose', in sections thirteen and fourteen, however, Kant emphasizes a contrast with 'charms' and emotions. To get a complete picture of Kant's version of formalism, therefore, we will have to consider all three types of excluded 'matter', and the grounds on which he makes these exclusions. In sections ten and fifteen, Kant emphasizes a contrast between the formal purposiveness of an object and its material purpose. He first makes this contrast at the end of §10, where the notion of a 'purposiveness as to form' is opposed to the notion of a purpose, which Kant equates with 'the matter of the nexus finalis [or purposive connection]' (ibid.). This rather unusual way of contrasting form and matter can best be understood if we see it as implicitly drawing upon the Aristotelian idea that 'form follows function'. This Aristotelian dictum says that the shape or configuration of the parts of an object — i.e., the form — is derived from or determined by the purpose that the thing is designed to fulfil. For example, the form (literally, the shape) of a hammer, with its long wooden handle and short metal head attached at a perpendicular angle, is derived directly from the function for which the hammer is designed. In contrasting the purposive arrangement or 'form' with the purpose or 'matter', Kant is attempting to say something similar about the relation of purpose to form of purposiveness. The purpose is not the matter of which the object is made (which would be the Aristotelian 'material cause'), but rather the matter of the nexus finalis, or purposive connection', i.e., it is the ground or reason for the object having the particular form it does. 'Purposiveness as to form' could thus be taken to refer to the form that an object is given in order to serve a determinate end. The peculiar sense in which Kant wants to use this phrase, however, severs it from its implicit connection to some specific material purpose. In his sense, it is the notion of a mere form of purposiveness — of a form that follows, as it were, 'functionality', as opposed to some specific function. 'Merely formal purposiveness' is thus contrasted with the purposiveness in an object that is connected with a determinate purpose, which Kant in §15 calls 'objective' purposiveness (CJ 226/73). Objective purposiveness in general is linked with the liking for the good, which, as we saw in the last chapter, is a form of liking that stems from the recognition that an object is in conformity with a rational concept; it is, in the lingo of the Third Moment, the recognition that the object constitutes a purpose or end. Merely formal purposiveness, on the other hand, 'is quite independent of the concept of the good' (ibid.). The contrast between objective and subjective/formal purposiveness, or goodness and beauty, serves to emphasize that the aesthetic enjoyment of the beautiful is not the sort of pleasure that arises from the recognition that an actual purpose has been


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realized. The emphasis in §15 is on the specific contrast between beauty and perfection. This emphasis is attributable to Kant's concern to distinguish his theory of the beautiful from that of his rationalist predecessors Alexander Baumgarten and G. F. Meier, for whom beauty was 'perfection thought confusedly' (CJ 227/73). 2 Perfection is 'intrinsic objective purposiveness', or 'the harmony of the thing's manifold' with the concept of'what sort of thing it is [meant] to be' (CJ 227/74). Perfection, in short, is the property of agreeing with, or fulfilling, a concept. To think of an object as possessing perfection is to think it 'through' the concept of a purpose (ibid.). Formal or 'subjective' purposiveness, by contrast, 'does not indicate any perfection of any object whatever, [since] no object is being thought through any concept of a purpose' (ibid.). Rather, 'here we abstract from what this [object] is as a purpose (what the thing is [meant] to be), so that nothing remains but the subjective purposiveness of the representations in the mind of the beholder' (ibid.). Kant illustrates the point as follows: Suppose, for example, that in a forest I come upon a lawn encircled by trees but that I do not connect with it the thought of any purpose, e.g., that it is [meant] (say) for a country dance. In that case, no concept whatsoever of perfection is given me through the mere form. (CJ 227—228/74) Kant seems to be saying here that one can attend to the mere form of purposiveness of an object even if it does fulfil an actual purpose, and was even intended for that purpose; all that is necessary is that one abstract from that purpose in one's contemplation of the object (which may occur because one is unaware of the purpose). 'Subjective' or 'formal' purposiveness might thus be better thought of as a feature of the subject's approach to the object, rather than of the object itself. It describes the way in which the object seems, to the subject, as if it were designed for something, without the subject connecting that appearance with the thought of a definite purpose. If we were to base our account of Kant's formalism entirely on the sections just considered, we might well take the notion of the form of purposiveness to refer simply to the appearance of design. Guyer has raised doubts about the latter notion, questioning 'whether there are in fact any forms characteristic of designed objects'.3 This challenge threatens to reduce Kant's notion of the form of purposiveness to vacuity; if it does not rule anything out, then the concept is empty of content. Guyer argues that the notion of an appearance of design fails to be informative, because there is no perceptual property to which it could not apply. The reason for this failure is that 'human purposes — let alone those of other possible wills — are too various to imply any restriction on the appearance of objects that may satisfy them' .* Guyer maintains that for any form we can imagine, it is possible to conceive of some human purpose that it could fulfil, hence to conceive of it as purposive. It is thus no accident that Kant's example of a lawn encircled by trees can be construed as formally purposive, because, according to Guyer, anything can be. Thus, he concludes that 'the appearance of design is a vacuous criterion for aesthetic judgement, for any appearance might

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satisfy some design'.5 If Guyer is correct, then the notion of the form of purposiveness, considered as the appearance of design, is an empty concept. It is questionable, however, whether Kant's view of the form of the beautiful can be limited to this concept, since, in sections thirteen and fourteen, he advances a further characterization of this form as the spatiotemporal configuration of the object. This conception of formal purposiveness emphasizes a contrast between the form of the beautiful and 'charms' and emotions. If valid, then at least this conception of beautiful form would not be vacuous. Kant declares in §13 that ' A pure judgment of taste is one that is not influenced by charm or emotion . . . and whose determining basis is therefore merely the purposiveness of the form' (CJ 223/69). He elucidates this new form—matter contrast in §14, in which he explains what he understands by the concepts of 'charm' and 'emotion'. Kant dedicates the majority of his discussion to the former notion — which, however, he does not define. His primary examples of charms are sensations of colour and of tones, such as 'the green color of a lawn', or the distinctive tone of a violin (CJ 224/70). In contrast to the 'matter' of colours and tones, Kant opposes the form of the beautiful. This form, he says, is always 'either shape or play, if the latter, it is either play of shapes (in space, namely, mimetic art and dance), or mere play of sensations (in time)' (CJ 225/71—72). The form of purposiveness is thus now equated with the spatiotemporal configuration of the object. Kant makes the necessary link with his other conception of aesthetic form by equating spatiotemporal configuration with spatial 'design' and/or temporal 'composition' (CJ 225/72). The former applies particularly to the visual arts, as well, presumably, to natural beauties; the latter presumably applies especially to music. According to Kant, only the design and the composition can make an object 'beautiful and worthy of being beheld'; the charms at best can make the object 'vivid to sense' (CJ 225/71). He accordingly relegates charms to the role of'supplementing' the form of beauty, and perhaps attracting to it the attention of those whose taste is 'still crude and unpracticed' (ibid.). Kant devotes comparatively little space to the contrast with emotion, which he defines as 'a sensation where agreeableness is brought about only by means of a momentary inhibition of the vital force followed by a stronger outpouring of it' (CJ 226/72). This is a rather narrow definition of'emotion', which seems to be borrowed from Edmund Burke's account of the sublime.6 While he accordingly acknowledges that it is in fact connected with sublimity, Kant simply dismisses emotion as something which 'does not belong to beauty as all' (ibid.). We are therefore left to infer that any phenomenal properties that were particularly prone to affecting the emotions — such as the terrible or poignant subject matter of a painting, or aspects of a natural scene that had a tendency to provoke Wordsworthian feelings — would be excluded by Kant from being a basis of the pleasure in the beautiful. Kant's explication of the form of purposiveness contained in the first six sections of the Third Moment (§§10—15) is usually regarded as providing a substantially complete account of his views on the topic. Based upon his remarks


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in these sections, we are led to conclude that the form of purposiveness for Kant is the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object may fulfil. This is clearly a non-vacuous conception of the form of purposiveness, insofar at it does exclude specific phenomenal properties: namely, those which Kant classifies under the rubric of 'charms', as well as any properties that may appeal directly to the emotions. Hence, Kant's notion of the form of purposiveness is not empty. Whether it is also defensible is, of course, another question.

3. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure

in the Beautiful: Opening

We may now turn to Kant's arguments to show that the form of purposiveness is, in fact, the 'objective' basis of beauty. It is, of course, far from obvious from the account in the last section why we should regard the pleasure in the beautiful as based on this form. At this stage of the Third Critique, Kant has at his disposal basically three elements in his conception of pleasure in the beautiful: its disinterestedness, its universal validity and its basis in free play. He could, therefore, try to argue to the form of purposiveness as the necessary basis of this pleasure from any one of these three elements, and there do in fact seem to be arguments in §§11 — 14 that are based upon each of them. In §11, Kant argues based on the presumed disinterestedness of pleasure in the beautiful. In §12, he argues from the basis of this pleasure in free play. In §14, he argues from its universal validity. None of these three arguments, however, seems to get us all the way to the conclusion Kant wants. This, I shall suggest, provides us with some reason to reevaluate whether these sections are truly intended to provide a complete account of the form of purposiveness. In §11, Kant appears to make an argument from elimination. This argument thus has the basic weakness of all arguments from elimination: it is only as strong as its list of possibilities is exhaustive. The basis of the liking for the beautiful, Kant argues, must be either objective or subjective purposiveness. It must, that is, be based upon either the recognition of an object as a purpose, or the object's mere form of purposiveness. It cannot, however, be based upon the former, because 'whenever a purpose is regarded as the basis of a liking, it always carries with it an interest' (CJ 221/66). This statement refers to the Third Critique's wellknown doctrine of the disinterestedness of pleasure in the beautiful, which is laid out in the First Moment (§§1—5). Although many potential complications arise in connection with this doctrine, its basic idea can be sketched out relatively briefly.7 The pleasure in the beautiful is distinguished by Kant both from merely pathological pleasure, or pleasure in 'agreeableness', and from pleasure in the good, which we considered briefly in the last chapter. Kant believes that the pleasure in the beautiful is distinctive, in that it cannot be construed as resulting from the satisfaction of a bodily desire — which would be a 'subjective purpose' —

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nor can it be construed as the result of recognizing that an object fulfils some rational intention — which would be an 'objective purpose' (ibid.). Both of these processes make the pleasure conditional on an interest in the existence of the object in question (CJ 204—205/45—46). The beautiful, however, is a pleasure taken in the object 'in our mere contemplation of it', in which we are indifferent to the actual existence of the object (CJ 204/45). Since objective and subjective purposes are obviously the only type of purposes there are, it follows that pleasure in the beautiful cannot be based on objective purposiveness. But since, likewise, objective and subjective purposiveness are obviously the only two types of purposiveness that there are, if pleasure in the beautiful cannot be based on the one, it must be based on the other. So Kant concludes that this pleasure must be based upon the object's 'subjective purposiveness in the representation of an object, without any purpose' (CJ 221/66). Kant then proceeds to equate this 'subjective purposiveness' with 'the mere form of purposiveness' — thereby arriving at his desired conclusion (ibid.). The weakness of this argument stems from the fact that it is far from clear why the pleasure in the beautiful should have anything to do with purposiveness at all.8 Kant merely presupposes that it must be; but this is surely not something that he can simply take for granted. Consequently, the argument in §11 is inadequate. Kant takes another tack in §12, seemingly attempting to derive the basis of aesthetic pleasure in the form of purposiveness from its relation to free play. The relevant passage in §12 runs as follows: The very consciousness of a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers, accompanying a representation by which an object is given is [the pleasure in an aesthetic judgement]. For this consciousness in an aesthetic judgment contains a basis for determining the subject's activity regarding the quickening of his cognitive powers, and hence an inner causality (which is purposive) concerning cognition in general, which however is not restricted to a determinate cognition. Hence it contains a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation. (CJ 222/68) Here Kant first assigns formal purposiveness to the activity of the faculties in free play itself. This is an important departure from what we have seen so far in the Third Moment, in which purposiveness was treated only as a property of concepts or of objects; we will recall, however, that it was foreshadowed in the passage from §10, which included 'states of mind' among those things that could be considered purposive. The rationale for assigning purposiveness to the mental state of free play is not difficult to see, since, as we know, in this state, according to Kant, the faculties further each other's essential function. This purposiveness of the faculties' activity, however, has to be considered merely subjective or formal, because it is not, in fact, destined to result in the actual fulfilment of the purpose of the faculties, which would be a cognition. The next step in Kant's apparent argument is the equation of the consciousness of this formal purposiveness of the


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faculties in free play with the pleasure in the beautiful itself. In a later chapter, I shall argue that the possibility of making this link stems from Kant's conception of pleasure in general as the subjective awareness of any enlivenment of the vital forces. For now, we can merely postulate that since the formal purposiveness of the faculties in free play is intimately connected with their being 'quickened', or enlivened to an increased output of their distinctive activities, it is legitimate to describe the consciousness of their formal purposiveness as a pleasure. While this may explain how the formal purposiveness of the faculties in free play could be connected to a pleasure, it does not, however, explain why the form of purposiveness of an object must be regarded as the basis of pleasure in the beautiful. This connection is simply assumed by Kant at the end of the passage, in which he slides from the notion of 'a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' to the notion of 'a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation', as if this were merely a minor terminological variation, instead of a major new claim. This, however, clearly will not do; Kant needs to give an account of why the formal purposiveness of the psychological state of free play can be equated with the formal purposiveness of the phenomenal object. In the absence of such an account, the argument of §12 must be regarded as incomplete.

4. Excursus on the Subjectivity of the Beautiful In order to see how this argument might be completed, I want to take a brief detour at this point and consider the issue of the subjectivity of the beautiful. Kant's argument attempt in §12, while puzzling, does provide some hints as to how we are to understand the relationship between the 'subjective' and 'objective' poles of the beautiful. Following our guiding interpretive hypothesis that 'the mere form of purposiveness' refers to what, in the previous chapter, we were calling 'the schema of the beautiful', we can expand on the argument presented in §12 and simultaneously address the question of subjectivity. Before doing this, however, we should backtrack a bit and examine the nature of the problem. The issue here, one will recall, is twofold. It is necessary, first, to demonstrate that subjectivism is central to Kant's theory of taste, and, second, to show how Kant's view that beauty is the mere form of purposiveness is consistent with his subjectivism about beauty. Kant consistently declared the beautiful and the judgement of taste to be subjective. These declarations, in fact, are among the first significant claims in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. The subjectivity of the judgement of taste is treated by Kant as a necessary consequence of the judgement of taste being an aesthetic judgement, i.e., one based on a pleasure. So Kant, in §1, declares: 'a judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment and so is not a logical judgment but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis cannot be other than subjective' (CJ 203/44). Kant seems to reason in this section as

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follows. A judgement of the beautiful is a judgement of taste. A judgement of taste is, by its essential nature, based on a pleasure. (That is, if it were not based on a pleasure, it would not be a judgement 'of taste', but a judgement we would call by some other name.) Pleasure, however, is a mental representation that 'designates nothing whatsoever in the object', and hence, 'does not contribute anything to cognition' (CJ 204/44). The sensation of pleasure is entirely subjective in that 'through [it] no object is represented' (CJ 206/48). Rather, 'here the subject feels himself, [namely] how he is affected by the representation' (CJ 204/44). Thus, the judgement of taste is not a cognitive, or, in Kant's terminology, a 'logical' judgement; it does not purport to present an objectively valid picture of the (empirical) world, i.e., one that could be true or false of (empirical) reality. Hence beauty, which is predicated of an object by the judgement of taste, is not a real empirical property. Consequently, the surface grammar of the judgement of the beautiful must be regarded as misleading. As Kant writes: What is strange and different about a judgment of taste is only this: that what is to be connected with the representation of the object is not an empirical concept but a feeling of pleasure (hence no concept at all), though, just as if it were a predicate connected with the cognition of the object, this feeling is nevertheless to be required of everyone. (CJ 191/31) A judgement of taste, according to this passage, can be regarded as the universal 'predication of a pleasure': i.e., it asserts merely that I like an object, and that this liking is universally valid. Such an assertion is quite distinct, however, from the assertion of the real existence of an objective property. For Kant, beauty is clearly no such property. Karl Ameriks, however, has argued that Kant should have regarded beauty as an objective property. By modifying his view in this respect, Ameriks suggests, Kant could have given an elegant solution to the central dilemma bedevilling his theory of taste. As Ameriks frames this problem, Kant is faced with two equally unpalatable alternatives.9 He seems to be committed to the view that either (a) the harmony of the faculties in free play is the condition of all cognition, or else (b) it is a special capacity not shared by all. If (a) is true, then Kant would be committed to the absurd position that everything is beautiful. 10 If (b) is true, on the other hand, Ameriks finds it hard to see how Kant can maintain his claim that the judgement of taste is universally valid. The source of this dilemma, as Ameriks sees it, is the fact that the object causing the harmony of the faculties is left out of the picture. Accordingly, Ameriks advocates the view that 'it can be special objects or features, and not special people or faculties, that are primarily responsible for the fact that some experiences are harmonious and some are not'. 11 So what Kant needs to do to rescue his theory from the dilemma is pick out some feature in phenomenal objects themselves that would provide a basis for pleasure in the beautiful. 12 Ameriks' suggestion is that Kant could have regarded beauty as a causal property of objects, analogous to secondary qualities such as


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colour on the classical empiricist picture. In the Third Critique at least, Kant regards colour as a property that can count as objective.13 Ameriks argues that there is no basis for regarding the sensation of pleasure on which a judgement of taste is based as any more subjective than the sensation of colour-quality on which (say) a judgement of the greenness of a meadow is based. Since Kant regards colour as an objective sensation, there is no reason in principle why he could not have regarded beauty as objective as well.14 Ameriks believes that Kant could have amended his theory to regard beauty as an objective property without making any other significant modifications. Against this view, I believe that subjectivism is, in fact, central to Kant's theory, and that to excise this feature would, therefore, fundamentally transform it. The most important reason for drawing this conclusion is the normativity of the judgement of taste.15 In assimilating judgements of taste to judgements of secondary qualities, Ameriks is clearly following the Humean reading criticized in the first chapter. On this reading, the universality of the beautiful is simply a function of the causal power of objects to produce certain specific effects in normal subjects in the right circumstances. In this case, there is no question of the normativity of taste. I could perhaps issue ^prediction that others would share my pleasure, but I could never demand that they did. But such a demand, as has been argued previously, is essential to Kant's conception of taste. Consequently, Ameriks' suggestion cannot be regarded, in my view, as truly 'Kantian' in spirit; it would better be described as 'Humean', and, hence, as a dramatic alteration of Kant's theory. This critique of Ameriks reveals a more general point about how we must understand Kant's view of pleasure in the beautiful and its causal relation to objects, or lack thereof. While it is admittedly natural to speak of the beautiful flower as 'causing' the pleasure the subject takes in it, this cannot be quite correct for Kant. If the empirical object caused the pleasure, this would extinguish any possibility of that pleasure having a normative status. If pleasure in the beautiful has to be regarded as the causal effect of something, it can only be regarded as the effect of the spontaneous and purposive activity of the subject's own mental faculties. 16 Only in this case can the normativity of taste be preserved. Hence, we must regard the beautiful flower not as causing, but rather as occasioning the pleasure in the beautiful. The flower serves, that is, as the occasion for the subject to employ his or her faculties in spontaneous free play. It must still be the case, of course, that not everything is suited for serving as such an occasion. Not everything is an appropriate object of pleasure in the beautiful. Nonetheless, in the case of those things which are appropriate objects of beauty, their status as such is determined by the appropriateness of their being taken up by the subject, rather than by the causal effect they have on that subject. Subjectivism, then, is central to Kant's theory of taste. This brings us to the second issue concerning the subjectivity of taste: to show how Kant's view that beauty is the form of purposiveness is consistent with his subjectivism. Here is where the discussion in §12 becomes especially relevant. Kant's remarks there suggest that the form of purposiveness itself cannot be considered an empirically

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objective property, but must instead be regarded as an empirically subjective 'projection' of the subject. This would in part explain Kant's easy slide from the notion of 'a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' to the notion of 'a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation'. The form is phenomenologically objectival, when considered as an intentional object of consciousness, but is not ontologically real (not even in the 'empirical' sense of'reality'). 17 This view of the subjective character of the form of purposiveness also has the welcome feature of being entirely compatible with the assimilation of this form to the empirical schema of the beautiful, for such a schema is best understood as a subjective representation. It is also compatible with Kant's characterization of the form of purposiveness as the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object may fulfil. I will now briefly take up each of these points in turn. The crucial shift at the end of the argument of §12 can be read as indicating the basically subjective ontological status of the form of purposiveness. What underlies Kant's shift from speaking of formal purposiveness in the play of the cognitive powers to talking of a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation is the fact that both instances of formal purposiveness are in the mind of the subject, and owe their existence directly to the subject's activity. The form of purposiveness, I hypothesize, is merely the principal effect of the empirical productive imagination in free play, and hence that in which the formal purposiveness of its activity is exhibited. Because of this, Kant's apparently unjustified slide from speaking of the purposiveness of the subject's activity to the purposiveness of the representation is, in fact, not such a major transition after all. He is not actually sliding, in an unwarranted fashion, from describing a property of a subject to describing a property of an object, but rather from one to the other way of looking at the activity of the subject. One may look at this activity 'sideways-on', from the third-person perspective, as it were, and consider this activity as a psychological process. Alternatively, one may adopt a first-person perspective, and consider how the activity appears 'from the inside', or in the experience of the perceiving subject — how it appears to him or her. In the former case, one would speak of the formal purposiveness in the activity of the cognitive faculties; in the latter, of the form of purposiveness in the representation produced by that activity. The important point is that, in both cases, we are really speaking of the same thing. Thus, if this hypothesis is correct, Kant is not guilty of making a major leap in the argument of §12. His shift in terminology is entirely justified. This view of the ontological status of the form of purposiveness also jibes well with the identification of it with the empirical schema of the beautiful. This schema is clearly best regarded as a mere product of the imagination, and, as such, as lacking an empirically objective status. An empirical schema, one will recall, is formed through the comparison of given representations (empirical sensations), or through the comparison of such representations with the faculties. On my reconstruction of Kant's view, the schema that results from this


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comparison is a sort 01 composite image, or a distillation ol the commonalities that have been noted in the course of the comparison. Yet this resulting image is not a given representation itself, nor can it really be regarded as a concrete and specific representation at all. Rather, it is a manufacture of the productive imagination, and a vague, indeterminate and sketchy or 'schematic' image. At least prior to its being made into the basis of an empirical concept by an act of the understanding, such an image clearly has to be regarded as merely an 'inner' representation, one that is valid only for the subject who created it. Once taken up and brought under a concept, however, the schema could be regarded as the representation of an empirical rule — hence, as a representation possessing objective validity. An empirical schema that remains unconceptualized, on the other hand, must always be regarded as subjective. Lastly, we may also conclude that the subjectivity of the form of purposiveness is compatible with Kant's characterization of it as the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, considered as if designed. Unfortunately, Kant does not give us a detailed account of how this can be so, but we can provide one for him without too much difficulty. Clearly, by 'spatiotemporal arrangement' here, Kant can mean neither the object's specific position in space and time (which is given by sensibility), nor its particular shape^ insofar as this is determined by the empirical concept through which its manifold is unified into an object of empirical perception. In other words, the place and time in which the object is located, and the fact that it possesses the minimal conditions (marks) of being, say, a rose must be considered to be objectively given. What should not be considered to be objectively given is its beauty, or, in short, its form of purposiveness. This form, though phenomenologically spatiotemporal, is best conceived as a property that supervenes upon the objective qualities, and, hence, may be, to varying degrees, constrained by them — but without being caused by them. The form of purposiveness can be understood as an extra 'layer' of empirical synthesis that takes place within the parameters laid down by the more basic synthesis leading to empirical perception. The subjective 'aesthetic' synthesis takes place in a parallel fashion to the objective conceptual synthesis; but whereas the latter is governed by an empirical concept, the former occurs through a schema. By applying my empirical concept of a rose to my manifold of intuition, I unify it into an objective perceptual representation of a rose. If I also see this rose as beautiful, however, I must go beyond this basic act of synthesis according to a concept, and unify my manifold in a way that cannot be regarded as objectively determined. This synthesis is affected through the application of the schema of the beautiful to the manifold, and it results in a perception of the form of purposiveness. 18 This perception occurs through the schema, and is thus blended with it in the experience. The perception is also phenomenologically objectival, in that it appears to the subject as a spatiotemporal arrangement of the object that supervenes on his or her basic perception of the rose. Yet it cannot be regarded as objective, because no concept is employed. Consequently, it is most appropriate to consider it to be an imaginative projection, by the subject, onto an empirically real object. Although the object is real, the projection is not. Nevertheless, the two

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blend together seamlessly in experience — leading to the erroneous belief that beauty is an objective property. The fact that the form of purposiveness is phenomenologically spatiotemporal, then, does not have the consequence that it is really a feature of the object. In sum, the view of beauty as the form of purposiveness is, when properly understood, entirely compatible with subjectivism about the beautiful. The fact that this form is spatiotemporal is no bar to this conclusion, because its spatiotemporality may be understood as a purely phenomenological feature, rather than an objective property. Furthermore, by regarding the form of purposiveness as an imaginative projection of the subject, rather than as a representation caused by properties of the object, we can make better sense of Kant's apparent slide between the two concepts of formal purposiveness in §12. According to the reading put forth here, Kant is assuming in the passage quoted from §12 that the slide in terminology is justified because he is referring to the same phenomenon in both cases. The 'subjective' and 'objective' poles of the beautiful are, at the end of the day, not really two distinct things, but rather merely two distinct aspects of, or perspectives on the same thing. Finally, and most importantly, this way of conceiving of the ontological status of the form of purposiveness allows us to connect it more directly with the notion of the schema of the beautiful. This schema can be seen as that through which the extra layer of synthesis occurs which constitutes the aesthetic perception of the form of purposiveness. Phenomenologically speaking, however, consciousness of the schema of the beautiful and consciousness of the form of purposiveness may be identified.

5. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure in the Beautiful: Closing This brings us back to the question whether Kant has an argument adequate to show that the pleasure in the beautiful must have a ground in the form of purposiveness. Because of the intervening discussion, we now have a way in which to understand the argument of §12 as non-question-begging. Kant is not necessarily guilty of a non-sequitur when he slides from 'a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' to 'a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation', because he is assuming that these are just two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same thing. The argument, however, still cannot be considered adequate. This is because it fails to explain why the form of purposiveness that is the ground of pleasure in the beautiful must be a spatiotemporal arrangement that excludes charms and emotions. In fact, the argument does not even attempt such an explanation. The only notion of the form of purposiveness to which it leads is the notion of an 'objective correlative' of free play. As far as we can see at this point, nothing in the latter notion implies that the form must be a spatiotemporal arrangement. Thus, while §12 may provide grounds for the view that some notion of the form of purposiveness is the


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basis of pleasure in beauty, it cannot explain why it must be Kant's specific notion. The argument, in short, does not lead to the full conclusion that Kant wants. In §14, Kant makes another attempt, but this argument too is ultimately disappointing. Now his starting point is the assumption that the pleasure in the beautiful must be 'universally communicable' — a term that, once again, he does not explain (CJ 224/70). The conclusion he draws is that, in order for a pleasure to be universally communicable, it must have as its basis the spatiotemporal design of the object (or its representation). Kant is especially concerned in this section to wage a campaign against the view, which he says is held by 'most people', that charms — 'a mere color', or 'a mere tone' — can actually be the source of pleasure in the beautiful (ibid.). He thus recognizes that his formalist conception of the beautiful is revisionary, but he regards these revisions as necessary in order to preserve one of the two essential features of pleasure in the beautiful: its universality. If colours and tones could be the basis of pleasure in the beautiful, Kant argues, then that pleasure would not be necessarily universal — which contradicts the very notion of such a pleasure. It would not be necessarily universal because colours and tones 'seem to be based merely on the matter of representations, i.e., solely on sensation' (ibid.). 19 That is, Kant thinks that the pleasure derived from colours and tones most likely has to be understood as simply a causal effect of empirical objects. As such, there would be no basis for regarding them as universally communicable: 'we cannot assume that in all subjects the sensations [of colour and tone] agree in quality, let alone that everyone will judge one color more agreeable than another, or judge the tone of one musical instrument more agreeable than that of another' (ibid.). Kant's next claim, obviously, must be that spatiotemporal design is not vulnerable to this objection. He connects the apprehension of spatiotemporal design to reflection,as opposed to mere sense, which is, he implies, a psychological process with a greater claim to universality (ibid.). Unfortunately, Kant explains neither (1) why this reflection should be concerned with spatiotemporal arrangement in particular, nor (2) why the content apprehended in reflection should be universally communicable. In regard to (2), it is natural to assume that the 'reflection' to which Kant refers in §14 is the mental state of free play. This would account for the fact that the content apprehended in this reflection is universally communicable (provided, of course, that we are prepared to grant that free play is a universally communicable mental state). But it still fails to explain why free play should be concerned with spatiotemporal design. If Kant's argument does not support his bias in favour of spatiotemporal form, then where does this view come from? Commentators have tended to assume that Kant simply conflated his conception of aesthetic form in the Third Critique with his conception of the form of sensibility from the Transcendental Aesthetic in the First Critique. Donald Crawford, for example, writes 'the a priori character of space and time in part determines the kinds of qualities relevant to the judgment of taste, if that judgment is to lay claim to universal validity'.20 Kant, on Crawford's view, regards the universal validity of the beautiful as

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necessarily based on the form of space and time because Kant is following the First Critique'?, doctrine of space and time as a priori — hence universal — forms of intuition. This view, in one form or another, is supported by Guyer and Allison as well. Guyer claims that the argument in §14 'basically rests on a parallel between [Kant's] analysis of aesthetic judgment and the theory of perception employed in the Critique of Pure Reason'.21 This, according to Guyer, leads Kant into the error of thinking that free play has to be restricted to spatial and temporal form. Against this restriction, Guyer asserts that there is no reason that colours and tones could not be the source of free play, and concludes that, in the end, the notion of the form of purposiveness really adds nothing to Kant's theory of taste that was not already included in his conception of free play itself.22 Allison agrees with Crawford and Guyer about the source of Kant's view of aesthetic form, explaining that Just as spatiotemporal ordering and the content given in sensation were characterized in the Transcendental Aesthetic respectively as the form and matter of perception or empirical intuition, so now this same ordering or organization is regarded as the unique 'formal,' beauty-making feature of objects, and sensible content is viewed as the 'matter,' capable only of 'charming,' that is, producing a feeling of agreeableness lacking in any claim to universality. 23 Like Guyer, Allison believes that Kant was misled by this analogy into adopting a formalism that was 'restrictive, indeed unduly so', because it 'precludes, from the realm of taste proper, features that are usually (and rightly) thought to be integral to the beauty of works of art', such as the arrangement of colours and instrumentation in music. 24 Allison is, however, somewhat more charitable to Kant than Guyer, arguing that some notion of the form of purposiveness can be rescued and given a useful role to play in Kant's theory. Allison proposes revising Kant's theory to allow for such things as the arrangement of colours in painting and instrumentation in music to count as form, asserting that all that is really essential to this notion is 'merely some kind of diversity for the imagination to unify in its apprehension and present for reflection'. 25 He accordingly concludes that there is no reason this diversity could not be found in complexes of colours or tones as well as shapes and sequences of time. Allison concludes, in short, that while Kant was led astray by the influence of the First Critique into adopting an overly restrictive notion of aesthetic form, this is a correctable misstep. According to the view held by commentators such as Guyer and Allison, the Third Moment fails to establish the thing that Kant wants it to establish: that beauty must be based on spatiotemporal form alone. Since his commentators regard this view as implausible, they are not particularly troubled by this conclusion. They assume that its counter-intuitiveness provides sufficient reason to disregard the view as an undesirable appendage of Kant's theory. But it is not obvious that its mere counter-intuitiveness is the decisive objection it is often


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taken to be. To begin with, Kant himself was aware that his view of beauty would be unattractive to many, even most; and yet, he put it forward anyway. This should raise the question in our minds of what it is that a theory of beauty is supposed to be doing in the first place. Apparently, to be recognizable as a theory of beauty, it must capture, clarify and systematize at least many, if not most, of our intuitions about beauty. But there is no reason to suppose that it needs to capture every one of these intuitions. There is, of course, a philosophical bent of mind that is inclined to believe that this is what a theory of something should do: provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that are invulnerable to counterexamples. But if this is what is demanded in the case of beauty, the demand will never be met. As many have noted, our uses of the term 'beauty' are too many and varied to possibly admit of a theory or definition of this form. 26 It seems more reasonable to request of a theory of beauty merely a 'reflective equilibrium' between theoretical claims and ordinary beliefs or intuitions. 27 A theory of beauty, therefore, may cause us to rethink certain of our ordinary pre-reflective beliefs about the beautiful. Kant apparently thought that it was worthwhile being somewhat revisionary on the question of the proper 'objective' grounds of taste. Is it really plausible to think that this was merely for external reasons, because he wanted the term 'sensible form' to mean the same thing in the First and Third Critiques? Perhaps. But we might also regard this as a disappointing conclusion to arrive at about a philosopher of Kant's calibre, and, hence, as one to be resisted if another plausible explanation is possible. There is such an explanation: Kant regards the claim to universal validity, along with the basis in pleasure, as one of the two most essential features of the beautiful as we understand and talk about it, and believes that our conception of the beautiful has to allow for the defensibility of that claim. It is for this reason, as I hope to show in the following chapters, that Kant allows himself to revise certain other features of our ordinary conception of the beautiful. I believe that commentators have been too hasty in dismissing Kant's own view of his formalism, and that this hasty dismissal has prevented them from being forced to develop a fuller picture of what the form of the beautiful is actually made up of for Kant. They have satisfied themselves that the inordinate and inappropriate influence of the First Critique was the cause of Kant's seduction by an unduly restrictive view. Because they have found this explanation satisfactory, they have not felt the need to seek out other, more adequate philosophical reasons why Kant was led to this position. If, on the other hand, we take seriously Kant's own preferred conception of the form of purposiveness, then we are forced to conclude that his discussion of the objective pole of the beautiful in §§10—15 is inadequate. He clearly lacks an argument in these sections sufficient to show that the pleasure in the beautiful must be based on the form of purposiveness, understood as spatiotemporal design. But if this is the case, then it might very well make us question whether we truly possess a complete picture of what the form of purposiveness itself is. The conclusion that I draw from these considerations is that the account of the form of purposiveness in §§10—15 is in fact not complete. This should not be surprising, because the

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Third Moment does not end at this point. In what follows, I shall pursue the hypothesis that the concluding sections of the Third Moment — §§16—17 — are actually much more central to Kant's account of the beautiful than has usually been believed. This will lead in the next chapter to a richer and, hopefully, more illuminating conception of the form of the beautiful.

6. Free and Adherent Beauty and the Ideal of the Beautiful It has been generally recognized that §§16—17 greatly complicate the task of interpreting Kant's views on the form of the beautiful. 28 Indeed, these sections can seem to overturn, not only the account of the form of purposiveness built up in the preceding six sections of the Third Moment, but also the standard interpretations of free play. The usual response, however, has been to explain away, dismiss, minimize, or simply ignore the peculiarities of these sections.29 I shall try to make clear why §§16—17 have such upsetting implications; but I shall also proceed on the assumption that this is not a bad thing, something to be mitigated or avoided. Given the shortcomings in the accounts of both free play and the form of purposiveness that we have seen thus far, the complications of §§16—17 should, in my view, be welcomed as an opportunity to redeem Kant's account of the sources of pleasure in the beautiful. The direction to a more adequate account of these sources is pointed to, I shall suggest, in Kant's introduction in §17 of the 'archetype of taste', and specifically, his statement that this 'archetype' is 'an idea which everyone must generate within himself and by which he must judge any object of taste' (CJ 232/ 79). Far from ignoring this as a mere throwaway comment, I propose to take it seriously, and see what picture of the form of purposiveness and free play might result. In the next chapter, I shall pursue the hypothesis that this claim in §17 suggests both a more complex conception and a more central role for the notion of an aesthetic idea in Kant's theory of taste than is usually recognized. In the last two sections of the Third Moment, Kant introduces two new conceptions: (1) the distinction between 'free' and 'adherent' beauty (in §16), and (2) the notion of the 'ideal of the beautiful' (in §17). Both of these conceptions seem to have disturbing implications. These notions are linked to one another conceptually, insofar as Kant views the ideal of the beautiful as an instance of adherent beauty; but elements of his characterization of the nature of the ideal and its role in aesthetic appreciation also generate further questions that are specific to it. The distinction between free and adherent beauty is troubling to many commentators because it threatens to undermine the standard interpretations of both the form of purposiveness and free play. It does this by calling into question the independence from concepts that hitherto has seemed to be an essential feature of pleasure in the beautiful. Kant opens §16 by proclaiming that


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There are two kinds of beauty, free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) and merely adherent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens).^ Free beauty does not presuppose a concept of what the object is [meant] to be. Adherent beauty does presuppose such a concept, as well as the object's perfection in terms of that concept. (CJ 229/76) The concept of'free beauty' seems to describe what, up to this point, Kant had simply called 'beauty'. The new concept of 'adherent beauty', with its 'presupposition' of a concept, is apparently an innovation. Kant explains that while judging free beauties, in which he includes flowers, 'many birds' (such as the parrot, hummingbird and bird of paradise) and 'a lot of crustaceans of the sea', 'we presuppose no concept of any purpose for which the manifold is to serve the given object, and hence no concept of what the object is [meant] to represent' (CJ 229-230/76-77). On the other hand, when judging the beauty of such things as a human being, a horse, or a building such as a church, palace, armory or summer house, we do 'presuppose the concept of the purpose that determines what the thing is [meant] to be, and hence a concept of its perfection' (CJ 230/77). There are thus basically two different sorts of beauty, or judgements of beauty, with two different grounds or bases.31 Several questions can be raised in conjunction with this account, among them the fundamental question whether Kant is distinguishing between two types of beauty, or rather merely between two types of judgement of beauty. On the former reading, objects would be restricted to being assessed in one way or the other: certain classes of objects, that is, would be understood as being such that they are properly appreciated only in relation to a concept of the purpose that they serve (adherent beauties), whereas others would be understood as being properly appreciated only independently of such purposes (free beauties). On the latter reading, by contrast, any object that could be assessed as an adherent beauty (i.e., in terms of the purpose it fulfils) could also be assessed as a free beauty; it would all depend on the voluntary attitude that the subject adopts towards the object. If the subject abstracts from all concepts of purposes served by the object, it is judged as a free beauty; but if the subject bases his or her judgement on these purposes, it is judged as an adherent beauty. If we adopt the 'two-judgements' reading, there is an easy way in which to understand what Kant is doing in introducing the new concept of adherent beauty. The main reason that this concept is puzzling is that Kant now seems to be describing as a species of beauty what was formerly described as a liking for the perfection of a thing. Why has he apparently changed his mind? If we accept the interpretation that Kant is distinguishing two types of judgement, we might easily answer this question by saying that, appearances to the contrary, he really has not changed his mind: a judgement of so-called 'adherent beauty' really is a judgement of perfection, and, hence, really is not a genuine judgement of beauty at all. Kant's use of the term 'beauty' for this type of judgement could be explained simply as a concession to common usage, rather than a modification of his own conception of beauty. 32 On this reading, there would be no need to adjust our understanding of Kant's conception of beauty to accommodate

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adherent beauty, because the latter is, strictly speaking, 'beauty' in name only. This easy answer applies, of course, only if Kant is properly read as distinguishing between two types of judgements, rather than two kinds of objects. While there is some evidence in favour of the former reading, there is stronger evidence in favour of the latter. Kant does suggest the 'two-judgements' reading when he says that a flower is judged as a free beauty by the botanist because 'while recognizing it as the reproductive organ of the plant, [the botanist] pays no attention to this natural purpose when he judges the flower by taste' (CJ 229/76). This suggests that the flower, which is here being judged as a free beauty, could just as well have been judged as an adherent beauty if its purpose — which is being abstracted from in this case — were taken into account. At the end of §16, furthermore, Kant declares that 'a judgment of taste about an object that has a determinate intrinsic purpose would be pure only if the judging person either had no concept of this purpose, or if he abstracted from it in making his judgment', thereby suggesting once again that any object that is judged as an adherent beauty could also be judged as a free beauty, if we abstract from its purpose in our assessment of it (CJ 231/78). On the other hand, Kant strongly suggests that there are certain objects which it is inappropriate to judge as free beauties. This, at any rate, seems to be the implication of the notorious passage in which he writes: Much that would be liked directly in intuition could be added to a building, if only the building were not [meant] to be a church. A figure could be embellished with all sorts of curlicues and light but regular lines, as the New Zealanders do with their tattoos, if only it were not the figure of a human being. And this human being might have had much more delicate features and a facial structure with a softer and more likable outline, if only he were not [meant] to represent a man, let alone a warlike one. (ibid.) The clear implication of this passage seems to be that the tattoos of the Maori might be judged beautiful, were it possible to judge the human form as a free beauty — but this is not possible. The Maori are found wanting in beauty because we are forced to judge their beauty in relation to the purposes of the human being, as we are forced to judge the beauty of a church in relation to its purposes. In both of these cases, the purposes intrinsic to the objects themselves — moral perfection in the case of human beings, worship of God in the case of the church — limit the way we may judge their beauty. While the biological purpose of the flower is irrelevant to the way we judge its beauty, this seems to be definitely not the case for certain other objects. It seems, then, that for Kant there are really two distinct types of beauties, rather than merely two distinct types of judgements of beauty. If this reading is correct, then this again raises the problem of how we are to incorporate the notion of adherent beauty into our overall understanding of Kant's theory of the beautiful. There will be no easy solution, so we are forced to investigate further. The crucial question in this investigation concerns how we


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are to understand the notion of 'presupposing a concept of what the object is meant to be'. In what sense does the judgement of adherent beauty 'presuppose a concept', and in what sense does the judgement of free beauty not? One possible reading would take the locution 'presuppose a concept' as saying that the judgement of adherent beauty is simply a direct consequence of subsuming the object under the concept of a purpose, such that the recognition that the object fulfils its purpose would be the necessary and sufficient condition for its being (felt as) beautiful. This really would make the judgement of adherent beauty nothing but a judgement of perfection. It is more likely, however, that Kant actually has a weaker notion of conceptual presupposition in mind. The subsumption of the object under the concept of its purpose might provide merely a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for its being an instance of adherent beauty. That is, thinking the object through the concept of a purpose of which it is the fulfilment somehow circumscribes or constrains the freedom of the imagination in making the judgement of beauty, but is not sufficient in itself to occasion a pleasure. As Guyer points out in advocating a solution along these lines, Kant himself suggests he has something like this in mind when he condemns Maori tattooing as incompatible with the dignity of the human form. 33 The idea here would seem to be that the purposes inherent in the human form are necessary conditions of beauty, such that they constrain the possible forms (here, decorations) that can count as contributing to its beauty. The fulfilment of these purposes is not, however, sufficientto make a human being beautiful; Kant is not claiming that the fulfilment of moral purposes makes one's bodily form beautiful (although it may make one's soul 'beautiful' — in a different but related sense). This line seems promising as an articulation of what Kant wants to say, but it remains, in my view, philosophically under-described. 34 The apparent arbitrariness of Kant's condemnation of Maori tattooing vividly illustrates that we still lack a clear explanation of how any concept of perfection could possibly constrain a judgement of beauty. How does Kant arrive at the conclusion that the New Zealanders have violated the requirements of good taste, as opposed to morality? The answer has to be because morality, in this instance, imposes a constraint on taste. Kant is not simply saying here that moral considerations trump aesthetic considerations; he is saying that moral considerations influence aesthetic considerations. This claim, however, seems to flout everything he has said so far about the basic logical distinction between the beautiful and the good. Given the basic parameters of Kant's theory, how is it possible for concepts of the moral purpose of humanity, or any other concepts, to play a role in the constitution of the beautiful? In §17, Kant complicates his theory of taste still further by introducing the notion of the ideal of the beautiful. This notion obviously alludes to and draws upon Kant's discussion of the 'ideal of pure reason' that was developed in the First Critique,35 An ideal, he reminds us, is 'the representation of an individual being as adequate to an idea' (CJ 232/80). Kant explains that he intends the term 'idea' in his technical sense: a concept of the unconditioned or absolute, to

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which no concrete, particular intuition can be fully adequate. So an ideal, in Kant's original conception, would be a particular, unique entity that was thought through an idea, but never exhibited in intuition — in the First Critique, this is God. This concept, however, has to be modified in order to apply to the beautiful. While God is an ideal of reason, the ideal of the beautiful would be an ideal of the imagination (ibid.). It would, in other words, have to be an inner intuition or image. This image, Kant writes, would serve as the 'archetype of taste' which is 'a mere idea, an idea which everyone must generate within himself and by which he must judge any object of taste, any example of someone's judging by taste, and even the taste of everyone' (CJ 232/79). There are at least two immediately puzzling aspects of this notion of the archetype of taste. First, and more basically, there is Kant's description of it as an 'idea', which, as he remarks, 'properly means a rational concept' (CJ 232/ 80). If an idea is a rational concept, than why does Kant also describe the ideal of the beautiful as an 'idea', given that he has just said that it is a product of the imagination, rather than reason? Second, given his opening remarks about the general role that the archetype of taste is to play as an inner standard of judgement, Kant imposes a seemingly bizarre restriction on the ideal, claiming that 'It is man, alone among all objects in the world, who admits of an ideal of beauty' (CJ 233/81). If the ideal is the standard by which we 'must judge any object of taste, any example of taste', and so forth, then how can it be limited to the human figure? Is Kant making the absurd suggestion that the beauty of the human figure is the standard by which we must judge, say, the beauty of Handel's Water Music, the Parthenon, an English garden, or an Arabian show horse? Kant addresses the first puzzle by noting that the archetype of taste 'does indeed rest on reason's indeterminate idea of a maximum, but [it] still can be represented not through concepts but only in an individual exhibition' (CJ 232/ 80). This remark at least shows Kant's cognizance of the problem, even if as a solution, it remains obscure. Kant here implicitly acknowledges a tension, if not an outright contradiction, in the very notion of an idea of the imagination', as an idea, it cannot be exhibited in intuition, but as a product of the imagination, it is inherently intuitive. The solution that Kant seems to be proposing here is to weaken the sense in which the archetype of taste is an 'idea'. He reaffirms that the archetype of taste is basically an intuitive representation, but it is one that 'rests on' an idea of reason — specifically, the idea of a maximum. He does not explain, unfortunately, the sense in which the archetype of taste 'rests on' this idea, nor does he really clarify which idea it is. It is unclear, that is, what the 'maximum' here is a maximum of. More information is evidently needed to solve this puzzle completely. The second puzzle stems from Kant's claim that 'man alone' admits of an ideal of beauty. Here, fortunately, he at least gives us a sketch of the reasoning that leads him to this strange conclusion. First, 'if an ideal is to be located in any kind of bases for judging, then there must be some underlying idea of reason, governed by determinate concepts, that determines a priori the purpose on which


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the object's inner possibility rests' (CJ 233/80). Kant seems to justify this claim by an implicit reliance on his definition of the term 'ideal', which is based on an idea of reason. From this, he infers that the ideal presupposes the objective purposiveness of the object. Hence, 'if we are to seek an ideal of beauty then the beauty must be fixed rather than vague, fixed by a concept of objective purposiveness' (CJ 232/80). This premise evidently contains an allusion to the newly introduced distinction between free and adherent beauty, which Kant now terms 'vague' and 'fixed' beauty, respectively. If the ideal must be based on an idea of reason, such that we relate the object to a rational purpose, then it obviously must be adherent rather than free beauty. Since, moreover, the ideal is based, not on just any purpose, but on a rational purpose, or an idea of reason, not just any type of object can admit of an ideal. Only an object, that is, that can be properly seen as fulfilling (or not fulfilling) a rational purpose can have its ideal. For this reason, 'an ideal of beautiful flowers, of beautiful furnishings, or of a beautiful view is unthinkable' (CJ 233/80). These things, Kant obviously assumes, are not properly seen as fulfilling (or not fulfilling) a rational purpose. But it is not necessarily the case that all of those things that can be seen as fulfilling a rational purpose — such as, for example, 'a beautiful mansion, a beautiful tree, a beautiful garden' — admit of an ideal (CJ 233/81). This is because 'the purposes [in these examples] are not sufficiently determined and fixed by their concept, so that the purposiveness is nearly as free as in the case of vague beauty' (ibid.). It is unclear why Kant believes that the purpose of, say, a mansion is insufficiently determined by its concept. One possible answer might refer back to the central notion in this discussion: that of an idea of reason. Kant may be thinking that things like mansions, trees and gardens may have purposes that we assign to them, but these are not rational purposes that they give to themselves. Giving purposes to oneself is, of course, the prerogative of a rational being only. Kant concludes that there is thus only one candidate left for being the object of an ideal: man. Only man admits of an ideal because only he 'can himself determine his purposes by reason' (ibid.). What, then, does the ideal of human beauty involve? There are, according to Kant, two basic components. The first is what he calls 'the aesthetic standard idea' (CJ 233/81). This is 'an individual intuition (of the imagination) [by] which we present the standard for judging man as a thing belonging to a particular animal species' (ibid.). This 'idea', once again, is not strictly speaking an idea (in Kant's technical sense), because it is an image, rather than a concept. It is the image, specifically, of the standard shape or figure of an animal of a particular kind, or the 'model image' that exhibits 'the greatest purposiveness in the structure of that shape' (ibid.). This image, Kant says, 'would be suitable as the universal standard for judging each individual of that species aesthetically' (ibid.). It is 'the image that nature used as the archetype on which it based its productions within any one species, but which it does not seem to have attained completely in any individual' (CJ 234—5/83). The aesthetic standard idea is formed through a psychological process of 'aesthetic averaging', whereby the imagination produces an image that approximates the average or standard stature of a

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member of a particular species. In order to get a clearer idea of what Kant has in mind, it is useful to quote his description of this process at some length: Notice how in a manner wholly beyond our grasp our imagination is able on occasion not only to recall, even from the distant past, the signs that stand for concepts, but also to reproduce [an] object's image and shape from a vast number of objects of different kinds or even of one and the same kind. Moreover, all indications suggest that this power, when the mind wants to make comparisons, can actually proceed as follows, though this process does not reach consciousness: the imagination projects, as it were, one image onto another, and from the congruence of most images of the same kind it arrives at an average that serves as the common standard for all of them. For instance: Someone has seen a thousand adult men. If now he wishes to make a judgment about their standard size, to be estimated by way of a comparison, then (in my opinion) the imagination projects a large number of the images (perhaps the entire thousand) onto one another. If I may be permitted to illustrate this by an analogy with optics: in the space where most of the images are united, and within the outline where the area is illuminated by the color applied most heavily, there the average size emerges, equally distant in both height and breadth from the outermost bounds of the tallest and shortest stature; and that is the stature for the beautiful man. . . . Now if in a similar way we try to find for this man the average head, the average nose, etc., then it is this shape which underlies the standard idea of a beautiful man in the country where this comparison is made. . . . The same would apply to the model of a beautiful horse or dog (of a certain breed). (CJ 233—234/82) The aesthetic standard idea is thus formed by an imaginative process that looks remarkably similar to my proposal in the last chapter for understanding how the mind forms empirical schemata.36 It is true that here the aim of the process is not the production of a concept, but rather of an 'aesthetic' standard for judging the beauty of a thing. Kant suggests, however, that the standard idea, like an empirical schema, can lead to 'determinate rules for judging', claiming that it is through the formation of such an idea that 'rules for judging become possible in the first place' (CJ 234/83). Kant warns, however, that 'the standard idea is by no means the entire archetype of beauty', but rather only 'the indispensable condition of all beauty' (CJ 234—235/83). Something else must be added to the aesthetic standard idea of the human figure in order to arrive at the ideal of the beautiful. This extra ingredient is 'the rational idea, which makes the purposes of humanity, insofar as they cannot be represented in sensibility, the principle for judging his figure, which reveals these purposes, as their effect in appearance' (CJ 233/81). These 'purposes', of course, would be moral purposes — or, in other words, the moral perfection of humanity. Such moral perfection, for Kant, can never be given directly in intuition. The ideal of the beautiful, then, must somehow embody or serve as the sign of humanity's inner moral vocation and potential. The archetypal human


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figure must be seen as the 'visible expression of moral ideas'; only in that case does it become a true ideal of the beautiful (CJ 235/84). Kant even goes so far as to identify 'the ideal in this figure' with 'the expression of the moral' (CJ 235/83). Strictly speaking, however, this cannot be correct. According to what he said earlier, the ideal must be a result of both the aesthetic standard idea of the human figure and the expression of moral ideas. As an instance of adherent beauty, the ideal is subject, of course, to the same basic question that surrounds the earlier notion: why is this an ideal of beauty, as opposed to perfection? Why should a connection with moral ideas be necessary for the ideal of beauty? These questions are familiar to us from our earlier discussion of adherent beauty. But in addition to these now familiar problems, Kant's description of the ideal and its employment in the appreciation of the beautiful raises further issues. The most important of these concerns Kant's new conception of the 'archetype of taste', and his claim that this archetype is the standard by which one makes judgements of taste. Taken on its face, this certainly seems to be a new element in Kant's psychology of aesthetic response; nothing in our earlier account of free play obviously corresponds to it. Yet Kant says little by way of elaboration on how the archetype of taste functions. Are we to take him literally to mean that the ideal of the beautiful is the standard for all judging? Then how can we take him seriously when he claims that this ideal is restricted to the (standard idea of the) human figure? It seems preposterous to claim that this one type of figure could be the single standard for all types of beauty. But if we cannot seriously take Kant to be claiming this, how are we to understand him?

7. Conclusions In this chapter, we have added new unanswered questions concerning the form of purposiveness to place alongside the previous chapter's questions concerning free play. None of the arguments that Kant offers to show that pleasure in the beautiful is based on the form of purposiveness gets us to the conclusion that he desires: that this pleasure must be based on the (phenomenologically) spatiotemporal form of an object. This conception of form appears to constitute a major stumbling block, yet we still lack a clear understanding of the reason for Kant's insistence on it. Furthermore, the questions about the form of purposiveness only multiply when we factor in Kant's introduction of the notions of adherent beauty and the ideal of the beautiful. Kant evidently believes that we are forced to judge the beauty of some objects in relation to their purposes. But why is this? Furthermore, it is far from clear what a judgement of adherent beauty really entails. In what sense does the judgement of adherent beauty 'presuppose a concept', and in what sense does the judgement of free beauty not? How can a concept of perfection constrain what can count as beautiful in the case of certain forms? Why does Kant hold that there must be an inner intuition that everyone forms within themselves and which serves as a

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standard of taste? How are we to take his claim that only man can represent the ideal of beauty? The answer to these questions, I claim, must be based on an analysis of Kant's conception of an 'aesthetic idea'. Properly understood, this notion is, in my view, the key to Kant's theory of taste. By understanding the role of aesthetic ideas in the constitution of the form of purposiveness and in the occasioning of free play, we may not only illuminate the puzzles surrounding the notion of adherent beauty and the ideal, but we may also address the outstanding problems concerning free play and the form of purposiveness. To this concept, therefore, we must now turn.

Chapter IV

Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas

1. Overview of the Chapter My objectives in this chapter are threefold: (1) to analyse Kant's conception of an 'aesthetic idea', (2) to incorporate that conception into enriched accounts of the form of purposiveness and free play, and (3) to use the resulting accounts of these notions to address the interpretive problems raised in the previous two chapters. Most commentators treat the doctrine of the aesthetic ideas as an addendum to Kant's theory of taste, first introduced late in his discussion of fine art (§§43—54).1 On the analysis offered below, however, the conception of an aesthetic idea is first introduced and discussed by Kant in §17 — much earlier than is typically assumed. My main interpretive claim regarding the notion of an aesthetic idea is that this idea is a complex representation that contains two elements that are in tension with one another: 'standardness' and 'originality'. The aesthetic ideas' aspect of standardness is given its most significant explication in §17; their aspect of originality only much later, in §§46—50. In my view, these two accounts are not, as is generally assumed, referring to separate things, but rather only to separate aspects of the same thing. Although in tension with one another, the two elements of aesthetic ideas are both equally essential in determining the importance of these ideas to Kant's theory of taste. My second main claim is that aesthetic ideas are present in all types of beauty — both natural and artistic. On my reading of Kant, the aesthetic ideas, with their two constitutive elements of standardness and originality, are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for beauty as such. This goes against the common assumption that they pertain exclusively or primarily to fine art. In accordance with this claim about the centrality of aesthetic ideas, I shall provide an interpretation of the form of purposiveness that makes the 'expression of aesthetic ideas' essential to it. This will allow us to explain why the form of purposiveness must be restricted to spatiotemporal shape or composition, and also to show how Kant's notions of adherent beauty and the ideal of the beautiful are consistent with his earlier remarks about the form of purposiveness in §§10-15. Finally, I shall build on the foregoing account to provide, in addition, a reconstruction of Kant's conception of free play. Since it was argued in the last chapter that free play is the psychological activity that results in the form of the

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beautiful, whatever we learn about the latter should also improve our understanding of the former. We should, therefore, be able to extrapolate from the enriched account of the form of purposiveness incorporating aesthetic ideas to account for free play as well. The resulting reconstruction will then be tested for its ability to fill in the gaps left by the preliminary account in Chapter II.

2. Aesthetic Ideas: Opening Remarks On the usual view, the concept of an aesthetic idea is first introduced in §49, as part of Kant's account of fine art (schone Kunst). There it appears as the solution to what is perhaps the central issue in this account: how such a thing as fine art is possible at all. Fine art, obviously, must be, by definition, both beautiful (schone) and art (Kunst).Given Kant's accounts of each of these characteristics, however, it is far from clear how anything could be both at once. Kant's conception of 'art', in the generic sense of the term, refers to any practical human skill — for instance, the shoemaker's skill in making shoes (CJ 303—304/170—171). The principal characteristic of art is that it is a product of rational deliberation; it is this feature that distinguishes the 'work' of art from the mere 'effect' of nature (CJ 303/170). A work is the product of rational deliberation if'the cause which produced it was thinking of a purpose to which this object owes its form' (ibid.). In order, then, to recognize something as a work of art, one must see it as a purpose, or as being 'of such a character that before it became actual its cause must have had a representation of it' (ibid.). We see a handmade shoe as a work of art because we recognize its shape to be the result of the shoemaker's conscious intention. Accordingly, one must, in the case of fine art, see its beauty as the product of an intention, or, in Kant's terminology, as stemming from the concept of a purpose. Fine art, Kant says, 'intends directly [to arouse] the feeling of pleasure' in the beautiful (CJ 305/172). Just as the intended purpose of the shoemaker is the shoe, the intended purpose of the fine artist is an object of beauty, or one that evokes the distinctive pleasure of the beautiful. The problem with the consistency of this picture is that the notion of a concept of beauty is undefined, if not unintelligible. This problem is actually just another result of the now familiar lack of clarity in Kant's account of the relation of the beautiful to concepts. If beauty is the form of purposiveness without a purpose, then how can there be a concept of it? If there could be such a concept, and fine art could be produced in accordance with it, would that not make the resulting product a form with a purpose? It seems, then, that the effort to make beautiful art has to be, on Kant's view, self-defeating and unintelligible. Without a resolution to this problem, Kant's conception of fine art threatens to dissolve into incoherence. Kant attempts to resolve this problem by introducing the notions of genius and aesthetic ideas. Like all other forms of art, fine art is the product of a conscious intention. On Kant's way of thinking, this implies that there must be, in some sense, a 'rule' guiding the intentional action; otherwise the action would have to be considered random, rather than purposive. 2 This rule, however, cannot be


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derived in the usual way from the understanding or reason. Unlike all other forms of art, the intention guiding the production of fine art does not involve the conceptual representation of a purpose. Fine art must occasion pleasure in the beautiful, which it cannot do if it cannot occasion free play. In order to occasion free play, however, the work of fine art 'must seem as free from all constraint of chosen rules as if it were a product of mere nature' (CJ 306/173). In other words, the work of fine art must be suitable to occasion the representation of the beautiful, which means that it cannot be simply the result of applying a determinate concept to an artistic medium. Since the rule guiding the production of fine art cannot, therefore, be derived in the usual way from the understanding or reason, we must posit a new, distinct faculty that provides it. As Kant summarizes this line of reasoning: every art presupposes rules, which serve as the foundation on which a product, if it is to be called artistic, is thought of as possible in the first place. On the other hand, the concept of fine art does not permit a judgment about the beauty of its product to be derived from any rule whatsoever that has a concept as its determining basis, i.e., the judgment must not be based on a concept of the way in which the product is possible. Hence fine art cannot itself devise the rule by which it is to bring about its product. Since, however, a product can never be called art unless it is preceded by a rule, it must be nature in the subject (and through the attunement of his powers) that gives the rule to art; in other words, fine art is possible only as the product of genius. (CJ 307/175) What is the meaning of the opposition in this passage between 'fine art itself and 'nature in the subject'? We might understand 'fine art itself to refer here to the conceptual rules that the understanding or reason can devise. 'Nature in the subject' then refers to some faculty in addition to the understanding or reason. This faculty is what Kant calls 'genius'. He identifies genius with nature for two related reasons. First, genius is a talent, not something that can be acquired by learning; it is, in that sense, a matter of'nature', as opposed to 'nurture'. Second, genius is something that is passively received, rather than actively employed. Like the data of the senses through which the mind relates to the natural world, genius arises in a manner that is wholly outside the artist's knowledge and volition. Thus, Kant remarks that 'if an author owes a product to his genius, he himself does not know how he came by the ideas for it; nor is it in his power to devise such products at his pleasure' (CJ 308/175). This is in contrast to products that we owe to the understanding or reason, which we can explain rationally and produce at will (provided that we have the technical means at our disposal). Kant defines genius as 'the talent (natural endowment) that gives the rule to art' (CJ 307/174). The rule provided by genius cannot, however, be a concept. So what kind of'rule' is it? Kant addresses this question in detail for the first time in §49, in which genius is explained as an ability to 'discover' and 'express' aesthetic ideas. Kant defines an 'aesthetic idea' as 'a representation of the

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imagination which prompts much thought, but to which no determinate thought whatsoever, i.e., no [determinate] concept, can be adequate, so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it' (CJ 314/182). It is worth noting immediately that an aesthetic 'idea' is actually an idea in name only, since, as a 'representation of the imagination', it is an intuition, rather than a concept. The term 'idea' is apparently a sort of honorary title that Kant bestows upon this particular type of intuition because it is the 'counterpart' of a rational idea — i.e., a concept to which no intuition is completely adequate (ibid.). The notion of an intuition to which no concept is completely adequate calls to mind, of course, the similar formulations that Kant uses to describe free play and formal purposiveness. A connection with free play in particular is suggested in Kant's repeated linking of the aesthetic ideas to the 'quickening' or 'animation' (beleben) of the mind (CJ 315/183). Kant says of an aesthetic idea that 'its proper function is to quicken (beleben) the mind by opening up for it a view into an immense realm of kindred representations' (CJ 315/183—184). The suggestion here is that an aesthetic idea is an intuition that prompts an open-ended chain of mental associations, which presumably may include both 'thoughts' or concepts and further representations of the imagination or intuitions. This process of association is not to be confused, however, with the mechanical association that occurs in the synthesis of reproduction in accordance with empirical psychological laws. It is, rather, to be understood as a spontaneous and 'free' creative process in its own right. Aesthetic ideas impart to the mental powers 'a play which is such that it sustains itself on its own and even strengthens the powers for such play' (CJ 313/182). Here Kant very nearly invokes the notion of 'free play' by name, indicating that aesthetic ideas are to be understood as the proper ground of the mental state that accounts for pleasure in the beautiful. While these initial remarks about aesthetic ideas still leave their intrinsic nature veiled in some obscurity, they are sufficient, I believe, to allow us to see how the aesthetic ideas function in the creation of fine art. Kant, unfortunately, is less explicit on this issue than we might like. He does claim that genius consists in the ability 'to discover ideas for a given concept, and, second, to hit upon a way of expressing these ideas that enables us to communicate to others, as accompanying a concept, the mental attunement that those ideas produce' (CJ 317/185—186). Kant also writes that genius 'manifests itself not so much in the fact that the proposed purpose [i.e., the art object] is achieved in exhibiting a determinate concept, as, rather, in the way aesthetic ideas, which contain a wealth of material [suitable] for that intention, are offered or expressed' (CJ 317/186). As I read these statements, Kant is indicating that aesthetic ideas play a functional role in relation to fine art that is analogous to the role that concepts play in relation to other types of art. Just as a concept in the mind of the shoemaker serves as the necessary inner mental condition of a shoe, an aesthetic idea that arises in the mind of the genius serves as the inner mental condition of a work of fine art. In both of these cases, the inner representation serves as a rule guiding and structuring the creative activity: the shoemaker strives to follow his inner idea of what a shoe should be like, and correspondingly, the artistic genius


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follows his inner 'idea' — his imaginative representation or intuition — of what his work should look or sound like. The genius aims to 'express what is ineffable' — i.e., inexpressible through concepts alone — by embodying it in a publicly accessible art-object (ibid.). In this way, beauty is created in accordance with a conscious intention, yet without a concept. Aesthetic ideas thus play a crucial role in accounting for the possibility of fine art. But what exactly is an aesthetic idea? Before we can adequately address this question, we must settle the prior issue of whether aesthetic ideas belong exclusively to the domain of art, or whether they pertain to a wider domain. Much of what Kant says about aesthetic ideas in §49 makes it seem as if they pertain only to art. Perhaps most significantly, Kant at one point speaks as if an aesthetic idea is always the product of what he calls 'aesthetic attributes'. An 'aesthetic attribute' is a 'form' that does not 'constitute the exhibition of a given concept itself, but rather expresses 'the concept's implications and its kinships with other concepts' (CJ 315/183). Thus, aesthetic attributes are, generally speaking, a metaphor or related type of symbol. To cite two examples provided by Kant, 'Jupiter's eagle with the lightning in its claws is an attribute of the mighty king of heaven, and the peacock is an attribute of heaven's stately queen' (ibid.). In the continuation, Kant claims that a set of such attributes 'yield an aesthetic idea', thus suggesting that an aesthetic idea is itself a metaphor or related symbol, or set of such symbols (ibid.). In my view, however, it would be a mistake to draw this conclusion.3 Aesthetic ideas cannot be equated with anything essentially artistic, because they pertain to more than merely fine art. To the extent that Kant seems to suggest otherwise, this can be explained by the fact that, in the passage in question, he is explicitly limiting himself to discussing only the case of art. In the passage quoted above, for instance, his emphasis on the relation of aesthetic ideas to metaphorical symbols can be explained by the fact that he is concerned in this section primarily with describing how aesthetic ideas are 'discovered' and 'expressed' by the artistic genius. This should not be taken to imply, however, that all objects that express aesthetic ideas are the creation of a human being. At the beginning of §51, Kant explicitly states that aesthetic ideas are present in every instance of beauty — natural as well as artistic. As he puts it, We may in general call beauty (whether natural or artistic) the expression of aesthetic ideas; the difference is that in the case of beautiful art the aesthetic idea must be prompted by a concept of the object, whereas in the case of beautiful nature, mere reflection on a given intuition, without a concept of what the object is [meant] to be, is sufficient for arousing and communicating the idea of which that object is regarded as the expression. (CJ 320/189) Let us leave to one side Kant's way of differentiating between aesthetic ideas in nature and art in terms of whether a 'concept of what the object is meant to be' is involved.4 Regardless of how we ultimately understand this point, Kant's statement makes it clear that he intends his concept of an aesthetic idea to have a

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general application to all beautiful objects.5 As a general statement about the topic, his characterization of beauty as 'the expression of aesthetic ideas' has to be placed alongside the earlier general characterization of it as 'the form of purposiveness without a purpose'. Kant evidently sees no conflict between these two alternative descriptions of beauty. We may assume, then, that Kant wanted his discussions of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas and beauty as the form of purposiveness to be harmonized. Unfortunately, he provides us with no explicit account of how this is to be accomplished. Instead, we must rely on a plausible reconstruction based on hints and implicit indications. The resulting interpretation is necessarily somewhat speculative, but it nevertheless recommends itself on the basis of its ability to make sense of Kant's various theses and remarks on the beautiful. Below I shall argue that the account of aesthetic ideas in §49 must be integrated with the account of aesthetic standard ideas in §17. These accounts each highlight one essential aspect or element of aesthetic ideas: their standardness and their originality. Standardness and originality are, in my view, the two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of beauty for Kant. To see this, however, requires some effort of reconstruction. In the sections that follow, I first separately consider the conditions of standardness and originality, respectively. I then weave these notions together into new accounts of the form of purposiveness and free play.

3. The Standardness Condition Kant asserts in §17 that the 'aesthetic standard idea' is a constituent feature of the ideal of the beautiful, which is the 'model' according to which we must judge all objects of taste. Later in §51, Kant equates beauty itself with the 'expression' of something that he calls simply an 'aesthetic idea'. What is the relationship between these similar-sounding concepts? As I propose to read him, Kant holds that every aesthetic idea must possess within itself an aesthetic standard idea (or something comparable). Since beauty is the expression of aesthetic ideas, this implies that beauty itself requires an element of 'standardness'. Standardness, therefore, is 'the indispensable condition of all beauty', and that by which judging by taste becomes possible in the first place (CJ 234—235/83). This requirement of standardness is expressed in various ways and in various places in the Critique. Kant sometimes speaks of the need of objects of taste to be 'exemplary'. In the Fourth Moment, exemplarity is associated with the very necessity of an aesthetic judgement. As Kant puts it, this necessity 'can only be called exemplary, i.e., a necessity of the assent of everyone to a judgment that is regarded as an example of a universal rule that we are unable to state' (CJ 237/85). The significance of Kant's choice of the term 'exemplary', although obscured in the Fourth Moment, emerges in those places where Kant discusses the canon of classical art.6 The first such place is in §17, where Kant attempts to explain 'why we regard some products of taste as exemplary',even though, of course, a judgement


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of taste cannot be made 'by imitating someone else's' (CJ 232/79). His explanation is that there are certain 'models' which have been widely found to be examples of beauty 'among all ages and peoples' (ibid.). Kant seems here to be gesturing in the direction of Hume; but whereas Hume saw in such agreement a foundation for the universal validity of taste, Kant regards it as a mere 'empirical criterion' of beauty, one that is 'weak and barely sufficient for a conjecture' (ibid.). Nevertheless, Kant clearly wants to incorporate into his own theory the fact that the practice of making judgements of taste depends to a certain extent upon the existence of an inherited canon of model works that are regarded as exemplary instances of beauty. In the preparatory sections leading up to the deduction of taste, Kant develops this idea further. In Chapter II, we saw that in these sections Kant emphasizes the notion of the autonomy of taste. In using this term to describe the nature of a judgement of taste, Kant is saying in effect that the basis for a judgement of taste must come from within, rather than being taken on from without. As he puts it, 'other people's approval in no way provides [one] with a valid proof by which to judge beauty' (CJ 284/147). Hence, Kant denies that arbiters of taste such as Batteaux or Lessing or Aristotle or Horace really possess any legitimate authority to legislate someone else's judgement. On the other hand, Kant also recognizes that taste is to a certain extent an acquired skill; it is a power of judgement that must be 'sharpened by practice' (CJ 282/146). One practises one's taste by 'familiarizing [oneself] with a sufficient number of objects of a certain kind' (CJ 284/147). The objects Kant has in mind are, unsurprisingly, the classics', 'we extol, and rightly so, the works of the ancients as models, and call their authors classical, as if they form a certain noble class among writers which gives laws to people by the precedent it sets' (CJ 282/146). Kant recognizes that there is a tension between the autonomy of taste and the reliance on the classics as models of taste, for the latter practice 'seems to point to a posteriori sources of taste and to refute the autonomy of every subject's taste' (ibid.). In other words, if we rely on an established canon of works to mould our taste, we must simply trust that these works are beautiful before we can judge them to be so for ourselves. This, of course, infringes greatly on our aesthetic autonomy. Nevertheless, Kant insists upon the indispensable role of the classics in the formation of taste. As he explains, Among all our abilities and talents, taste is precisely what stands most in need of examples regarding what has enjoyed the longest-lasting approval in the course of cultural progress, in order that it will not become uncouth again and relapse into the crudeness of its first attempts. (CJ 283/147) The items that have enjoyed the longest-lasting approval are the works of the ancients. These works represent the achievement of a very high degree of civilization, and we must preserve the memory of this, lest culture be reduced once again to a primitive state. At one point, Kant even suggests that the perfection of art has 'probably long since been reached' (CJ 309/177). The great artistic

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achievements of the past, in other words, cannot be expected to be exceeded, or even repeated with each generation; the Greek and Latin classics in particular represent a height of human achievement that, in Kant's view, is unlikely ever to be surpassed. Consequently, we should take these classical works as examples of what perfect beauty is, in order to cultivate our taste to the highest possible degree — even if this requires sacrificing a certain degree of autonomy in our judgement. Kant resolves the tension between autonomy and classicism by distinguishing between 'following (Nachfolge)' and 'imitating (Nachahmung)' (CJ 283/146—147). 'Following by reference to a precedent' is different from merely imitating someone else's judgement, because in following we are 'drawing on the same sources from which the predecessor himself drew', 'learning from him only how to go about doing so' (CJ 283/148). What this distinction amounts to, and whether it is a valid one, remains here an open question. In §46, Kant incorporates this line of thought into his discussion of genius, and thereby clarifies it significantly. 'The products of genius', Kant says, must 'be models, i.e., they must be exemplary, hence, though they do not themselves arise through imitation, still they must serve others for this, i.e., as a standard or rule by which to judge' (CJ 308/175). In §47, Kant further explains the contrast between 'imitating' and 'using as a model' in terms which parallel the distinction introduced earlier between 'imitating' and 'following'. Just as the man of taste must 'follow' the examples put forth by the ancients without 'imitating' them, so too must the genius 'follow' previous geniuses without 'copying'. Unfortunately, Kant confuses the matter by switching his terminology, now referring to the recommended course as 'imitating' rather than 'following', whereas 'imitating' was previously discouraged. As Kant puts it, 'the rule must be abstracted from what the artist has done, i.e., from the product, which others may use to test their own talent, letting it serve as their model, not to be copied (Nachmachung) but to be imitated (Nachahmung)' (CJ 309/177). To avoid confusion, I shall assume that what Kant meant to say here was 'not to be imitated (Nachahmung), but to be followed (Nachfolge)'. What, then, does Kant mean by 'following'? Previously, Kant obscurely referred to 'drawing on the same sources from which the predecessor himself drew'; now, however, he is clearer about what these 'sources' are. As Kant explains, 'the artist's ideas [must] arouse similar ideas in his apprentice' (ibid.). In the present context, these 'ideas' can only refer to aesthetic ideas. Kant is saying, in other words, that the genius should form his aesthetic ideas so that they are sufficiently similar to the aesthetic ideas 'expressed by' the classics. Kant concludes, accordingly, that 'the models of art are the only means of transmitting [the ideas of the genius] to posterity' (CJ 310/177—178). What is it, though, that renders an object suitable for being a model or exemplary work? At the culmination of his discussion of genius in §50, Kant somewhat confusingly calls this quality 'showing taste'. By the term 'taste', Kant usually simply means the ability to judge something to be beautiful. In §50, however, he evidently has a narrower sense of 'taste' in mind, that is roughly equivalent to the notion of exemplarity. In this sense, art which shows 'taste' is contrasted with 'inspired', 'imaginative' or 'original' art. The latter qualities


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Kant equates with 'showing genius' — which here is likewise used in a narrower sense than usual. Kant declares that art 'deserves to be calledyzree art only insofar as it shows taste', which is 'an indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non'f (CJ 319/188). Kant next proceeds to explain why this condition obtains: Taste, like the power of judgment in general, consists in disciplining (or training) genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it civilized, or polished; but at the same time it gives guidance as to how far and over what it may spread while still remaining purposive. It introduces clarity and order into the wealth of thought, and hence makes the ideas durable, fit for approval that is both lasting and universal, and [hence] fit for being followed by others and for an ever advancing culture, (ibid.) According to this passage, a work shows taste if it is 'clear' and 'orderly', and is 'fit for lasting and universal approval'. A work of art strives for these qualities because it attempts, by its essential nature, to be the source of a universally valid pleasure. Consequently, it must be 'disciplined', 'trained' and 'polished'. It is still not yet quite clear, however, what precisely a work must exhibit in order to possess these qualities. In order to make more lucid the narrow conception of'tastefulness' that Kant introduces in §50, we need to connect it with the closely related notion of 'correctness'. To begin to develop this notion, we must return to the discussion of the aesthetic standard idea in §17. The aesthetic standard idea is constitutive for Kant of the element of correctness in an object that can serve as an exemplary model of taste. This idea, one will recall, was characterized by Kant as the standard or principle for judging the figure of the members of a certain animal species. The aesthetic standard idea of a species is formed through a psychological process of uniting in the imagination the reproduced images of the individuals belonging to that species. The resultant image produced by the imagination represents the average-size individual of that type, with the average-size features: e.g., the average nose, average chin, average-length limbs, etc. Kant describes the aesthetic standard idea as 'the image for the entire kind, hovering between all the singular and multiply varied intuitions of the individuals, the image that nature used as the archetype on which it based its productions within any one species' (CJ 234/83). Kant goes on to characterize this 'archetype' in terms that echo what he will later say about works that show taste (in the narrow sense): the standard idea is 'the form that constitutes the indispensable condition of all beauty' (CJ 235/83). Hence, it is the form that represents 'the correctness in the exhibition of the kind' (ibid.). The aesthetic standard idea appears to be combined, through a method that Kant does not make entirely clear, with another factor in the constitution of aesthetic correctness. This other factor is the rules abstracted from the canon of classical works. In §47, Kant says that the rule that the apprentice-genius follows 'must be abstracted (abstrahiert) from what the artist has done' (CJ 309/177). This 'rule', however, 'cannot be couched in a formula and serve as a precept'

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(ibid.). Instead, it exists as an 'idea' in the mind of the apprentice — i.e., an aesthetic idea that he 'abstracts' from his experience of the work. It does not seem to be unreasonable to suppose that this process of'abstraction' may be similar in nature to the process by which empirical schemata are 'abstracted', or aesthetic standard ideas formed. The schematic nature of the idea that is abstracted by the pupil from works of genius is indicated by the fact that the pupil is not expected simply to copy everything that the past genius has done. Kant calls this sort of slavish imitation of every detail 'aping' (Machaffung)and derides it as 'mannerism' — 'aping mere peculiarity', including 'the deformities that the genius had to permit only because it would have been difficult to eliminate them without diminishing the force of the idea' (CJ 318/187). The apprentice is expected to overlook these deformities and abstract the purely exemplary and academically correct 'idea' that inheres in the work of genius. This seems to involve a psychological process that is complementary to the formation of an aesthetic standard idea. We are now in a position to summarize and derive some conclusions from the foregoing discussion. These scattered remarks point to a phenomenon that Kant clearly regards as a necessary condition of beauty. One could potentially choose any one of the terms just discussed — 'exemplarity', 'tastefulness' (in the narrow sense), 'correctness', 'standardness' — for the quality of beauty that Kant is describing in the several passages cited above. I choose to call it 'standardness' for several reasons. To begin, I wish to evoke the aesthetic standard idea, which I believe represents the paradigmatic instance of this quality. 7 The term 'standard' also usefully includes the ideas of authority, model, measure or criterion, and custom or convention — all of which are bound up with the quality in question. 8 'Standardness', we may say, refers in general to the quality of being orderly, proportioned, balanced and measured. It is, in short, the notion of those qualities that have traditionally been associated with the classical and neoclassical traditions in Western art. Consequently, standardness overlaps to a great extent with the customary and conventional in art (i.e., the 'academically correct'), and the normal and well-proportioned in nature. This explains why Kant associates it with the model or exemplary instance: the quality of standardness is the typicality of an instance, the quality of being a representative of a type, a mean between the extremes of variability. In art, standardness refers to both natural experience and cultural tradition. These are the two aspects of 'correctness' that we have just seen Kant describe. The foundation of standardness in the representation of animals in art must be our natural experience of individuals of a certain kind, and the aesthetic standard idea as the standard or principle for judging the figure of the members of a certain animal species. Kant explicitly says that the standard idea of a human being (man, woman or child), horse or dog serves as a constraint on what can count as a beautiful figure of an individual of the respective type. Although he does not say so explicitly, it seems possible to generalize this principle to cover every animal species at least, and possibly every plant species as well: the standard idea of an organism is the 'image for the entire kind' which


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is formed by the imaginative process of'aesthetic averaging' of one's experiences of figures of that kind. Thus, a painter or sculptor who desired to impart the quality of standardness to his representation of a particular type of organism should, according to Kant, observe the constraint imposed by the aesthetic standard idea of that type. But standardness seems to involve more than simply the standard idea formed through our individual experience of living things in nature. Kant suggests that it also involves the inheritance of a cultural tradition: specifically, a classical tradition. This inheritance is expressed in the possession of the 'rules' abstracted from the classical works of past genius. This aspect of standardness may involve a broader notion than the aesthetic standard idea as Kant describes it in §17, encompassing such things as conventional patterns or style in architecture, or customary poetic or musical forms, such as the sonnet or sonata. This seems, at any rate, like a reasonable characterization of what Kant means by the 'rule abstracted from the work'. While these are obviously not simple average figures of the members of a living species, they are kindred 'aesthetic ideas'. It seems possible, that is, to possess a schematic intuition of what the Doric style in architecture or the Shakespearian sonnet is, without necessarily imagining any particular building or poem. We might even go so far as to extend the term 'aesthetic standard idea' to these intuitive 'rules' as well. Since most of Kant's discussions of the phenomenon of standardness occur in relation to fine art, one might question whether it is a notion that has much relevance to the beautiful in nature. There is every reason to believe, however, that Kant intended this notion to apply equally to natural beauty. The aesthetic standard idea, after all, is formed from the subject's experience of natural objects, rather than objects of art: the standard idea of a man determines the beauty of real, living men as well as the beauty of artistic representations of men. As Kant pictures it, however, an aesthetic standard idea can be formed only in the case of living kinds. This seems to leave out of account instances of beautiful inanimate nature: beautiful mountains and streams, oceans and lakes, and the like. There are other places in the Critique, however, where Kant points to a parallel phenomenon of standardness, under the name of 'regularity'. Regularity represents a quality of standardness which parallels the aesthetic standard idea, but which is also distinctive in its own right. By this term, Kant refers to patterns of order that may occur in appearances of either nature or art. The notion of regularity thus also allows Kant to encompass instances of abstract art in his notion of standardness. A key instance is Kant's discussion of the regularity of an 'aggregate' of natural objects which we perceive 'without a concept'. Kant consistently denies that a 'stiff mathematical regularity — e.g., the regularity of geometrical figures such as the circle, or the rigid regularity of a Sumatran pepper-garden — can contribute to beauty. 9 On the other hand, he hints at the notion that a non-mathematical regularity may be part of the sense of purposiveness we get in the face of beauty in nature. In this connection, Kant cites the 'order and regularity in an aggregrate, enclosed within certain boundaries, of things outside me: e.g., in a garden, order and regularity among

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trees, flower beds, walks, etc.' (CJ 364/241). We can imagine that Kant is here talking about the regularity of a bed of flowers or grove of trees which look like those that have been planted in accordance with a plan, but yet to look 'natural' (as in an English garden). 10 Since in this case we have an ordering that must be perceived aesthetically, rather than determined through an a priori mathematical concept, this sort of regularity seems like a suitable parallel to the other forms of standardness mentioned above. This type of regularity would also seem to best represent the element of standardness in the abstract natural and artistic patterns that Kant mentions as examples of 'free beauties' in §16: e.g., the feathers of birds of paradise, the shells of crustaceans, the foliage on borders or on wallpaper, designs a la grecgue, and the like (CJ 229/76). In all of these cases, we have a regularly recurring sequence of shapes that constitute a determinate pattern, but do not approach the rigidity of simple mathematical figures.11 It seems, then, that there is no instance of beauty, either natural or artistic, which does not admit of and require some form of standardness. Why does Kant insist that standardness must be a constituent feature of beauty? The answer is that standardness is required in order to meet the needs of the understanding. As Kant puts it, for a work to be beautiful, it is necessary that the imagination in its freedom be commensurate with the lawfulness of the understanding. For if the imagination is left in lawless freedom, all its riches produce nothing but nonsense, and it is judgment that adapts the imagination to the understanding. (CJ 319/188) The term 'judgment' here refers to tastefulness in the narrow sense. The suggestion of this passage is thus that standardness is necessary in order for an intuition to be suitable for the understanding in the activity of aesthetic apprehension. It is the quality of standardness in an intuition that satisfies the purpose of the understanding to bring a manifold of intuition under a rule. The rule in these cases, of course, is not the typical concept of the understanding, but it is something at least analogous to a concept. The notion of standardness will thus be crucial to any explanation of how the beautiful is purposive for the understanding.

4. The Originality Condition Standardness, however, is only one of the two main constituent features of beauty: it is merely a necessary, not a sufficient condition. In §17, Kant makes clear that the aesthetic standard idea is not sufficient for beauty. He writes that is not 'because of its beauty' that we like something that exhibits the standard idea of its kind, but merely 'because it does not contradict any of the conditions under which alone a thing of this kind can be beautiful' (CJ 235/83). In other words, anything which merely exhibits the standard idea would not, by reason of that alone, be considered beautiful. In an interesting footnote to this remark, Kant elaborates as follows:


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It will be found that a perfectly regular face, such as a painter would like to have as a model, usually conveys nothing. This is because it contains nothing characteristic and hence expresses more the idea of the [human] kind than what is specific in one person; if what is characteristic in this way is exaggerated, i.e., if it offends against the standard idea (of purposiveness of the kind) itself, then it is called a caricature. Experience shows, moreover, that such wholly regular faces usually indicate that inwardly too the person is only mediocre. I suppose (if we may assume that nature expresses in [our] outward [appearance] the proportions of what is inward) this is because, if none of the mental predispositions stands out beyond the proportion that is required for someone to constitute merely a person free from defects, then we must not expect in him any degree of what we call genius] in the case of genius nature seems to depart from the proportions it usually imparts to our mental powers, instead favoring just one. (CJ 235/83n57) On an initial reading, this passage may seem to be merely an embarrassing indulgence of the peculiar eighteenth-century fascination with physiognomy. 12 Actually, however, it nicely encapsulates Kant's views about the constituents of beauty. The real issue here, contrary to first impressions, is not the moral virtues that a particular face expresses, but the economy of 'proportion' and 'disproportion' that is characteristic of a truly beautiful face. A person with a perfectly regular face, Kant might say, has a face that 'lacks character'. But this turns out to be equivalent for Kant to lacking beauty as well. This is because the beautiful for Kant is not merely a regular or proportionate form; it is also an interesting form. The interest here, as I hope to make clear in what follows, is purely aesthetic; it is what is aesthetically interesting — or, in other words, suitable for sustaining free play — that is at issue. In order to be interesting in this way, however, a form needs to be something more than merely standard. Like standardness, the other necessary condition of beauty also goes by various names, including 'originality', 'imagination', 'spirit' and 'genius'. Kant introduces 'originality' as 'the foremost property of genius', since it is a quality 'for which no determinate rule can be given' (CJ 307—308/175). Kant equates the original work of the genius in several places with the 'inspired' (geistreich) , 13 Originality thus appears to be intimately related to the quality of'spirit' (Geist). The latter quality is associated in §49 with the source of aesthetic ideas. Kant begins this section with the observation that 'Of certain products that are expected to reveal themselves at least in part to be fine art, we say that they have no spirit, even though we find nothing to censure in them as far as taste is concerned' (CJ 313/181). 'Taste' here should be taken in the narrow sense, in which it is equivalent to standardness. 'Spirit', consequently, refers to a criterion of excellence in beautiful art over and above mere correctness; it is opposed to the merely 'nice and elegant', or 'precisely and orderly' (ibid.). By 'spirit', Kant says he means 'the animating principle in the mind', specifically, 'the ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas' (CJ 313/181—182). Spirit thus seems to be simply another name for genius, and likewise is principally a power of the imagination. The

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inspired or ingenious imagination is a source of aesthetic ideas, but not the standard idea per se; rather, it gives rise to something new or original: 'another nature out of the material that actual nature gives it' and 'something that surpasses nature' (CJ 314/182). Kant here speaks of the creative imagination in terms that presage the Romantic deification of artistic genius. The above discussion points to a phenomenon that Kant apparently regards as a second necessary condition of beauty. I will call this phenomenon 'originality' because of this word's connotations of novelty, unconventionality, individuality and uniqueness. 'Originality', then, refers to the quality of being bold, incommensurable, and individual or unique. It is, in short, the notion of those qualities that have traditionally been associated with the romantic tradition in Western art — including its predecessor in Kant's own time, the Sturm und Drang movement. Consequently, originality overlaps to a great extent with the novel and unconventional in art. This explains why Kant associates it with imagination and creative genius: the quality of originality is the novelty of an instance, the quality of being a representative of nothing but itself, an irregular variation on the common theme. In art, originality is exhibited in those aspects of a work that flout tradition and convention, and by doing so, give the work its special quality of uniqueness. Provided that it is intentional or purposive, a violation of the rules of academic correctness would count as original, and the bolder the violation, the greater the originality. Kant is quite prepared to tolerate 'the courage to retain deformities' — i.e., violations of the rules of correctness — and 'a certain boldness of expression, and in general some deviation from the common rule' if this is necessary to retain the 'force of the [aesthetic] idea' (CJ 318/187). While Kant sometimes seems to equate the violation of given rules or norms of correctness with irregularity, in other places he sees this violation — more accurately, I believe — as the replacement of one set of rules with another. The example of the genius 'gives the rule to fine art' and 'gives rise to a school for other good minds' (ibid.). Originality thus becomes, not merely rebellion, but the process by which art progresses and culture renews itself. If originality is a condition of all beauty, then this must apply to nature as well. It may seem awkward, however, to speak of products of nature as possessing the quality of'originality'. On the one hand, if we think of nature as a mechanism that endlessly churns out its products according to immutable laws, it may seem that there is no place in this picture for any thought of originality. On the other hand, if we think that by using this term we mean merely to remark on the familiar uniqueness that every product of nature has — the idea expressed in cliches like 'no two snowflakes are exactly alike' — this may seem true, but obviously banal. More importantly, it would not seem to encapsulate any special condition of beauty, since everything is unique in this sense. How then are we to understand the original in nature? Unfortunately, Kant is not very helpful here, and so our account must be somewhat more speculative than in the case of art. It is clear at least that for Kant, nature does not 'violate' its rules or laws — so it is not possible to understand originality in nature in this way. But we should not


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forget that, according to Kant, it is nature that is credited with being the source of all original genius. The originality of a product of nature, we might say, does consist in something unique in it, which we might call the 'exceptional'. There is such a thing as an 'exceptional' country vista or ocean view; even a humble rose may be 'exceptional'. While it is not easy to define what we mean when we call a natural object 'exceptional' in this sense, the idea, I believe, is intuitive enough. It is unique, but not merely in the sense that every natural thing is unique; it somehow exceeds other things in its uniqueness. Originality in such cases may perhaps be expressed in the sense that a natural thing is 'a work of art'.14 If standardness is a constituent feature of beauty because of the needs of the understanding, it should come as no surprise that originality is required in order to meet the needs of the imagination. It is in the name of the freedom of the imagination that Kant criticizes the notion that forms displaying an overly 'stiff regularity could be beautiful. As he puts it: Everything that [shows] stiff regularity (close to mathematical regularity) runs counter to taste because it does not allow us to be entertained for long in our contemplation of it; instead it bores us, unless it is expressly intended either for cognition or a determinate practical purpose. On the other hand, whatever lends itself to the unstudied and purposive play of the imagination is always new to us and we never tire of looking at it. (CJ 242—243/93) The novelty and irregularity of the original form is needed in order to cater to the imagination in its free play. Originality represents the 'divorce from any constraint of a rule' with which Kant associates the 'free and indeterminately purposive entertainment of the mental powers regarding what we call beautiful, where the understanding serves the imagination rather than vice-versa' (CJ 242/ 93). A form is purposive for the imagination if it serves its goal of producing evernewer imaginative forms, or, in other words, prompts the 'wealth of thought' that accompanies the representation of the genius' aesthetic ideas. In short, imagination needs originality as much as understanding needs standardness. Finally, we need to deal here with a potential objection that might be raised against the suggestion that originality is a condition of beauty. This objection would consider originality to be an extrinsic or relational quality of an object, whereas, on this view, its beauty is an intrinsic or non-relational quality. Consequently, it does not, so the objection goes, make any sense to consider originality a constitutive element or otherwise necessary condition of beauty. Originality is an extrinsic or relational quality in the sense that it concerns the causal origin of the work or its relation to other works in a tradition. A work is original if it is not, say, a forgery or copy of another work, or if it is historically among the first of its particular kind (e.g., the first Pollock drip painting). A work or other object is thus always judged original in relation to other things. But beauty is not, according to this objection, relational in this way; a thing possesses beauty in itself, regardless of how things are with other objects. Hence, beauty is something quite independent of originality. Indeed, Kant himself

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seems to be conceding this point when he remarks that 'in order for a work to be beautiful, it is not strictly necessary that [it] be rich and original in ideas' (CJ 319/188). Kant here seems to be quite straightforwardly denying that originality is a necessary condition of beauty. In response, one should simply deny that beauty is 'intrinsic' and 'nonrelational' in the above sense. Certainly, there is nothing in Kant's theory that would lead us to hold that it must be, nor, in my view, does this view recommend itself on its own merits. I consider it to be a virtue of Kant's view of beauty that, for him, our perception of beauty does not exist in a vacuum: our aesthetic appreciation of an object is always affected by our range of experience of other objects. This is part of what it means to cultivate taste 'by familiarizing oneself with a sufficient number of objects of a particular kind' (CJ 284/147). A naive, uncultivated aesthetic appreciator may thus think that a derivative poem by Frederick the Great or the countryside around Konigsburg are highly beautiful, but this is merely a sign of his insufficient experience: he has not read Shakespeare (in English) or seen the Tuscan countryside. On the other hand, if a particular work that is thought to be beautiful is later revealed to be a forgery or a copy of another work, then what has happened is that someone has been deceived into thinking that a work is beautiful itself, when in fact, it is (at most) the representation of a beautiful work. Furthermore, the passage from Kant quoted above need not be taken as a denial that originality is a necessary condition of beauty. The context is the emphasis in §50 on respecting 'taste' (in the narrow sense) as a condition of beauty. This emphasis may have been prompted by Kant's animus against the Sturm und Drang movement, which may in turn have led Kant to overstate his point.15 Whether Kant actually had such an animus or not, the claim there has to be balanced against the other passages in which Kant seems to suggest otherwise. Consequently, we may want to read Kant as saying something like the following in this passage: 'in order for a work to be beautiful, it must not overvalue originality; in particular, the artist must not let the drive for originality lead him to ignore the need for correctness'. This advice would be more in keeping with Kant's other remarks, and consonant with this general view of how standardness and originality must be balanced. It is this view to which I shall now turn.

5. Standardness and Originality in the Form of the Beautiful We are now in a position to see more clearly what is involved in the characterization of beauty as 'the expression of aesthetic ideas'. An aesthetic idea is an intuition that contains within itself an aesthetic standard idea or, alternatively, some comparable element of regularity, but also possesses something in it of novelty or originality. This is the notion of an aesthetic idea that is derived from linking Kant's various discussions of 'exemplarity', 'standardness', 'taste', and the like with his discussions of 'originality', 'spirit'


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and 'genius'. On this interpretation, the introduction of the aesthetic standard idea in §17 is a partial introduction of the notion of an aesthetic idea, simpliciter. The later discussion in §49 completes the picture of aesthetic ideas begun in the earlier section, with an emphasis now on the element of originality. There are, nevertheless, indications in each of these places that the aesthetic idea embodies both conditions of beauty. What, then, is the expression of aesthetic ideas, if it must embody both the standardness and the originality of a form? Kant's view of beauty as an expression of aesthetic ideas, blending standardness and originality, is probably best viewed — was probably viewed by Kant himself — as representing the reasonable middle ground between the extremes of an excessively rigid and boring classicism and a wild and grotesque Sturm und Drang. Here Kant shows the mediating tendency so characteristic of his philosophy everywhere. An initial objection to this solution, however, stems from the worry that it is merely ad hoc. Can something truly be both standard and original? Or, on the other hand, is Kant's notion of beauty intrinsically contradictory? It must be admitted that the two necessary conditions of beauty pull in opposite directions, and hence are unavoidably in tension with one another. No object can be both perfectly standard and perfectly y original in its appearance. That would be intrinsically contradictory. In order to make sense of Kant's two competing conditions of beauty, then, we must stipulate that every actual beautiful object involves a compromise between these two demands, or a balancing between these two elements. The achievement of beauty, whether by nature or the fine artist, is precisely the achievement of such a balance. It also goes almost without saying that there can be no recipe or formula for achieving the balance; the existence of the achievement can only be recognized aesthetically, through the consciousness that an object has the ability to occasion free play. Free play can only occur when the intuition of the object is both standard to a sufficient degree, and original to a sufficient degree. But what counts as 'sufficient' in both cases cannot be determined in advance of the experience of the object. This implies that the determination of the degree of overall standardness and originality in a given case, and the determination of the specific parts, elements and qualities in the intuition of a given object that constitute or display standardness or originality, is a task for the practical critic, rather than the philosopher.16 An equally serious question that naturally arises in relation to Kant's conception of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas concerns the overall systematic coherence of his theory. How is this conception of beauty to be integrated with the earlier conception of beauty as the form of purposiveness without a purpose? Recall that, according to the earlier conception, beauty is the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object might fulfil. Mow Kant wants to say that beauty is also the occasion for an intuition that exhibits both standardness and originality in an ideal balance. The challenge is to show how these two characterizations can be integrated with one another. Before going any further, it is perhaps worth immediately noting the obvious:

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there is no incompatibility between the two characterizations. Certainly, it is possible for a phenomenal form to be spatiotemporal, appearing as if designed, without any obvious purpose, while at the same time exhibiting an aesthetic standard idea combined with elements of originality. The compatibility of the two characterizations is not really the issue; rather, the question is what, if any, systematic relationship they have. What distinctive role does each conception play in Kant's theory of the beautiful? How is each conception integrated into the overall argumentative strategy of the Critique"? In the absence of plausible answers to these questions, the solutions to the problems with the earlier account that I intend to suggest are liable to seeming merely ad hoc. The relation of these two accounts of the form of the beautiful is best understood, in my view, as the relation between a negative and a positive concept of aesthetic form. The suggestion, in other words, is that Kant is following his precedent set in Groundwork III, in which he distinguishes between negative and positive definitions or concepts of freedom (GW 446/52). A negative definition explains a concept merely in terms of what it is not, as when Kant defines 'freedom' as a causality that is not determined by any alien causes (ibid.). A positive definition, in contrast, explains a concept in terms of what it is, as when Kant explains that freedom is a causality determined by the moral law (GW 447 / 53). Given the manifest structure of the Third Moment, I believe that it is plausible to read Kant as offering a merely negative account of the form of the beautiful in §§10—15 before filling in the details — at least partly — with a positive characterization in §17. The complete account of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas is left for the discussion of fine art, which probably seemed to Kant like the most appropriate place in which to bring up the topic of originality. Reading Kant in this way allows us to address some of the problems we saw with the argument of the Third Moment. A basic problem with the preliminary account of the form of purposiveness, one will recall, was how to give content to the notion of appearing 'as if designed'. Guyer argues that this notion is vacuous, and hence useless as a positive characterization of the form of the beautiful. But what if this description was never intended by Kant to be a positive characterization of this form? Kant's main use of the term 'design' in the Third Moment is arguably in the contrast between spatiotemporal 'design' and charms and emotions. This notion of design, therefore, has a mainly negative import: to distinguish the form of the beautiful from (especially) the charming. This negative point seems indeed to be the main object of the first six sections of the Third Moment. It is only later that Kant moves on to the positive characterization of the form of the beautiful. A second problem that this suggestion for understanding the relationship of Kant's two accounts of the beautiful allows us to address concerns the explanation of Kant's belief that the form of the beautiful must be spatiotemporal. While commentators have usually explained this as an illicit importation from the First Critique, we now have available to us a more satisfactory explanation. The form of the beautiful must be spatiotemporal because it must incorporate the element of standardness, and this pertains to


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spatiotemporal form alone. The notion of a 'standard' or 'regular' colour or tone of an animal or living thing has no place in Kant's picture. The aesthetic standard idea of a man, as Kant conceives of it, is no particular colour; it is not, for instance, the average-colour skin tone of all the men one has experienced. This absence of colour from the standard idea is not arbitrary, but rather is a function of its intrinsic nature and the process by which it is formed in the first place. It is formed by imaginatively 'layering' various shapes onto one another, and observing where the colour — whichever colour it is — is 'applied most heavily' (CJ 234/82). The resulting image of a man, Kant says, 'cannot contain any specific characteristics, since then it would not be the standard idea for that kind' (CJ 235/83). The standard idea, in other words, is truly a general, schematic shape. But there is no such thing as a 'general, schematic colour'. The standardness in a regularly repeating pattern — as in the foliage on wallpaper or on sea shells — is similarly incommensurable with colours or tones. It does not seem possible for a colour or tone to be 'regular' in this or any nearly analogous sense.17 We can, of course, imagine a regular repeating pattern of colours — such as the red-white pattern of horizontal stripes on the American flag — but this is not, in the relevant sense, a regularity of colour. It is rather a regularity of figure that is, at most, conditioned and made possible by the alternating colours. In other words, while the difference between red and white is what allows us to recognize the regularity of spatial alternation from one region of the flag to the next, there is nothing 'regular' in the colours themselves.18 From the perspective of regularity alone, the pattern on the American flag would be the same if it were orange and blue stripes. We would, of course, experience this second pattern differently; we might, for instance, enjoy the blue and orange stripes more. But, for Kant, this difference in effect would have to be due entirely to the way the colours blue and orange (or their visual interaction) charmed us; with respect to regularity, the two alternating colourpatterns are identical. In sum, colour is excluded from the form of purposiveness because it does not admit of regularity.19 Kant's insistence on the restriction of the quality of beauty to spatiotemporal form is thus not arbitrary. It is internal to his theory, having its basis in the standardness condition itself. We are now also able to make better sense of Kant's conceptions of adherent beauty and the ideal of the beautiful. A judgement of adherent beauty is a judgement of beauty that 'presupposes a concept of what the object is meant to be', in the sense that a concept of the object's purpose and of its perfection in terms of that purpose constrains what can count as beautiful in its case. There are, apparently, certain specific classes of objects whose beauty must be assessed in this way: human beings, horses, churches, palaces, armories. One source of confusion in regard to this notion is that Kant does not explain his principle of selection for objects that are to be counted as adherent beauties. Kant's most striking example of a judgement of adherent beauty is negative', the case of Maori tattooing. Such 'curlicues and light but regular lines' might be beautiful on wallpaper, but not on the body of a human being. This is supposedly because tattooing is somehow incompatible with the purpose of humanity. This example

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is problematic, however, because even if we want to defend Kant's overall point in formulating the notion of adherent beauty, we may want to disagree with his particular application of this notion in condemnation of the Maori.20 Perhaps a better example can be constructed from Kant's mention of another case of adherent beauty: the beauty of a church. The purpose of a church is to be a solemn place of worship. Consequently, ornamentation that might be beautiful in itself— beautiful lace curtains, for example — might not be compatible with the purpose of a church. From Kant's point of view, this purpose constrains what can count as the church's beauty. A church with beautiful lace curtains would fail to be a beautiful church. The fulfilment of this purpose somehow serves as the necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the beauty of a church. But how is this possible? We might now formulate the answer to this question as follows. (1) The appearances of certain beautiful things contain within themselves an aesthetic standard idea. This is something that Kant, of course, explicitly holds in the case of animals. But for this solution to work, we must be willing to suppose that it also holds in the case of certain familiar artificial structures, such as churches. This supposition seems reasonable; we do seem to find within ourselves a standard idea (i.e., a schematic intuition) of a church, as well as of such things as 'standard' palaces and armories. (2) Certain particular aesthetic standard ideas are, as a matter of natural or historical fact, associated with particular rational ideas. The term rational idea is intended here principally in the sense of a concept of purposes. (3) Presumably, it is possible, psychologically speaking, to dissociate these ideas. I might, for instance, abstract from the purpose of a church and simply assess the beauty of its lace curtains. (4) Kant, however, holds the normative view that we ought not to dissociate these ideas — that, conversely, we ought to make consonance with the rational idea the condition of the marriage, constitutive of beauty, of the aesthetic standard idea with the freedom of the imagination. This is how I read Kant's claim that, in the case of adherent beauty, the judgement of taste of the object 'is made to (wird . . . gemacht] depend on' the purpose of the object (CJ 230/77; my emphasis). In other words, the association of the aesthetic standard idea with a rational idea in these cases is not a psychological necessity, but rather a normative prescription. (5) Kant intimates that the ground of this normative stricture is based on the connection between the value of the beautiful and morality. For Kant, beauty is something worthy of our attention in the first place because it is instrumentally useful for moral purposes. Adherent beauty represents for Kant a 'connection of aesthetic with intellectual liking', or in other words, of 'the beautiful with the good' (CJ 230/78). This 'union' of the beautiful with the good, Kant continues, enables us to use the beautiful as an instrument for our aim regarding the good, so that the mental attunement that sustains itself and has subjective universal validity may serve as the basis for that other way of thinking that can be sustained only by laborious resolve but that is universally valid objectively. (CJ 230-231/78)


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Kant is here referring to part of his theory of the sources of the value of the beautiful: the beautiful is valuable because it is an instrument for the cultivation of moral feeling. 21 But this instrumental use of the phenomenon of beauty apparently presupposes that the purposiveness that is felt in the aesthetic experience of the thing (aesthetic purposiveness) is not at odds with the purposiveness that is thought in the idea of the thing's rational purpose. This normative requirement is not, strictly speaking, an aesthetic norm, but rather a moral one. (6) In cases of adherent beauty, the moral requirement that an object be suitable for its rational purpose overrides the aesthetic assessment of the object, and we are forbidden by rational/moral considerations from allowing the imagination its normal freedom. There is in these cases a moral proscription on exercising our taste to the fullest extent. (7) This restriction is one that applies strictly to the imagination. The standard idea is not, as in the normal case of judging the beautiful, merely balanced against the requirement of originality or imaginative freedom; it serves a more dictatorial role, stipulating what the imagination can and can not do. (8) This brings the judgement of adherent beauty much closer to the situation of a cognitive judgement, so it comes as no surprise that Kant does not consider this to be purely a judgement of taste. As he puts it, a judgement of adherent beauty 'is no longer a free and pure judgment of taste', but rather, he implies, also a partly rational (i.e., moral) judgment (CJ 230/77). (9) On the other hand, it is still partly a judgement of taste, because the requirement of standardness at least is given its usual scope, even if the imagination is not. This account of adherent beauty also allows us to easily explain what was recognized to be the most puzzling aspect of Kant's notion of the ideal of the beautiful: the combination of his claim that the ideal constitutes the 'archetype of taste' — i.e., the ultimate standard by which we must judge every object — with his insistence that only humanity admits of an ideal. The ideal of the beautiful for Kant includes two elements: the aesthetic standard idea of man, combined with the rational idea of the moral vocation of humankind. We have seen that there is a straightforward sense in which the standardness represented in general by the standard idea is the ultimate criterion for judging the beauty of any object: it is one of the two necessary conditions of beauty. But Kant has more than this in mind in claiming that the ideal as a whole serves as such a criterion. He intends to make the point that all our concern over beauty comes to nothing unless it is directed to the service of humanity's moral vocation. As he puts the point in a later passage: the pleasure we take in purposive form is also culture, and it attunes the spirit to ideas, and so makes it receptive to more such pleasure and entertainment; in the case of the matter of sensation, however, the aim is merely enjoyment, which leaves nothing behind as an idea and makes the spirit dull, the object gradually disgusting, and the mind dissatisfied with itself and moody because it is conscious that in reason's judgment its attunement is contrapurposive. Unless we connect the fine arts, closely or remotely, with moral ideas, which

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alone carry with them an independent liking, the second of the two alternatives just mentioned is their ultimate fate. (CJ 195—326/196) What Kant says here about the fine arts should be taken as applying to all aesthetic experience: unless it can somehow be viewed as morally edifying, it is of no ultimate value. 22 Kant's suggestion that the beauty of the human figure is the standard by which we must judge the beauty of the Parthenon and Arabian show horses should be taken in light of this conception of the ultimate value of beauty. It is only because he holds the view that all our concern over beauty is worthless unless it is directed to the goal of human moral perfection that he thinks that (1) an ideal is necessary, and (2) only human beauty can be the ideal. An ideal is necessary in order to remind us that aesthetic experience is not intrinsically valuable, but rather valuable only in relation to ultimate moral ends. Because only humanity can pursue moral ends, only the figure of the human being can represent or symbolize the ultimate purpose of all our concern with beauty. Without his assumption about the source of the value of beauty, neither of these points would follow from the basic tenets of Kant's theory of taste alone.

6. Standardness and Originality in Free Play In this section, I shall offer my interpretation of Kant's conception of free play, which is based on the preceding interpretation of the form of purposiveness. Since, on my view, the form of purposiveness is not actually distinct from the psychological activity of free play, but is rather merely its phenomenologically objectival 'correlate', it should be possible to derive some further conclusions about the nature of free play from the enriched account of the form of purposiveness given above. This further interpretation of free play must then be tested according to its ability to deal with the lacunae outlined in Chapter II. We have seen how Kant characterizes the free and harmonious play of the faculties as the source of our pleasure in the beautiful. Free play must be understood as a modification of the ordinary functioning of the understanding and the imagination as they cooperate in various ways in order to produce a cognition, or act of empirical perception. The preliminary account of this activity considered in Chapter II compared it to the spontaneous activity of the productive imagination when it generates empirical schemata leading to the formation of empirical concepts. In this activity, the imagination acts for the sake of the need of the understanding to bring the manifold of intuition under concepts, but without being directed by a specific conceptual rule. This notion of how empirical concepts are formed led to the suggestion that perhaps in free play the imagination does something similar. The activity of the imagination in free play, however, does not lead to an empirical concept, but rather only to what we called 'the schema of the beautiful'. In Chapter III, we identified this schema with the form of purposiveness, and argued that it should be understood


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as a merely subjective 'projection'. This form is phenomenologically objectival when considered as an intentional object of consciousness, but is not ontologically real in the empirical sense; in order to continue to exist, it must be sustained by the ongoing mental activity of the subject. The form of the beautiful, it was argued, is best conceived as a subjective projection that supervenes upon the objective qualities of an object. Hence, though it may be to varying degrees constrained by these qualities, it is not caused by them; rather, the form of purposiveness is merely occasioned by the properties of a given object. It is produced through an extra 'layer' of synthesis that takes place within the parameters laid down by the more basic synthesis leading to empirical perception — although these two syntheses blend together seamlessly in our actual experience of the object. If free play is the mental activity that generates the form of purposiveness, and the form of purposiveness includes the expression of aesthetic ideas, then we may reasonably draw certain conclusions about what free play involves. In free play, the imagination must produce the aspects of standardness and originality that characterize aesthetic ideas, and this productive activity must be understood as being occasioned, but not caused by, the objective features of certain objects. Kant himself provides us with a detailed account of how the imagination produces standardness in his description of the psychological process underlying the formation of aesthetic standard ideas. This description was excerpted in detail in Chapter III, so I shall merely remind us of the relevant details here. Kant describes an unconscious process whereby the imagination acts both reproductively and productively to produce the standard idea of a kind. This process begins with the reproduction in the imagination of the images and shapes of a variety of objects of the same species. Kant hypothesizes that the imagination may even have the capacity to reproduce every one of the individuals that one has experienced within a certain type — e.g., all the adult men. The imagination then begins to act as a productive faculty on these reproduced images. It projects them onto one another, such that, in the space where most of the images are united, a schematic image of the average figure of individuals of that kind emerges. This is the aesthetic standard idea. Kant notes that one might achieve the same result by conscious intellectual means by measuring and averaging the figures of all these individuals (CJ 234/82). Nevertheless, he supposes that the mind has a purely aesthetic capacity to achieve the same result unconsciously and intuitively. In this way, it produces an 'inner' intuitive criterion of standardness. This process presumably would apply not only to the determination of the aesthetic standard ideas of animal figures, but also to the other types of standard ideas which, it has been suggested, Kant implicitly recognizes. These include, one will recall, the standard ideas of artistic genres and styles, and of familiar types of buildings such as churches. I assume that it is readily apparent how the parallel processes would have to work in these additional cases. A similar psychological process should account for the other type of

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standardness as well: the abstract yet regular patterns on feathered birds, sea shells, the borders of wallpaper, and the like. In the case of such regular patterns, we might suppose that Kant thinks that we have an analogous capacity for intuitive schematization. Certainly, we have an analogous capacity to determine such patterns mathematically; it would be possible, with sufficient mathematical ingenuity, to formulate an algorithm that would capture the pattern on a crustacean's shell or the wallpaper's foliage. It is, of course, not actually necessary for us to do this in order to grasp the regularity of the pattern; we can grasp this order in a purely intuitive manner. How is this possible? In the analogous case of aesthetic standard ideas, Kant posited a special unconscious imaginative process of comparing past experiences, whereby a standard or average schema resulted. It seems reasonable to suppose that Kant might think that there is an analogous unconscious imaginative process that is at work in abstract pattern recognition: some template or schema through which we determine this sort of regularity by intuitive means. Kant's account of how the imagination produces originality is more obscure — perhaps necessarily so, given the subject matter. Most of what Kant has to say explicitly about this process is found in his account of genius. The main factor here, of course, is the 'very mighty power' of the productive imagination, which 'creates, as it were, another nature out of the material that actual nature gives it' (CJ 314/182). Kant continues: 'in this process we feel our freedom from the law of association . . . for although it is under that law that nature lends us material, yet we can process that material into something different, namely, into something that surpasses nature' (ibid.). Perhaps a little more can be said about this process. We have seen that, in his study of the great exemplary works of the past, the genius' own imagination is stimulated to produce an original work of his own. The exhibition of an original aesthetic idea has a mysterious power, that is, to evoke a parallel process in the genius. This presumably accounts not only for how a new aesthetic idea is formed in the mind of the genius, but also for how aesthetic ideas are conveyed from the genius to his audience. Genius, after all, is not merely the capacity to produce aesthetic ideas, but also the capacity to communicate these ideas to others — who presumably are not all geniuses (CJ 317/ 186). A work of genius imparts an aesthetic idea, which possesses the power to produce a wealth of associations in the sensitive viewer or listener — whether he or she is a genius himself or herself or not. Thus, the difference between the genius and the ordinary mortal — Kant's remarks about the genius being 'nature's favourite' and 'a rare phenomenon' notwithstanding — may be merely a matter of degree, rather than of kind. We are all, to some extent or other, in possession of the genius' capacity to respond to an object by generating an aesthetic idea. The genius is distinguished perhaps only by the greater power of his productive imagination. These accounts of how standardness and originality are produced by the productive imagination only get us part of the way to a full account of free play, however. It is still necessary to explain how this activity of the imagination interacts with the empirically given object. All this productive activity of the


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imagination must be understood as being occasioned, rather than caused by, the objective features of certain objects. Certain objects, that is, are appropriate occasions for free play, while others are not. But what happens when the imagination interacts with an object that is such an occasion? Clearly, an interpretation of free play must take account of the difference between creating and responding to an object. The notion of the productive imagination is most at home — is immediately intelligible, that is — in the explanation of artistic production. It is less clear how it can figure in an explanation of aesthetic response — whether to beautiful objects of art or nature. Kant, unfortunately, provides us with little direct assistance here, so this account must necessarily be somewhat speculative. Nevertheless, I believe that the following can justifiably be said. In aesthetic perception, we import our past experience and cultivation into our present apprehension of the object. The imagination produces an aesthetic idea, containing elements of standardness and originality derived from that past experience, in response to the appearance of an empirical object that provides the occasion for its activity. The resultant image is phenomenologically objectival, and hence, in being projected onto the empirical object, blends seamlessly with our objective empirical perception of the thing. The understanding sees the object through the imagination's aesthetic idea, even as the imagination incorporates the appearance of the object into it. In providing the understanding with an aesthetic idea through which to view the object, the imagination provides the mind as a whole with the means for an enriched perception of it. What occurs in aesthetic perception is an added layer of synthesis — a synthesis, however, that is achieved aesthetically, by means of an aesthetic idea, rather than a concept. The resultant perception is, because of its standardness, perceived as purposive for the understanding, and, because of its originality, perceived as purposive for the (productive) imagination. Because of this, both of these faculties are energized or 'quickened' to 'linger in their contemplation' (or representation) of the object. We must now ask whether this view of free play allows us to fill in the gaps in our earlier account in Chapter II. The initial problem we considered in connection with that earlier account concerned the explanation of how the schema of the beautiful is produced. According to the analogy with empirical concept formation, this schema apparently has to be produced through an act of reflective comparison, either of representations with one another, or of a given representation with one's cognitive powers. The problem was that we could not see how either sort of comparison fit the case of aesthetic perception. Our enriched account of free play, however, makes it clear how the schema of the beautiful is produced through an act of reflective comparison that is akin to, but distinct from, the comparison involved in the production of an empirical schema. In Chapter II, I suggested that an empirical schema is formed through a process of imaginatively comparing various representations. The empirical schema of a tree, for instance, could be formed by a process of superimposing reproductions of a spruce, willow and a linden, etc. onto one another in the imagination, and then noticing the 'darkest' area of overlap that resulted from

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this superimposition. After abstracting from everything in the reproduced impressions except for the overlap, the mind would be left with the schematic image of a tree. This process, we can now see, is strikingly similar to the process by which an aesthetic standard idea is formed. While it is less easy to tell, there may be similar parallels with the formation of original ideas. It seems reasonable to suppose that the 'material' of the productive imagination to which Kant refers when talking about the genius' production of original ideas arise from some sort of comparison of works of past geniuses. In responding to an object's uniqueness or novelty, moreover, we must compare it with the standard, conventional or typical. Consequently, it would seem that some familiar sort of imaginative comparison is involved in the production of the 'original' side of the form of the beautiful as well.23 On this account, it is not difficult to see how the form of the beautiful and the activity of free play are purposive for the understanding. Here again, it is useful to draw a parallel with the activity of the imagination in empirical concept formation. In empirical concept formation, the imagination is acting in a manner that can be considered purposive for the understanding because it is presenting it with something — an empirical schema — that assists it in fulfilling its purpose of bringing a manifold of intuition under a concept. In the case of aesthetic perception, the imagination is presenting the understanding with something that is akin to an empirical schema, which is either an aesthetic standard idea or comparable pattern of regularity. It is purposive for the understanding because of the way in which the synthesis of the manifold achieved through this schema is conducive to the aim of the understanding, which is to bring intuitions under concepts. Any empirical synthesis that is brought by the imagination to the understanding for purposes of conceptualization will be purposive for the understanding, in the sense that it will involve at least the minimum required for the exhibition of a concept. For example, any intuitive representation that we can recognize as a representation of a man must possess a certain minimum (though indeterminate) number of the typical features of a man. In certain cases, however, the understanding may have to strain in order to recognize a representation to be a man; this might be the case if the viewing conditions are less than optimal, or we are dealing with what are called 'borderline cases'. In such cases, we might say that we are dealing with the 'bare' exhibition of a concept. This is one extreme on the spectrum of possibilities for the exhibition of the concept 'man'. At the other extreme, we have the exhibition that matches an aesthetic standard idea of man. The aesthetic standard idea may be considered as an 'ideal' rather than a 'bare' exhibition of a concept. The synthesis of a manifold through such an idea naturally energizes or enlivens the understanding — assuming it is functioning properly — to compare its representation of this object with other objects of that kind, because doing so will enable it to grasp the rule more precisely. It is in this way that the form of the beautiful is purposive for the understanding. 24 Another major gap in our preliminary account of free play concerned the relation of the imagination in free play to concepts. The primary issue was


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whether the schema of the beautiful was subsumable under a concept. Kant, as we have seen, emphasizes in many places that the pleasure in the beautiful is independent of concepts. There seemed, however, to be two possible ways to understand this: either the schema of the beautiful could never, in principle, be subsumable under a concept, or else it could be brought under a concept, but simply not in the act of aesthetic reflection; in this act, we abstract from the concept that would, in fact, capture the schema. We saw that both of these options seemed problematic. The first option seemed supported by Kant's denial of principles of taste, but suffered from two serious problems. First, it could not adequately explain why free play should be purposive for, or felt as pleasurable by the understanding. Second, it could not make the concept of something that could never, in principle, be brought under a concept sufficiently intelligible. On the other hand, the second option for understanding the relationship between the imagination and concepts suffered from problems of its own. First, it was not obviously compatible with Kant's denial of principles of taste. Second, it lacked an account of how the activity of free play was distinct from the activity in empirical concept formation. Consequently, it was haunted by the spectre of the everything-is-beautiful problem: the problem of explaining how the harmony of the faculties in free play is different from the harmony of the faculties in ordinary empirical perception, such that not every object of empirical perception turns out to be beautiful. The interpretation of free play advanced above requires us to choose the second of these two options. The form of purposiveness, on the foregoing interpretation, can clearly be brought under a concept, but we abstract from this fact in the act of aesthetic reflection. As was just noted in the foregoing discussion of the imaginative process whereby standardness is produced, both the aesthetic standard idea and the regularity of a figurative pattern can be represented mathematically. The aesthetic standard idea of man, for instance, can be grasped through the determinate concept of the 'average man'. There is likewise no reason to deny that an original aesthetic idea can, 'in the course of cultural progress', become quite standard or typical, and thus brought under a concept. In an aesthetic judgement, of course, we pay no attention to this fact. Instead, we abstract from any conceptual knowledge that we may have and indulge in a purely intuitive and felt apprehension of the object's sensible form. On the other hand, the present interpretation allows us to preserve Kant's denial of principles of taste. As we have seen, Kant denies that there could be an 'objective' principle of taste. Such a principle, as Kant conceives of it, would be a determinate discursive rule that could function as the major premise in a syllogism which led to a judgement of taste as its conclusion, or, in other words, that could serve as a norm for the correct subsumption of objects determined to fall under it. Such a principle would give discursive expression to some sufficient condition of beauty, such as the Golden Section. We can readily see that the explanation of the form of the beautiful and free play given above provides for no such discursive rule. The judgement of taste on this account remains purely and entirely an aesthetic judgement — i.e., one that has to be made on the basis of

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the subject's immediate response to the object. No discursive principle is employed in this judgement, nor does this account suggest that such a principle could be derived from the aesthetic response and serve as a substitute for it. While it is true that there is an intellectual or discursive substitute for the element of standardness, two facts need to be emphasized. First, this substitute is not acceptable as a component of an aesthetic judgement, and second, even if it were, standardness is not by itself sufficient for beauty. Originality is, of course, also required. That which is original in an intuition can eventually be conceptualized, but, again, this does not imply that the resultant conceptual representation can serve as a substitute for the aesthetic one. In this case, the reason is that the imagination is no longer satisfied by a once original quality that has

since become so stale that there is a ready-made concept for it. The work has lapsed into standardness. In order for the imagination to achieve satisfaction, there must be an element in the object that is novel, individual and as yet 'ineffable' or incommensurable — in short, not yet conceptualized. Consequently, there can be no objective principles of taste. Lastly, the foregoing interpretation of beauty is also well designed for dealing with the everything-is-beautiful problem. On this account of what beauty involves, it is obvious that not everything has it. More precisely, there are in general two ways in which the form of an object may be unsuited to occasion free play: this form may fail to exhibit either standardness or originality.25 Both types of failure, moreover, are possible in nature and art alike. Kant warns of the artistic failure that results from rashly abandoning all rules of academic correctness, chastising those 'shallow minds' who 'believe that the best way to show that they are geniuses in full bloom is to renounce all rules of academic constraint, believing that they will cut a better figure on the back of an illtempered than of a training horse' (CJ 310/178). A work of art may thus fail to be beautiful by lacking any element of academic form, measure or regularity — thereby falling short of satisfying the understanding's need for order. Likewise, an object of nature may so 'offend against the standard idea' that the understanding finds nothing satisfying in it (CJ 235/83). In general, Kant seems to think of a form as failing to satisfy the understanding because it pulls too far in the direction of the imagination. Kant approves of'carrying the imagination's freedom very far, even to the verge of the grotesque', but in saying this he also marks the limit beyond which this striving for imaginative freedom fails to produce beauty any longer: viz., when it begins to produce the grotesque (CJ 242/93). The grotesque thus seems to be one typical instance of the ugly for Kant. 26 The other, which he does not name, might be called the 'plain'. This at any rate seems an apt name for the aesthetic failure that results from pulling too far in the other direction: in the direction of the understanding. We have already seen that an overly regular or standard face or figure is described by Kant as 'spiritless' and 'mediocre'. Such forms have nothing in them to interest the imagination, and so cannot be beautiful. It is for this reason as well that Kant contradicts those 'critics of taste' who 'adduce geometrically regular figures, such as a circle,


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a square, or cube, etc., as the simplest and most indubitable examples of beauty' (CJ 241/92). From Kant's point of view, this is an understandable but erroneous judgement. Such figures, by their boring and easily comprehended regularity, lack the power to stimulate the imagination, and so are not beautiful.

7. Conclusions In this chapter, I have analysed Kant's conception of an 'aesthetic idea' into its constitutive elements of standardness and originality, and incorporated that conception into enriched accounts of the form of purposiveness and free play. We now have a clearer picture of what the beautiful entails for Kant which has allowed us to better address the interpretive problems raised in the previous two chapters. But we have in a sense not yet even begun to address the crucial question with which this study began: what legitimates the demand for universal agreement in pleasure contained in the judgement of taste? The preceding investigations have, however, set the stage to provide an answer to this question as well — or so I shall argue in the next chapter.

Chapter V

Pleasure and Justification

1. Overview of the Chapter Kant's theory of beauty as the form of purposiveness and the expression of aesthetic ideas can be valued for its own sake, as an interesting and illuminating phenomenology of certain of our experiences of the beautiful in nature and art. Kant himself, however, pursues this account of the beautiful with an ulterior motive in mind, namely, to lay the groundwork for a justification of the claim to universal validity implied in a judgement of taste. In Kant's mind, it is because this form of judgement possesses normativity that the phenomenon of the beautiful is worthy of a transcendental critique in the first place. Accordingly, our examination of the demands of taste in Kant's aesthetics should properly culminate in an investigation of his attempt to legitimate these demands. The locus of this attempt is Kant's 'deduction of taste', which is therefore the central focus of the present chapter. I shall here be primarily concerned to analyse the precise nature of the problem that, according to Kant, the deduction is designed to solve, and, following this, reconstruct the argument of the deduction itself. My principal aim shall be to demonstrate that the deduction, properly interpreted, is a successful argument, and hence Kant's theory of taste does indeed accomplish its fundamental aim, which is to show how beauty — at least as Kant understands it — can legitimately be the object of a universal normative demand to take pleasure in it. In addition to this primary objective, I shall also take up some essential preliminary business concerning the nature of the pleasure in the beautiful. A thorough understanding of the nature of Kant's views on aesthetic justification requires an accurate and precise conception of his views on the nature of aesthetic pleasure. If free play is to serve as the ground of the judgement of taste, then it must of course be seen as a source of pleasure. But our account so far has not yet shown why this must be so. To show this requires broaching a topic that has up to now been passed over, namely, how Kant conceives of pleasure in general. Once this conception is understood, it will be possible to see how pleasure is connected to free play. Following these preliminary matters, I shall take up the interpretive issues surrounding the problem leading to the need for a deduction. The problem of the deduction, as I shall demonstrate, is to show that the 'subjective principle'


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that is the basis for a judgement of taste is a norm or rule that legitimately legislates for the pleasure of all subjects. The main interpretive question that arises in this domain concerns our understanding of the nature of this 'subjective principle'. What is a subjective principle, and why should we think that taste operates by applying such a principle? The analysis of the role of aesthetic ideas in the previous chapter will once again prove useful in resolving these questions. I shall demonstrate that the subjective principle in question is nothing other than the harmony of the faculties in free play itself, and, hence, if the analysis of the last chapter is correct, it can be equated with the aesthetic ideas that serve as the models for our judgements of taste. What the deduction therefore needs to show is that these ideas represent valid norms of judgement, such that the pleasure that results from applying them is appropriate for all similarly constituted cognitive subjects. Following this analysis of the problem with which the deduction is concerned, I shall examine the argument itself. Given the normative reading of universal validity established in Chapter I, we should expect that the conclusion of the deduction of taste will be that the pleasure-imperative implied in a judgement of taste is legitimately issued. This conclusion must be carefully distinguished from the claim that many commentators have thought the deduction must establish, namely, the claim that when a judgement of taste is made, there is a supposition, perhaps qualified, that everyone will actually agree with it. As was argued previously, however, the deduction is not a prediction, qualified or not, about how actual subjects will react to a certain object, but rather a normative declaration of how they ought to react. In order to make out Kant's grounds for this conclusion, however, one must first find the argument, which turns out to be not as easy as one might expect. Although the deduction of taste is 'officially' presented in §38, the real deduction, as I interpret it, is not in fact given in this section at all, but rather at the end of the Analytic in §21. I shall accordingly point out the deficiencies of the 'official' version, and then offer a detailed reconstruction and defence of the true deduction.

2. Free Play and Pleasure Since the notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play was originally introduced as the explanation of pleasure in the beautiful, no interpretation of free play can be considered complete that does not explicitly address the question why it must be considered as a necessary source of pleasure. In this section, I attempt to explain the precise nature of the relationship between the mental states of pleasure and free play. There are two basic options for understanding this relationship. On the one hand, we can construe it as a causal relationship, such that free play and pleasure are understood as distinct mental states, with the former producing the latter as a cause produces an effect. While this is a very natural way to construe the relationship, and has some textual support, I conclude that it is ultimately insupportable. Instead, I argue for an

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alternative view that interprets the relation of free play and pleasure as one of identity, rather than cause and effect. That is, the mental state of free play — or rather, the consciousness of this state — may be seen as a species of the genus of mental states to which Kant applies the term 'pleasure'. This view is equally well supported by the text, without being vulnerable to the objections against the causal reading. Showing this will require an examination of Kant's general conception of the nature of pleasure. I shall argue that on the reading of free play advanced in the previous chapter, the consciousness of free play can be reasonably regarded as a species of the feeling of life, which is one of Kant's definitions of pleasure. The equation of pleasure with the feeling of life, however, may not be regarded as self-evidently appropriate. Consequently, I conclude the section by investigating the manner in which Kant might derive this definition from his 'transcendental' definition of pleasure as a mental state that is the basis for preserving itself. There seem to be two basic options for understanding the necessary connection of free play and pleasure. Probably the more natural way to understand this connection is as a causal relation between distinct mental states. We might, however, alternatively understand this relation as one of identity, such that free play, or our consciousness of it, is identified with a specific type of state of pleasure. While the former, causal reading has naturalness and some textual support on its side, it is also subject to objections that ultimately render it unacceptable. For a well-developed example of the causal reading, we may turn once again to Guyer. While Guyer's interpretation is certainly a plausible one — especially given his own general understanding of Kant's theory of taste — it suffers, in my view, from two crippling defects. First, it undermines the normativity of judgements of taste by introducing a synthetic a posteriori principle into the foundations of aesthetic judgements of the beautiful. Second, it leads to a deficient phenomenology of the experience of the beautiful, which implausibly separates the pleasure from the experience of the beautiful form itself. Guyer regards the harmony of the faculties in free play and the pleasure in the beautiful that is connected to it as two distinct mental states that are related to one another as a cause is related to an effect. He is well aware of the possibility of reading Kant as holding that 'we do not have two distinct kinds of feelings, feelings of unity or harmony and feelings of pleasure', but rather that 'feelings of unity just are pleasurable'. 1 Guyer rejects this view, however, on the grounds that, for Kant, 'all feelings of pleasure are qualitatively identical'. 2 Since all feelings of pleasure are qualitatively identical, the pleasures accompanying such diverse activities as eating an ice cream cone, having a warm bath, winning a marathon, finishing a book, or viewing a beautiful painting are, according to Guyer's reading of Kant, phenomenologically indistinguishable. Obviously, the only way to make sense of such a view is to regard pleasure as a distinct sensation accompanying the experience. Guyer's attribution of this view of pleasure to Kant rests on his reading of a particular passage of the Critique of Practical Reason, in which Kant writes:


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However dissimilar representations of objects may be — they may be representations of the understanding or even of reason, in contrast to representations of sense — the feeling of pleasure by which alone they properly constitute the determining ground of the will . . . is nevertheless of one and the same kind not only insofar as it can always be cognized only empirically but also insofar as it affects one and the same vital force that is manifested in the faculty of desire, and in this respect can differ only in degree from any other determining ground. (CPR 5: 23/21) Guyer reads this passage as saying that 'whether the feeling of pleasure is one of contemplation or desire', its 'content as a conscious state of mind is the same'.3 The consequence of this view, as Guyer notes, is that the only way to differentiate between pleasures is by their 'causal history': pleasures in the agreeable and the good are distinguished from the pleasures in the beautiful not by their inherent quality, but merely by the fact that they have different causes.* Guyer is thus committed to interpreting the relation between pleasure in the beautiful and free play as a causal relation. According to him, the connection between the harmony and the pleasure depends on 'a psychological process or mechanism, in virtue of which the harmony of the faculties causes a feeling of pleasure'. 5 As Guyer is quick to point out, this causal reading appears to be supported by several passages in the Third Critique, in which Kant uses causal terminology such as 'affected (afficirt)' or 'effected (bewirkt)' to describe the relation between the subject and his pleasure, on the one hand, and the representation of the object, on the other.6 Guyer concludes that 'all of these remarks suggests a causal relationship between the harmony of the faculties and the feeling of pleasure'. 7 The view of free play and pleasure as distinct mental states related by an external causal relation obviously raises a question, however, about the basis of this connection. As Guyer puts it, the basic question is now 'why the harmony of the faculties [in free play] should produce pleasure in the beautiful'. 8 Kant of course makes clear in the Critique of Pure Reason that he is committed to the general doctrine that every causal relation must have a law or 'rule' at its basis. What, then, is the law or rule which underwrites the supposed necessary causal connection of free play and pleasure? In the attempt to answer this question, Guyer attributes to Kant 'a general theory of the production of pleasure'. 9 According to this theory, 'all pleasure results from the fulfillment of some aim of the subject'. 10 Guyer extrapolates from two remarks by Kant in order to support this theory. First, in Section VI of the Introduction, Kant claims that the 'attainment of an aim (Absicht) is always connected with the feeling of pleasure' (CJ 187/27). Second, in the 'General Comment' concluding the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant adds that 'achieving any aim (Absicht), even a problematical one, is accompanied by a liking' (CJ 242/93). Guyer reads these passages (which he says are 'Kant's only general statements on the conditions in which pleasure occurs') as asserting that 'all pleasure is linked to the satisfaction of some aim', such that the satisfaction of an

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aim is both necessary and sufficient for pleasure. 11 With this theory of the origin of pleasure in hand, Guyer infers that the free harmony of the faculties generates pleasure simply because it involves the satisfaction of a quasi-cognitive objective of the subject — i.e., the unification of a manifold of intuition (without a concept). 12 It is at this point, however, that Guyer's reading becomes problematic. For he quite rightly goes on to ask what the status is of this general view about the production of pleasure; i.e., whether Kant is entitled to employ it as 'a lawlike and fundamental premise'. 13 Is this claim to be regarded as analytic or synthetic, a priori or a posteriori? Guyer quite reasonably concludes that it can be neither analytic, nor synthetic a priori. It cannot be analytic, according to Guyer, because it cannot be derived from any definition of pleasure that Kant gives; that is, it cannot be taken to be a defining feature of pleasure that it results from

the satisfaction of an aim. If, on the other hand, Kant intends this claim to be synthetic a priori, then we must expect him to put forth a transcendental argument in support of it; no such argument, however, is ever given. If it can be neither analytic nor synthetic a priori, then it must be synthetic a posteriori. This would be the case if it were, as Guyer suggests, 'a fundamental law of human psychology' that would have an empirical basis, and hence be 'at least conceivably disconfirmable'. 14 This is a problematic result, because it means that the foundation of Kant's theory of judgements of taste actually involves an empirical presupposition. This fact would be inconsistent with the understanding of the universal validity of judgements of taste as a form of normativity, for no normative claim for Kant could ever have an empirical basis.15 Guyer is untroubled by this result however, because he regards it as less a problem with his reading than as an exposure of the limitations of Kant's theory. An interpreter who attempts to take the normative reading seriously, on the other hand, obviously has an incentive to resist Guyer's conclusions, if this is at all possible. A second incentive is arguably provided by the phenomenological implications of Guyer's reading. On Guyer's view, Kant thinks that pleasure in the beautiful is a distinct, separate sensation that accompanies our representation of the beautiful object.16 Several commentators have noted that this represents a significantly distorted phenomenology of our actual experience of the beautiful. As Richard Aquila remarks, the causal reading 'is a philosophically unsatisfactory one because it fails to accommodate the fact that there is a phenomenological difference between an experience in which one perceives some object while at the same time feeling a pleasure, and an experience in which one feels a pleasure in that very object'.17 Aquila's observation, if it is accurate, provides us with an additional incentive to resist Guyer's interpretation. Of course, incentives to resist an interpretation are irrelevant if there is no cogent textual argument to back them up. Fortunately, the textual evidence does not unambiguously favour Guyer's causal reading. There is at least an equal amount of evidence favouring the identification of consciousness of free play with pleasure in the beautiful. On this reading, the feeling of pleasure and the


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feeling of the harmony of the faculties in free play are internally, rather than externally related. Pleasure in the beautiful just is the feeling of free harmony, or that through which we become conscious of it. On this view, free play is the 'intentional object' of the pleasure; consequently, this view could also be called the 'intentionalistic' reading. Evidence for this reading can be found in several places in the Third Critique. In the 'Comment' to Section VIII, Kant characterizes 'the feeling of pleasure in certain objects' as 'the empirical consciousness of subjective purposiveness' (FI 227/416). Two paragraphs later, he says that 'the representation of a subjective purposiveness in an object [not only has something to do with but] is even identical with the feeling of pleasure' (FI 228/418). Finally, Kant says that 'the concept of the formal but subjective purposiveness of objects' is 'basically identical with the feeling of pleasure' (FI 228/418). No doubt, these remarks are somewhat obscure (especially the last, which by identifying pleasure with a concept, seems to contradict Kant's earlier remarks). Their general thrust, however, is clear: pleasure is to be understood as an intentional state — viz., a representation of 'subjective purposiveness'. Other remarks suggesting an intentionalistic interpretation of pleasure can be found in the First Introduction and the Critique proper.18 For instance, Kant speaks of the relation of the faculties as one that 'can be sensed' (FI 223/411). He refers to the sensation of pleasure in the beautiful as 'a sensible representation of the state of the subject who is affected by an act of [the] power of judgment' (FI 223/412). Lastly, he also describes this sensation as 'the very consciousness of a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' (CJ 222/68). Clearly, there are solid textual grounds for ascribing to Kant an intentional view of the pleasure in the beautiful. A key point to be emphasized here is that the consciousness of free play must be understood as a form of sensuous or 'feeling-consciousness', rather than an intellectual or conceptual form of consciousness. This necessity is made apparent by the way in which Kant answers the self-posed question of 'how we become conscious, in a judgment of taste, of a reciprocal subjective harmony between the cognitive powers: is it aesthetically, through mere inner sense and sensation? Or is it intellectually, through consciousness of the intentional activity by which we bring these powers into play?' (CJ 218/63). Kant's answer to this question is unambiguous: If the given representation that prompts the judgment of taste were a concept which, in our judgment of the object, united understanding and imagination so as to give rise to cognition of the object, then the consciousness of this relation would be intellectual . . . But in that case the judgment would not have been made in reference to pleasure and displeasure and hence would not be a judgment of taste. But in fact a judgment of taste determines the object, independently of concepts, with regard to the liking and the predicate of beauty. Hence that unity in the relation [between the cognitive powers] in the subject can reveal itself only through sensation. (CJ 218—219/63)

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In other words, the consciousness of free play must be a feeling, because otherwise the judgement of taste would not be an aesthetic judgement. According to the 'identity' or 'intentionalistic' reading, the pleasure in the beautiful is itself this feeling-consciousness of free play. We have seen the textual evidence suggesting an identification of pleasure in the beautiful with consciousness of free play, but we have not yet seen a justification of this identification. What is pleasure, such that free play can be plausibly thought to be a species of it? I shall now argue that a direct connection between pleasure and the consciousness of free play can be made via the concepts of 'life' and 'enlivenment'. As we have seen, Kant standardly characterizes the mental state of free play as more than merely a static condition: it is best understood as a mental activity or process, according to which the two cognitive faculties 'further' each other. The consciousness of this activity is what we are aware of in the feeling-consciousness of free play. As Kant says in the key §9, 'that unity in the relation [between the cognitive powers] in the subject can reveal itself only through sensation. This sensation . . . is the enlivenment (Belebung) of the two powers . . . to an activity' (CJ 219/63). So our consciousness of free play is not a consciousness of a static mental state, but rather the consciousness of an enlivenment of the faculties as they engage with an object whose phenomenologically objectival representation is felt to be purposive for that activity. For this reason, consciousness of free play is aptly described as the 'feeling of life'. The 'feeling of life', however, is also one of Kant's ways of describing the nature of pleasure itself. Already in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant defined pleasure as 'the representation of the agreement of an object or of an action with the subjective conditions of life'' (CPR 9/8fn). This definition is carried over into the Third Critique, where Kant introduces the concept of pleasure using similar language. In an aesthetic judgement, Kant writes, the representation of an object 'is referred only to the subject, namely, to his feeling of life, under the name feeling of pleasure or displeasure' (CJ 204/44). If pleasure is simply the feeling of life, then it is obvious that the consciousness of free play, which is one instance of the feeling of life (or enlivenment), should be considered a species of pleasure. This still leaves the question, however, of why pleasure and displeasure should be equated with the feeling of life in the first place. The suggestion appears to be that as long as we are alive, we are constantly experiencing pleasure or displeasure — to however minimal a degree. Although Kant (so far as I know) nowhere makes this claim explicit, pleasure would presumably be distinguished from displeasure or pain by the fact that enlivenment, or the increase of our vital force, is experienced as pleasure, whereas a diminution of our vital force is experienced as pain. But what is the basis of this presumption? Perhaps the closest thing to an argument for it can be inferred by connecting it with another definition of pleasure that Kant puts forth in the Critique of Judgment. In both Section VIII of the First Introduction and in §10 of the Analytic, Kant puts forth what he calls a 'transcendental' or 'general' definition of pleasure as a self-


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perpetuating mental state. In the First Introduction, Kant defines pleasure as 'a mental state in which a representation is in harmony with itself [and] which is the basis either for merely preserving this state itself . . . or for producing the object of this representation' (FI 230-231/420). In §10, he says that 'consciousness of a representation's causality directed at the subject's state so as to keep him in that state, may here designate generally what we call pleasure' (CJ 220/65). The key claim in both of these definitions is that pleasure is a mental state that is the basis for its own preservation, or that it is a selfperpetuating state. Unlike the definition of pleasure as a feeling of life, this seems like an uncontroversial characterization of what pleasure is. It seems hard to dispute the evident fact that pleasure is, if anything, an experience that holds our attention or consciousness in place, such that we feel as if our state of mind has a certain 'psychic momentum' all its own. When taking pleasure in an object, we always feel absorbed or engrossed in it to a degree that is directly proportioned to the pleasure we derive from it. Pleasure, in short, is aptly characterized as the consciousness of being preserved in one's mental state by one's consciousness o an object. Kant remarks that we are in possession of something like this consciousness when we experience the beautiful. Our consciousness of a beautiful form, he says, has a 'causality in it', which is an ability to 'keep [us in] the state of [having] the representation itself, and [to keep] the cognitive powers engaged [in their occupation] without any further aim' (CJ 222/68). This connection itself goes some way towards establishing free play as a pleasure, but it rests on Kant's separate claim that 'we linger in our contemplation of the beautiful' (ibid.). It would be better to be able to establish the connection between free play and pleasure through the feature of enlivenment, which is more central to Kant's account of free play itself. This connection can perhaps be made if we think of enlivenement as the mode in which our 'state' of being alive is perpetuated. We maintain our being-alive only by a continually renewed process of enlivenment, interrupted by occasional periods in which the vital force is diminished (e.g., when we fall asleep). If this enlivenment did not occur, we would soon lapse into a deathly state. The consciousness of the enlivenment of the faculties is equivalent to the consciousness of a representation's ability to enliven our faculties. This consciousness, then, is the consciousness of being preserved in one's state of being alive by one's consciousness of an object. Consequently, it is, by Kant's plausible general definition, a pleasure.

3. The Problem of the Deduction We are now prepared to turn to the main business of this chapter, which is to see how Kant attempts to justify the demand for pleasure implied in a judgement of taste. The centrepiece of Kant's attempt to justify the demands of taste is the socalled 'deduction' of judgements of taste. But what is the aim of such an argument? Fortunately, Kant provides us with a fair amount of discussion of the answer to that question, both in the Critique of Judgment itself and in the previous

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two Critiques. Kant of course originally employed the notion of a 'deduction' in the Critique of Pure Reason. As Kant uses it there, this notion has a specific technical sense, which is not simply equivalent to the familiar concept of a logical deductive inference. As Dieter Henrich has revealingly demonstrated, this notion, in Kant's particular usage, has a specific historical origin, referring to special legal publications employed in the Holy Roman Empire known as Deduktionsschriften.l

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