by Robert Wicks
Upon this threefold layering of sensation, form and meaning, Kant constructs his theory of beauty. He first highlights the object’s spatio-temporal design as the locus of pure beauty, and then, moving on to consider more complex varieties of beauty, he reintroduces the object’s sensory and semantic dimensions insofar as they blend in with pure beauty. We will keep this procedure in mind.
At a more cursory level, Kant’s theory of beauty is inspired by an ordinary, but crucial, observation about our daily aesthetic practice: when, of some object, we assert that it is beautiful, we typically think that others ought to agree. Kant regards this as virtually a demand that we make of others, and he is captivated by the persistent strength of this demand, which is almost moral in tone.
The situation is unlike our personal reports about whether we enjoy the taste of, for instance, chocolate, licorice, mashed potatoes, spicy foods, frog’s legs, lamb’s brains, caviar, wines, or thick soups. In such cases, we do not automatically press upon others to agree, and the reason is obvious: other people’s tongues, eyes, fingertips, ears and noses can be more sensitively or alternatively conditioned than our own, and vice-versa. If someone’s eyes cannot physiologically register certain shades of colour, no one can reasonably maintain that the person ought to be sensitive to those shades in their aesthetic judgements. Applying here as well, is the dictum that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, for if one cannot, then certainly one ought not.
In view of people’s physiological differences, that we normally expect others to agree with our judgements of beauty signals to Kant that these judgements are grounded differently from reports of sensory likings or dislikings. He can only infer that, like moral judgements, they involve feelings that originate in a different part of the mind, independently of the particular construction of our sensory organs. The upshot is to divide aesthetic judgements into two elementary groups, that of ‘aesthetic judgements of beauty’ and ‘aesthetic judgements of sensation’, where the latter refer to our private sensory likings. As ‘aesthetic’, both aesthetic judgements of beauty and aesthetic judgements of sensation are based on feelings, but Kant is convinced that radically different kinds of feelings are respectively involved.
With this distinction in hand, Kant can more effectively explain why the particular quality of the feelings associated with beauty generates the expectation that others agree with our judgements. One could say that the feeling of beauty is a feeling of universal validity that constitutes our experience of a beautiful object. When we assert that some object is beautiful, the feeling of conviction is strong, closely akin to that felt in asserting 2 + 2 = 4, or that parallel lines on a flat surface never meet. In contrast, ordinary sensory feelings lack this socially univocal and demanding dimension, since people’s sense organs are variously constructed. Sensory feelings are particular to each of us as individuals, and they harbour no expectations that others ought to feel the same way.
Key idea: ‘Aesthetic judgements of sense’ as opposed to ‘aesthetic judgements of beauty’
Although all aesthetic judgements are based on feelings, Kant identifies two different kinds of feelings which can be the ground of such judgements. These are sensory feelings, which vary from person to person, and the feeling of pure beauty – a special cognitive feeling which does not vary from person to person.
Let us then explore this feeling of universal validity that characterizes judgements of beauty. There are three aspects to take into account. First, we will need some further details about the internal sources of this universal feeling that supposedly can be exactly the same in everyone. Second, with respect to the external objects that we judge, we will need to restrict our attention to features of objects that are equally accessible to all human beings per se, independently of the physiological variations in people’s sense organs. Third, in our approach to the objects, we will need to adopt an appropriately universalistic attitude when judging those objects in reference to their beauty – an attitude that promotes a universal feeling by disregarding all personal or idiosyncratic factors. Within Kant’s theory of beauty, these three aspects work together.
We can start with the third, which concerns the appropriate attitude – an ‘aesthetic’ attitude, one may call it – required to allow an object’s pure beauty to impress itself upon us clearly. Here, perhaps surprisingly to some, Kant states that when we judge an object’s pure beauty, it is not necessary to know what kind of thing the object is! The object’s formal design can in itself be satisfying to apprehend, independently of any such information. Knowing that the object happens to be an amethyst or a piece of rose quartz, for example, does not affect how we feel about the object’s spatio-temporal configuration, when the object’s configuration is considered in isolation.
Neither, curiously, do we need to know that the object is real, since a mental image that is structurally identical to a real object would be equally as satisfying to behold, if we are restricting our attention to the sheer quality of the design. In this respect, judgements of beauty presuppose a ‘disinterested’ attitude, where one remains neutral about whether or not the object actually exists. Dreams can be as beautiful as the real world.
Spotlight: Aesthetic disinterestedness and the aesthetic attitude
In asserting that judgements of beauty should be made ‘without interest’, Kant asks us to suspend our interest in the object’s being real. This is a small departure from previous theorists who also associated disinterestedness with a properly aesthetic attitude, most of whom were British and writing during the late 1600s and early 1700s. Among these aesthetic attitude theorists are Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1621–1683), who was the first Earl of Shaftesbury, Joseph Addison (1672–1719) and Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746).
In their discussions of beauty, ‘disinterestedness’ refers to a selfless attitude that leaves one free to appreciate objects and activities for their own sake, without any view towards possessing the objects or using them for material gain.
Ever since the 1600s, this idea of an aesthetic attitude wherein one divests oneself of selfish motives and appreciates objects for their own sake has been central to aesthetic theory. Along with Kant, Shaftesbury is frequently mentioned as the father of modern aesthetics – we might refer to Shaftesbury as the grandfather – precisely owing to his insights about aesthetic disinterestedness.
Finally – and this runs contrary to our ordinary conception of beauty – if we are to judge an object aesthetically in a universalistic manner, then we need to disregard the object’s colours and other sensory qualities. Otherwise, colour-blind people, for example, will not in principle be able to agree with our judgements, contrary to the feeling of universal validity associated with beauty that extends to all people.
That Kant, by and large, excludes colours from pure beauty is a surprising dimension of his aesthetic theory. He regards colours merely as ‘charms’ that can either assist or interfere with our disinterested contemplation of an object’s spatio-temporal design, but in either case, do not constitute the object’s pure beauty. Thinking in terms of what we must presuppose to account for our feeling of universal validity, Kant restricts an object’s pure beauty to its spatio-temporal form, cognizant of how the forms of space and time, along with the geometrical and mathematical propositions that issue from them, are identically structured in all human beings.
For example, if an ancient Egyptian were to reflect exclusively upon the spatio-temporal design of some crystal, and if some person from a later century, having been raised in a different culture and speaking a different language, were to reflect upon the same crystal in a museum, we could nonetheless reasonably expect the two to agree in their aesthetic judgements. By setting aside colours (i.e., sensory qualities), concepts and culture, the way is cleared for everyone to agree.
Having described the appropriate aesthetic attitude for making judgements of pure beauty – an attitude focused exclusively and disinterestedly upon an object’s spatio-temporal form – we can now cons
ider Kant’s explanation of the feeling of universal validity that underlies our experience of beauty. As we can recall from his theory of knowledge, the categories of the understanding inform our experience with a deterministic structure when they are projected upon given sensory inputs. These pure concepts, or categories, introduce universal validity into our experience. Concretely, these concepts do so after being infused with a temporal form – after they are ‘schematized’ or ‘aestheticized’ – that renders them compatible with sensory inputs given by the imagination in conjunction with our sensibility.
Kant analyses this situation by saying that for any judgement that yields detailed knowledge of the world, two faculties of mind must coordinate with each other, hand-in-hand. The first is the faculty that supplies concepts, the understanding. The second is the imagination, the faculty that, construed in conjunction with the faculty of sensibility, presents constructed sensory images, or ‘intuitions’, to the understanding for the purposes of comprehension. To have empirical knowledge, then, understanding and imagination must operate in conjunction with one another, not unlike how a sheet of rolled out cookie dough (analogous to the sensory inputs) must operate compatibly, or ‘in harmony’, with the action of a cookie-cutter (analogous to the comprehending concepts of the understanding) for the purpose of making cookies (analogous to the resulting empirical judgements).
When the faculties of understanding and imagination are working in solid harmony, a general feeling of satisfaction issues from our being in a favourable position to know the world. This is a ‘cognitive’ rather than sensory feeling, and as knowing human beings, Kant believes that everyone experiences it in the same way. This parallels the moral context, where similarly, everyone experiences the feeling of respect for themselves. Hence follows the demand that others ought to agree with our judgements of beauty. The key to Kant’s theory of beauty resides here, in the a priori feeling generated by the harmony of the cognitive faculties of the understanding and imagination – the faculties that operate in conjunction to generate empirical judgements about the world such as ‘the leaf is green’ or ‘the sky is blue’.
Key idea: The harmony of the cognitive faculties
The special cognitive feeling associated with judgements of beauty issues from a ‘free play’ or harmonious general accord between the two faculties which operate when we apply concepts to intuitions in an act of judgement. These are the faculties of understanding and imagination.
Kant further maintains that in reference exclusively to their spatio-temporal design, certain objects present an appearance that we recognize as being especially compatible with our desire to know the world. Indeed, these objects’ structures appear to be naturally fitted to our cognitive faculties, almost as if some higher intelligence had this purpose in mind for the objects. In view of their satisfying structure, these objects cause the understanding and imagination to resonate together harmoniously, setting them in an optimal condition and position to know the world.
As we can now infer, this resonance of the understanding and imagination is the feeling of universal validity that Kant identifies with the experience of pure beauty. The feeling of pure beauty is a feeling of universal validity that issues from the harmony of the cognitive faculties of the understanding and imagination, caused by our apprehension of an object that appears to be especially fitted to those faculties. In essence, pure beauty arouses and encourages our cognition.
Our next question is: What kinds of objects cause this cognitive resonance and beautiful feeling? To answer this, we can remember how our faculty of reason aims to systematize all of our knowledge. The broader purpose of cognition is accordingly to formulate a complete system of scientific knowledge which can predict every event. This is an ideal towards which we cognitively aim, and it is crucial to Kant’s theory of beauty.
Although the categories of the understanding stabilize our experience in a deterministic way, it remains uncertain that a single, seamlessly integrated system will emerge from the laws of nature that we formulate. We surely aim to construct such a system, but there is always the worry that nature might not agree with our cognitive intentions. Kant sometimes expresses amazement that our experience is not more chaotic than it is, despite how the categories of the understanding organize the sensory manifold. Our mind’s structure may compel us to regard nature as being thoroughly deterministic, but it is another matter to specify the determinism’s exact mechanism in the presence of so many contingent details.
As a cognitive principle, then, Kant holds that we must assume that nature is thoroughly systematizable for the sake of advancing and completing our scientific knowledge. For a perfect science, we must assume that rationality permeates experience. This leads Kant to recognize as the ultimate source of that permeating rationality, a supreme intelligence as nature’s author and governor. To guide scientific thought towards its completely systematic end, we must suppose that everything in nature has a purpose, that these purposes integrate into a single system, and that the system itself is the expression of a divine understanding.
Kant refers to this science-enabling assumption as the ‘principle of the purposiveness of nature’. Our cognitive faculties of the understanding and imagination can operate maximally, only if nature is thoroughly fitted to our scientific quest for total comprehension. Assuming that nature is so fitted is none other than to regard nature as a work of divine art. Just as we need to assume that God exists for the sake of making happiness possible for everyone who acts morally, we need to assume that God exists for the sake of constructing a seamlessly predictable, comprehensive system of natural laws.
Not all objects are well-organized in their structure, so as to appear especially fitted to our cognitive faculties. Some are disorganized and frustrating to comprehend. However, the well-organized objects – we can think of snowflakes, flowers, crystals and abstract designs of all sorts – in their fortuitous display of systematic form, stand as reinforcements and confirmations that nature is amenable to our quest for systematic knowledge. Pure beauty thereby inspires science. The systematicity of these objects’ forms resonates with our cognitive faculties to set them into harmony with one another and to generate the feeling of pure beauty.
Such systematically organized objects look as if they were designed. As such, they have a ‘purposive’ form and appear to be works of art. As noted, to judge their pure beauty, we need not know what kinds of thing they are, and accordingly, what purposes they serve, if any. Purely beautiful objects display a purposiveness (i.e., a ‘designedness’) without our having to specify any particular purpose for the objects. They display a ‘purposiveness without purpose’, as Kant states. When apprehended as such, their designs resonate freely with our cognitive faculties, setting them into harmony with one another to produce a feeling of universal validity. Encountering a purely beautiful object in nature is thus like looking into a mirror, for the beautiful object’s systematic structure appears as a kindred spirit that to our satisfaction, reflects our rational selves. In beauty, we see a reflection of our humanity.
Kant defines the faculty of judgement – the main subject of the third Critique – as the faculty of subsuming individuals under concepts. We employ this faculty when we observe diverse phenomena and comprehend them under a single law of nature. When through further reflection, we integrate individual laws of nature into a scientific system under a single universal principle, we employ our judgement as well.
When we apprehend a systematic design, and feel our cognitive faculties resonating in view of the design in the feeling of beauty, we experience in an abstract, indeterminate form, the universally valid process of finding a concept for some given individual. Kant refers to this resonance as the ‘free play’ of the imagination and understanding. Rather than comprehending the object’s design as the expression of some determinate purpose, the feeling of universal validity is subsumed under the general thought that nature is fitted for our comprehension. In our judgements of pure
beauty, the feeling of beauty is subsumed under the principle of the purposiveness of nature.
Key idea: Purposiveness without purpose
An object which effectively stimulates the harmony of the cognitive faculties has a systematic form, which makes it look like it was intentionally designed. The object accordingly displays a ‘purposiveness’ in its design, although no actual purpose need be present for us to appreciate how it appears to be the product of some intelligence. This display of a ‘purposiveness without purpose’ in an object’s design is the source of the object’s pure beauty.
We have been speaking up until this point about the dynamics of pure beauty. This rarefied notion of beauty is defined exclusively in reference to an object’s spatio-temporal form, independently of the object’s sensory qualities and meanings. Upon this foundation, Kant extends his aesthetic theory by considering more complicated varieties of beauty which involve not only the object’s spatio-temporal form, but sensory qualities and meanings in conjunction with that form. It is to these various kinds of beauty that we will now turn.