The view that the content of experience is conceptual is often felt to conflict with the empiricist intuition that experience precedes thought, rather than vice versa. This concern is explicitly articulated by Ayers as an objection both to McDowell and Davidson, and to the conceptualist view more generally. The paper aims to defuse the objection in its general form by presenting a version of conceptualism which is compatible with empiricism. It proposes an account of observational concepts on which possession of (...) such a concept involves more than the ability for perceptual discrimination, but less than the capacity to employ the concept in inferences: it consists in the capacity to perceptually discriminate objects with the awareness that one is discriminating as one ought. This understanding of concept-possession allows us make sense of experiences' having conceptual content without supposing that the subject must grasp the relevant concepts prior to having those experiences. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es ofrecer una interpretación de la doctrina del esquematismo de los conceptos empíricos y matemáticos presentada por Kant en su Crítica de la razón pura. Mostramos que los esquemas de los conceptos empíricos y matemáticos son procedimientos de síntesis gobernados por reglas conceptuales. Aunque no consideramos que esta doctrina kantiana carece de problemas, nuestro trabajo muestra que: 1) esos esquemas pueden distinguirse rigurosamente de sus correspondientes conceptos; 2) esos esquemas no son entidades superfluas. Estas conclusiones (...) se alcanzan mostrando que el contenido de un concepto determina la unidad de elementos sensibles que tiene que ser efectuada por un esquema en tanto procedimiento de síntesis. (shrink)

At the end of section §6 in the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant defines taste as the “faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or dissatisfaction without any interest”. On the face of it, Kant’s definition of taste includes both; positive and negative judgments of taste. Moreover, Kant’s term ‘dissatisfaction’ implies not only that negative judgments of taste are those of the non-beautiful, but also that of the ugly, depending on the presence of an (...) actual displeasure. (shrink)

For Kant, ‘reflection’ is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind spot, as it neglects Kant's distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ (...) general logic. The foundational text of existing interpretations is a passage in Logik Jäsche that appears to attribute to Kant the view that reflection is a mental operation involved in the generation of concepts from non-conceptual materials. I argue against the received view by attending to Kant's division between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic, identifying senses of reflection proper to each, and showing that none accords well with the received view. Finally, to take account of Kant's notio.. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant describes schematism as a (A141/B180–1). While most commentators treat this as Kant's metaphorical way of saying schematism is something too obscure to explain, I argue that we should follow up Kant's clue and treat schematism literally as Kunst. By letting our interpretation of schematism be guided by Kant's theoretically exact ways of using the term Kunst in the Critique of Judgment we gain valuable insight into the nature of schematism, as well as its (...) connection to Kant's concerns in the third Critique. (shrink)

Call the idea that states of perceptual awareness have intentional content, and in virtue of that aim at or represent ways the world might be, the ‘Content View.’ I argue that though Kant is widely interpreted as endorsing the Content View there are significant problems for any such interpretation. I further argue that given the problems associated with attributing the Content View to Kant, interpreters should instead consider him as endorsing a form of acquaintance theory. Though perceptual acquaintance is controversial (...) in itself and in attribution to Kant, it promises to make sense of central claims within his critical philosophy. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se pretende reconstruir la noción de imaginación expuesta por Kant en la "Crítica de la razón pura", en su primera edición, y en la "Crítica del juicio" con el fin de poder dilucidar un posible papel de este concepto en el marco de la ética kantiana. -/- .

In a famous passage (A68/B93), Kant writes that “the understanding can make no other use of […] concepts than that of judging by means of them.” Kant's thought is often called the thesis of the priority of judgments over concepts. We find a similar sounding priority thesis in Frege: “it is one of the most important differences between my mode of interpretation and the Boolean mode […] that I do not proceed from concepts, but from judgments.” Many interpreters have thought (...) that Frege's priority principle is close to (or at least derivable from) Kant's. I argue that it is not. Nevertheless, there was a gradual historical development that began with Kant's priority thesis and culminated in Frege's new logic. (shrink)

How do we form concepts like those of three, bicycle and red? According to Kant, we form them by carrying out acts of comparison, reflection and abstraction on information provided by the senses. Kant's answer raised numerous objections from philosophers and psychologists alike. "Kant e la formazione dei concetti" argues that Kant is able to rebut those objections. The book shows that, for Kant, it is possible to perceive objects without employing concepts; it explains how, given those perceptions, we can (...) form categories and empirical concepts; and it argues that theories like Kant's - abstractionist theories of concept formation - are more plausible than is often assumed. (shrink)

In 1764, Kant published his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and in 1790 his influential third Critique , the Critique of the Power of Judgment . The latter contains two parts, the 'Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment' and the 'Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment'. They reveal a new principle, namely the a priori principle of purposiveness ( Zweckmäßigkeit ) of our power of judgment, and thereby offer new a priori grounds for (...) beauty and biology within the framework of Kant's transcendental philosophy. They also unite the previous two Critiques , the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason . Besides contributing to general and systematic aspects within his transcendental philosophy, Kant's aesthetics also offers new insights into old problems. It deals with feeling versus experience, subjectivity versus objectivity, disinterested pleasure, aesthetic universality, free and adherent beauty, the sensus communis , genius, aesthetic ideas, beauty as the symbol of morality, beauty of nature versus beauty of art, the sublime, and the supersensible. In this article I will limit myself to this critical aesthetics of Kant. But I will also discuss the ugly and the possibility of beauty in mathematics and see whether Kant's theory can successfully explain or deal with them. I will also compare his theory with philosophical ideas from a very different tradition, namely from Confucius, not only as a challenge to Kant's theory, but also because there is a growing interest from the Chinese side in combining ideas from Confucius and Kant, an interest that might well become influential in both East and West during the 21st century. (shrink)

As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experience plays a crucial (...) role in the central arguments of the Critique. For, again as most readers of the Critique know, Kant aims to show how we can have synthetic a priori knowledge by showing that the categories, or pure concepts of the understanding, are conditions of the possibility of experience. This means that, whether or not Kant is concerned with the notion of experience for its own sake, his account of a priori knowledge carries with it at least some commitments regarding the character of experience. If the account of a priori knowledge is to be successful, then experience has to be the kind of thing for which the categories can, in principle, serve as conditions of possibility. More specifically, experience must involve not only the senses, but also thought or understanding, for otherwise the claim that it presupposes a certain specific set of concepts is simply unintelligible. And indeed at least some parts of the Critique, in particular the so-called subjective deduction in the first edition, and the briefer passages which correspond to it in the second edition, seem to be intended to show how this requirement is met. That is, they are concerned not so much with showing that experience is governed by the categories, as with elaborating a view of experience as involving conceptual activity überhaupt. (shrink)

У статті досліджується кантівська концепція вільної гри пізнавальних спроможностей – виображення і розсуду – в ракурсі проблеми трансцендентальної універсальності. Відзначається універсалізуючий потенціал третьої «Критики», одним із визначальних сюжетів якої є проблема вільної гри, щодо Кантової філософської системи в цілому. Викладаються базові параметри авторської тематизації трансцендентального універсалізму як такого, що ґрунтується на принципах відношення і відмінності і є пов’язаним із конституюванням порядку гіпер-універсальності. Оприявнено й проаналізовано параметри універсальності, імпліковані концепцією вільної гри. Показано, яким чином вихідна універсальність трансцендентального виображення виявляється в рамках (...) вільної гри водночас підваженою і гіперболізованою. Досліджено амбівалентну позицію вільної гри у відношені до пізнання; з метою схоплення універсалістичних імплікацій релевантного вільній грі модусу пізнання – «пізнання взагалі» – введено концепт «пізнання als ob». Встановлено певну асиметрію в рамках вільної гри між статусами виображення і розсуду, а саме – пріоритетність останнього. Проаналізовано специфіку властивої вільній грі суб’єктивної універсальності, виявлено її інтерсуб’єктивні та квазі-об’єктивні засновки; застосовано поняття «als ob-об’єктивності», що характеризує певну тенденцію до універсалізації самої універсальності, позначаючи універсальний вимір на межі суб’єктивного й об’єктивного. (shrink)

Bu çalışma, Yargı Gücünün Eleştirisi’nde estetik beğenide, hayalgücü (Einbildungskraft) ve “özgür oyun” tanımı temelinde, hayalgücü ve anlama yetisi (Verstand) arasındaki ilişki sorununu ele almaktadır. Kant transendental felsefeyle hayalgücüne kendinden önceki filozoflardan ayrı bir saygınlık kazandırmış, bu yetiyi hem bilişin hem estetik deneyimin temel yetileri arasına yerleştirmiştir. Saf Aklın Eleştirisi’nde (A basımı) duyusallık (Sinnlichkeit) ve anlama yetisiyle transendental üç yetiden biri olan hayalgücü, üçüncü Kritik’te reflektif yargı ve estetik deneyimin zeminini oluşturmada önemli bir konumdadır. Üçüncü Kritik’in hemen her bölümünde bir işlevi (...) haiz olan hayalgücü ile anlama yetisinin girdiği özgür ve kavramlara dayanmayan oyun transendental felsefeye ilişkin pek çok meseleyi de açığa çıkaran özelliklere sahiptir. Bu oyunda, birinci Kritik’te nesnenin kavramsal belirlenimine yönelik olan anlama yetisinin kavramlarıyla devrede olmaması tartışmanın önemli ögelerinden biridir. Bu bakımdan özgür oyun tanımı, yetilerin konumlarına ilişkin birinci Kritik’teki iddialara uzanan kapsam ve içeriktedir. Bu çalışmada bu iddialara açıklık kazandırılarak, hayalgücü merkezinde yetiler ve yetilerle bağlantılı tartışmalara ışık tutulacaktır. (shrink)

Images share a common feature with all phenomena of imagination, since they make us aware of what is not present or what is fictional and not existent at all. From this perspective, the philosophical approach of Kendall Lewis Walton—born in 1939 and active since the 1960s at the University of Michigan—is perhaps one of the most notable contributions to image theory. Walton is an authoritative figure within the tradition of analytical aesthetics. His contributions have had a considerable influence on a (...) broad range of topics, such as the role of categories in the understanding of the arts (Walton, “Categories of Art”. Philosophical Review, 79(3): 334–367, 1970), the ambiguous nature of emotions in the experience of fictional stories (Walton, “Fearing Fictions”. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1): 5–25, 1978), the transparency of photographic images compared to other depictions (Walton, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism”. Noûs, 18(1): 67–72, 1984) and, above all, the development of a general theory of fiction as imaginative activity. His 1990 book Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts collects and re-elaborates articles Walton published on the subject since the 1970s. Though he does not attempt to give a definitive answer for what imagination is, Walton thoroughly investigates its role in all cases of representational works, describing depictions as a specific case of “make-believe” activity: images, in short, are specific props of a visual and perceptual “make-believe” game. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Kant’s concept-less schematism (KU, 5: 287) in the thirdCritique1and make three claims: 1) concept-less schematism is entirely consistent with the schematism in the firstCritique; 2) concept-less schematism is schematism with noempiricalconcept as an outcome; and 3) in accordance with 1) and 2), the imagination is free to synthesize the given manifold and leads to judgements of taste without this meaning either that the categories play no role at all or that these judgements are full-fledged cognitive (...) determining judgements. While most commentators read the freedom of the imagination as its independence from the understanding, I argue that the freedom of the imagination is based on a non-determining employment of the pure concepts of the understanding. The freedom of the aesthetic imagination consists in the temporal schematization of the categories without any complementary determination of the empirical concept. (shrink)

The harmonious free play of the imagination and understanding is at the heart of Kant’s account of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, but interpreters have long struggled to determine what Kant means when he claims the faculties are in a state of free play. In this article, I develop an interpretation of the free play of the faculties in terms of the freedom of attention. By appealing to the different way that we attend to objects in (...) aesthetic experience, we can explain how the faculties are free, even when the subject already possesses a concept of the object and is bound to the determinate form of the object in perception. (shrink)

La régularité est traitée non pas comme une propriété primitive de certains événements du monde, mais comme une relation d'implication entre une situation S et une événement E. La régularité, aussi bien dans les descriptions du monde que dans les comportements, n'est pas expliquée en termes de règles abstraites (il n'a a pas un "secret de la règle" à percer) mais à travers ses trois manifestations : conventions, règles individuelles et énoncés normatifs. Table des matières : I. De la régularité (...) en général : 1. Régularité et répétition - 2. Régularité et causalité - 3. Régularité et probabilité - 4. Régularité et nécessité - 5. La régularité comme relation irréductible - 6. Régularités sans « règle abstraite » : conventions, règles individuelles et énoncés normatifs ; II. Conventions : 1. Un sens restreint pour le terme - 2. Les conventions et l’équilibre par coordination - 3. Connaissance partagée et intersubjectivité - 4. La construction des représentations intersubjectives - 5. Représentations langagières intersubjectives et comportements non langagiers 6. Les conventions et la connaissance de la situation S 7. Les limites des conventions ; III. Règles individuelles : 1. La place de la « règle individuelle » parmi les comportements réguliers - 2. L’observateur extérieur et ses limites face à la régularité - 3. Un exemple de règle individuelle vue de l’intérieur - 4. Règle individuelle vs. convention - 5. La convergence des règles individuelles - 6. La « normativité » dans sa manifestation la plus élémentaire ; IV. Énoncés normatifs : 1. Les énonces normatifs portant sur nos comportements et sur nos représentations - 2. La « force » des énoncés normatifs : leur forme, leur source ou leur implantation - 3. La force des énoncés normatifs scientifiques est dans leur forme - 4. La force des énoncés normatifs moraux n’est pas dans leur forme - 5. Les énoncés normatifs moraux et les règles individuelles - 6. Source et implantation des énoncés normatifs scientifiques . (shrink)

Galit Wellner’s exploration of new kinds of digital technologies employing AI algorithms that simulate features and functions of the human imagination leads her to propose a conceptual analysis of the imagination as a composite of perception and memory. Wellner poses the question of whether the output of such technological applications might be regarded as not merely simulating creative activity but as truly imaginative in their own right. Wellner concludes with a qualified “no.” The use of AI algorithms in conjunction with (...) human cognitive activity, conceived in terms of a layered architecture of the faculties in question, can in fact be understood as an essential component of imaginative, and thus creative, production, but humans are still needed in the mix. To the extent that the AI-algorithm-enhanced human system is capable of imagining and creating works of art, imagination can be extended to AI algorithms. But, the algorithms sans humans are not themselves imaginers. For Wellner, AI algorithms can augment and enhance human imaginative efforts, equipping us with a richer and vastly wider array of possibilities and options for aesthetic consideration, but ultimately, the human is the essential element. However, once the door is opened to accepting algorithmically determined alternatives as capable of successfully achieving desired results within a field of possible outcomes, it seems possible that the activities of connecting, coordinating, or meaningfully linking, combining, and establishing new imaginative layers that Wellner reserves as requiring humans to enact might also be programmable, algorithmically achievable tasks that instantiate genuine aesthetic decision making. (shrink)

According to a Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the use of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the relevant conceptual norms. Recently, Ginsborg raises two important objections against this view. According to her, the normativity Brandom ascribes to concepts lacks the internalist or first-person character of normativity that Kant’s view demands, and the relevant normativity belongs properly not to concepts as such, (...) but rather to belief or assertion. The purpose of this paper is to defend a Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts against these objections. (shrink)

In the “Second Analogy,” Kant argues that, unless mental contents involve the concept of causation, they cannot represent an objective temporal sequence. According to Kant, deploying the concept of causation renders a certain temporal ordering of representations necessary, thus enabling objective representational purport. One exegetical question that remains controversial is this: how, and in what sense, does deploying the concept of cause render a certain ordering of representations necessary? I argue that this necessitation is a matter of epistemic normativity: with (...) certain causal presuppositions in place, the individual is obliged to make a judgment with certain temporal contents, on pain of irrationality. To make this normatively obligatory judgment, the subject must place her perceptual representations in a certain order. This interpretation fits Kant's text, his argumentative aims, and his broader views about causal inference, better than rival interpretations can. This result has important consequences for the ongoing debate over the role of normativity in Kant's philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Kant interpreters are divided on the question of whether determinate cognition plays a role in the harmony of the faculties in aesthetic judgement. I provide a ‘non-cognitive’ interpretation that allows Kant’s statements regarding judgements of natural beauty to cohere such that determinate cognition need not be taken to perform any role in such judgements. I argue that, in aesthetic harmony, judgement privileges the free activity of the imagination over the cognizing function of the understanding for the purpose of unifying the (...) object, although the free imagination cannot violate the obscure concepts and principles of ordinary common sense. (shrink)

This volume - the joint effort of the research groups on practical philosophy and the history of political thought of the Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - brings together scholarly essays that attempt to face the challenges of the contemporary situation. The authors come from rather divergent disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, law, history, literature and the social sciences, from different cultural and political contexts, including Central, Eastern and Western Europe, (...) and belong to different generations. But they all share an interest to bravely answer the large topical issues concerning universal morality, here and now. (shrink)

Kant -- drawing on his eighteenth-century predecessors -- provided a discerning and powerful characterization of what biologists had to explain in organic form. His difference from the rest is that he opined that was impossible to explain it. Its ’inscrutability’ was intrinsic. The third ’Critique’ essentially proposed the reduction of biology to a kind of prescientific descriptivism, doomed never to attain authentic scientificity. By contrast, for Locke, and ’a fortiori’ for Buffon and his followers, ’intrinsic purposiveness’ was a fact of (...) the matter about concrete biological phenomena; the features of internal self-regulation were hypotheses arising out of actual research practice. The difference comes most vividly to light once we recognize Kant’s distinction of the concept of organism from the concept of life. (edited). (shrink)

The paper elaborates the theory of imagination in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment. From the first Critique to the third Critique, the imagination emerges under different titles such as reproductive, productive or transcendental imagination. The paper shall try to decide whether its functions suggested in the first Critique and its performance in the third Critique are contradictory or developmental with respect to Kant's critical philosophy. Thus, it will examine of the power and the scope of (...) the imagination in the first Critique and of its status and performance in the third Critique. El artículo discute la teoría de la imaginación en la Crítica de la razón pura y la Crítica del juicio de Immanuel Kant. Desde la primera Crítica y hasta la tercera, la imaginación recibe diferentes calificativos, tales como imaginación reproductiva, productiva o trascendental. El trabajo intenta determinar si las funciones de la imaginación sugeridas en la primera Crítica y su papel en la tercera Crítica son contradictorias o si implican más bien un desarrollo respecto de la filosofía crítica de Kant. Para ello, se examina el poder y el alcance de la imaginación en la primera Crítica y su estatus y papel en la tercera. (shrink)

There is much more said in the Critique of Pure Reason about the relationship between God and purposiveness than what is found in Kant's analysis of the physico-theological argument. The ‘Wise Author of Nature’ is central to his analysis of regulative principles in the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’ and also appears in the ‘Canon’, first with regards to the Highest Good and then again in relation to our theoretical use of purposiveness. This paper will begin with a brief discussion (...) of the physico-theological argument before moving on to the Appendix and the Canon. Finally, it will consider some changes to the role of the Wise Author in the Critique of Judgement. (shrink)

We explain that most of the explanations that traditionally have been used to conceptually and ontologically differentiate aesthetic experience from any other are not compatible with a naturalistic framework, since they are based on transcendental idealistic metaphysics, reductions, and on the assumption that the aesthetic is an a priori special ontology in the object and the mind. However, contemporary works that propose as an alternative to apply directly evidence and theory from the science of emotions to the problem of aesthetics (...) introduce Aesthetic Science into a new set of problematic assumptions. We argue that conceptually equating or ontologically reducing the aesthetic to the theory of rewards cannot provide a clear alternative for any Aesthetic Science to naturalize the aesthetic experience as a heterogeneous class of events that are not already explained by affective science. This practice introduces a serious danger of making the term “aesthetic” and the respective scientific field pretty weak or completely redundant and unnecessary. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the relevance of Kant to the interpretation of contemporary art. The defining properties of contemporary art are the impossibility of definition in material, formal or stylistic terms, and the central role that concepts play in the interpretation of a work. Danto and Osborne suggest how concepts might be applied but they do not develop their proposals. Kant’s theory of judgement can provide a fuller account on the basis of the notions of purposiveness and play. The way in (...) which these notions explain the application of concepts to the world, I argue, provides a model of how concepts can be combined to form an interpretation of a work of contemporary art. A detailed example is given. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kant presents two different accounts of beauty, one that applies properly to art and one that applies properly to nature. The judgment of beauty that applies properly to nature can be free and thus judged without concepts. The work of art, however, is judged beautiful when it expresses aesthetic ideas. This distinction then enables me to explain several problematic passages in Kant's text: those that serve to distinguish these two conceptions of beauty from one another as (...) well as those passages in which Kant views them as overlapping. With respect to the latter, I argue that Kant lays especial significance on cases where we apply the conception of artistic beauty to natural objects, as in doing so we view nature as expressing ideas that step beyond nature. (shrink)

Are we really sure to correctly know what do we feel in front ofan artwork and to correctly verbalize it? How do we know what weappreciate and why we appreciate it? This paper deals with the problem ofintrospective opacity in aesthetics (that is, the unreliability of self-knowledge) in the light of traditional philosophical issues, but also of recentpsychological insights, according to which there are many instances ofmisleading intuition about one’s own mental processes, affective states orpreferences. Usually, it is assumed that (...) aesthetic statements are intuitivelyclear and self-evident. However, a long tradition in psychological researchhas called the idea of introspective transparency and the infallibility of self-knowledge into question (Wilson 2002). This topic has only recently beenrecognized as an interesting problem in aesthetics (Melchionne 2011, Irvin2014). In this paper I will discuss the main shortcomings in introspective self-knowledge, mostly referring to psychological findings. As a consequence, thedevelopment of a folk psychological account of aesthetic experience could beneeded, investigating how people develop intuitive and naïve theories abouttheir aesthetic reactions, taste, and feelings, distinct from a more objectiveand empirically grounded account of how judgment and preferences areactually formed in ourselves, even on a neurobiological level. However, itwill also be argued that bypassing the individual judgment and his expressedchoices in favor of allegedly more objective levels of description would notbe an innocent step to take. (shrink)

In his lectures on general logic Kant maintains that the generality of a representation (the form of a concept) arises from the logical acts of comparison, reflection and abstraction. These acts are commonly understood to be identical with the acts that generate reflected schemata. I argue that this is mistaken, and that the generality of concepts, as products of the understanding, should be distinguished from the classificatory generality of schemata, which are products of the imagination. A Kantian concept does not (...) provide mere criteria for noting sameness and difference in things, but instead reflects the inner nature of things. Its form consists in the self-consciousness of a capacity to judge (i.e. the Concept is the ‘I think’). (shrink)

Abstract: Kant declares the judgment of beauty to be neither ‘objective’ nor ‘merely subjective’. This essay takes up the question of what this might mean and whether it can be taken seriously. It is often supposed that Kant's denials of ‘objectivity’ to the judgment of beauty express a rejection of realism about beauty. I suggest that Kant's thought is not to be understood in these terms—that it does not properly belong in the arena of debates about the constituents of ‘reality’—motivating (...) the suggestion by first considering a pair of opposing views on the question of whether Kant can be understood to develop a real alternative to realism about beauty at all. (shrink)

I criticize recent nonconceptualist readings of Kant’s account of perception on the grounds that the strategy of the Deduction requires that understanding be involved in the synthesis of imagination responsible for the intentionality of perceptual experience. I offer an interpretation of the role of understanding in perceptual experience as the consciousness of normativity in the association of one’s representations. This leads to a reading of Kant which is conceptualist, but in a way which accommodates considerations favoring nonconceptualism, in particular the (...) primitive character of perceptual experience relative to thought and judgment. (shrink)

Different from the autonomy of understanding in cognition and the autonomy of practical reason in praxis, the heautonomy in the judgement of taste is reflexive. The reflexivity consists not only in the fact that the power of judgement legislates to its own usage but also, and more importantly, it legislates to itself through its own operative process. This normativity, based on the self-referential structure of pure aesthetic judgement and the a priori principle of subjective, internal purposiveness, can be regarded as (...) a self-discovering and self-flourishing principle that organically grows out of the aesthetic experience and, at the same time, regulates its growth in return. In this scenario, aesthetic freedom can be identified as a third kind of freedom different from Kant’s transcendental freedom and practical freedom – a flexible and living freedom with spontaneous legislation, but not bound by any determinate laws. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉKant affirme que nous exigeons l'accord des autres quand nous rendons des jugements de goût. Je soutiens que cette affirmation fait partie d'une explication de la façon dont la phénoménologie des jugements esthétiques familiers appuie son affirmation selon laquelle les jugements de goût sont universels. La théorie esthétique de Kant n'est plausible que si nous rejetons l'affirmation répandue selon laquelle cette exigence est normative. Je propose une lecture non normative des jugements de goût kantiens basée sur une étude des textes, (...) puis je conteste les trois interprétations normatives importantes, qui nous obligent à attribuer à Kant une position qu'il n'acceptait pas. (shrink)

According to the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the application of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the norms governing its application. But this view faces some serious objections. In particular, according to Rosen, Glüer and Wikforss, this view leads to a vicious regress of norms. The purpose of this paper is to defend a version of the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts (...) against this objection. I argue that we can deal with this problem along the lines of a coherentist account of justification. (shrink)

© British Society of Aesthetics 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] does it mean for a thing to be ugly, or perhaps better, for something to be judged as such? We should admit that the matter is not transparent. Maybe that seems odd, since we find things ugly all the time; should not this be plain as day, then? But usually, it is what seems (...) plainest that, in the end, is most obscure.So what, then, is ugliness? What does it mean to find something ugly? Looking to cast some light on the matter, we might consider using Kant’s well-known account of beauty as our starting point, since Kant—apparently following ‘common sense’ —says that ugliness is ‘contrary to beauty’.2 Assuming the adequacy... (shrink)

This essay argues that, contrary to the prevailing view according to which reflection in Kant's aesthetic judgment is interpreted as ‘the logical actus of the understanding’, we should pay closer attention to Kant's own formulation of aesthetic reflection as ‘an action of the power of imagination’. Put differently, I contend in this essay that the rule that governs and orders the manifold in aesthetic judgment is imagination's own achievement, the achievement of the productive synthesis of the ‘fictive power’, entirely independent (...) of the understanding. While this view does not entail that the faculty of the understanding is not necessary in aesthetic reflection, a stronger emphasis on the role of imagination in aesthetic reflection allows us to realize that its schematizing and interpretive activity, while consistent with, goes well beyond the discursive demands of the understanding insofar as it intimates the supersensible ground of freedom that manifests itself as ‘the feeling of life’. Therefore, I show in this essay that the imagination's unique interpretive power has a special role in completing Kant's critical system by facilitating the connection of the sensible to the supersensible, which further helps us appreciate imagination's practical as opposed to merely cognitive significance. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to propose a new categorization of a specific set of aesthetic concepts, using Sibley’s theory of the aesthetic concepts as a starting point. I discuss the status of aesthetic concepts connected with pleasure and the role of aesthetic pleasure. I examine Sibley’s theory and the importance of its results for the conceptual art. Then, I compare Sibley’s theory and Kant’s theory specifically on the theme of judgment, universal agreement and pleasure. I finally propose to (...) look at these theories as complementary (they deal with the same problems but Sibley takes an objective position, since his main focus is the object and its properties, while in Kant’s theory the focus is on the subject) since they achieve important results for the theory of aesthetic concepts, both from the perspective of the subject and from the perspective of the object. (shrink)

In "Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual Content", Robert Hanna argues for a very strong kind of non-conceptualism, and claims that this kind of non-conceptualism originally has been developed by Kant. But according to "Kant's Non-Conceptualism, Rogue Objects and the Gap in the B Deduction", Kant's non-conceptualism poses a serious problem for his argument for the objective validity of the categories, namely the problem that there is a gap in the B Deduction. This gap is (...) that the B Deduction goes through only if conceptualism is true, but Kant is a non-conceptualist. In this paper I argue, contrary to what Hanna claims, that there is not a gap in the B Deduction. (shrink)

Several works published in the last decades defend the claim that the concept of creativity should be demystified. With the aim of showing that creativity is not an obscure power owned by only few individuals and free from constraints, authors working at the intersection field between philosophy and cognitive science have notably focused on the structure and evolution of cognitive mechanisms underlying our creative capacities. While taking up the suggestion that we should try not to mystify creativity, this article argues (...) that what is required for such demystification is primarily a transcendental and phenomenological inquiry. Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works are here discussed in order to develop such a transcendental inquiry into creativity. Both Kant and Merleau-Ponty bring to the fore the conditions of possibility for creative acts, and highlight fundamental role of creativity itself in the formation of meaningfulness. The keystone of both philosophers’ inquiries is the emphasis on the interdependence between creativity and rules. Yet, due to the different approaches to the transcendental, Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts do not fully converge, but should rather be considered as complementary. (shrink)

The overall goal of this article is to show that aesthetics plays a major role in a debate at the very center of philosophy. Drawing on the work of David Bell, the article spells out how Kant and Wittgenstein use reflective judgment, epitomized by a judgment of beauty, as a key in their respective solutions to the rule-following problem they share. The more specific goal is to offer a Kantian account of semantic normativity as understood by Wittgenstein. The article argues (...) that Wittgenstein's reason for describing language as a collection of language games is to allow for a perspective that shows those games as internally purposive without any extralinguistic purpose. This perspective also allows for that union of the general rule and its particular application in practice that the original paradox of rule-following is wanting. (shrink)

In 1764, Kant published his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and in 1790 his influential third Critique, the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The latter contains two parts, the ‘Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment’ and the ‘Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment’. They reveal a new principle, namely the a priori principle of purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit) of our power of judgment, and thereby offer new a priori grounds for beauty and biology within (...) the framework of Kant's transcendental philosophy. They also unite the previous two Critiques, the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. Besides contributing to general and systematic aspects within his transcendental philosophy, Kant's aesthetics also offers new insights into old problems. It deals with feeling versus experience, subjectivity versus objectivity, disinterested pleasure, aesthetic universality, free and adherent beauty, the sensus communis, genius, aesthetic ideas, beauty as the symbol of morality, beauty of nature versus beauty of art, the sublime, and the supersensible. In this article I will limit myself to this critical aesthetics of Kant. But I will also discuss the ugly and the possibility of beauty in mathematics and see whether Kant's theory can successfully explain or deal with them. I will also compare his theory with philosophical ideas from a very different tradition, namely from Confucius, not only as a challenge to Kant's theory, but also because there is a growing interest from the Chinese side in combining ideas from Confucius and Kant, an interest that might well become influential in both East and West during the 21st century. (shrink)