jovial

what a nice color is it not?

Asshole

haha... asshole...

so what?

Paris

I was in in paris.
It is dying.
It is beautiful.
because it is dying.

The effiel tower is a phallic symbol
The garden at versaille also is desigened around a phallic symbol

Kant - the conclusion

Mass media, advertising, and consumerism has allowed for the commercialization and commoditization of beauty. This gradual process of commercialization has led to a dilution in the experience of beauty, but at the same time increased the aesthetic pleasure we derive from our environment. This paradoxical claim can be understood if beauty as an aesthetic experience contains something more than just aesthetic pleasure. In order to understand this process of beautification through commoditization, and to understand its effects on society an understanding of beauty itself is first necessary. This paper will take the first step in such a study and attempt to give an understanding of beauty as a subjective experience with claims to universality.

What beauty is and what is to be understood from and through beauty has been a constant and consistent point of disagreement amongst philosophers. Does beauty as an idea remain unchanging and eternal, or has the very idea of beauty undergone a process of evolution or expansion with the rise of civilization and culture? This paper shall present the view that beauty is an idea that remains unchanging and eternal but still undergoes a process of expansion driven through culture. In order to elucidate this view, the paper will present the idea of beauty as perceived by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and those presented by the German idealist, Immanuel Kant. This paper will agree with Kant on the aesthetic experience, but will find his notion of beauty too restrictive. Through Plato this paper will expand the idea of beauty within Kant’s aesthetic framework.

An aesthetic experience by its very nature is a completely personal and private experience, it is purely subjective. Such experiences exist only in relation to a human subject and the phenomenal world; they are grounded on how each individual understands the world. Kant was well aware of the nature of aesthetic experiences, and in his Critique of Judgment states that there are two primary aesthetic experiences: the determinate and the reflective. In a determinate aesthetic experience the universal concept, law or principle is already given and the object perceived is subsumed under these universals. The determinate aesthetic experience is thus a judgment on the world based on certain universals concepts that allow us to identify, organize and understand the world. As such, determinate aesthetic experiences cannot and do not contain the experience of the beautiful. The reflective aesthetic experience, according to Kant, operates in the exact opposite manner. During such an experience, the universal is not given and has to be imagined through the perceived object. The freedom of the imagination in conjunction with the understanding in relation to the pleasure experienced by the beholding subject allows for the experience for the beautiful.

Imagination and understanding for Kant are faculties of the mind; imagination is the faculty responsible for forming concepts to be judged while understanding is the faculty of the mind which actively engages in producing knowledge from these concepts. In a determinate aesthetic experience, the imagination is contained within the understanding and is immediately judged under a universal. But in the reflective aesthetic experience, without any universal law grounding the understanding, the imagination is allowed to run free. According to Kant, when a subject undergoes a reflective aesthetical experience, it judges the feelings of pleasure and displeasure through the judgment of taste. He claims that these feelings are accompanied by imagination and understanding. Kant here is making the distinction that the imagination and understanding are part of the subjective experience and not a part of the object that is being reflected upon.

If one were to call some thing ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’ or ‘gorgeous’ these are predicates that do not define anything of the object but one’s subjective experience in relation to the object. All aesthetic experiences are expressions of subjectively felt states. However, in the case of beauty Kant claims that this subjective experience is disinterested in the actual existence of the object itself. Beauty, Kant claims, is experienced purely as contemplation without any interest in the object. Interest means a desire to possess, consume or use something. Kant claims that contemplating the beautiful in disinterest makes such judgments impartial and unbiased. This claim to disinterested contemplation as being the basis for an impartial judgment on beauty shall be contested later in the paper.

To further explicate this idea of disinterested contemplation of beauty, Kant compares and distinguishes it to two other forms of aesthetic experiences which involve interest, the agreeable and the good. The agreeable is what pleases the senses through sensations and creates a desire for the object. According to Kant, the agreeable is only interested in sensations as subjective feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Thus, judgments of the agreeable are based on sensations of pleasure and involve interest because of an inclination towards a desired gratification from the object. The good is what pleases through reason and concepts. The good pleases either through its use as a means to something or it pleases in itself. The good is intrinsically a matter of interest as the pleasure in the good is specifically related to the existence of the object or action. Further, the good is bound to a concept of the good and restricts imagination within the understanding.

The agreeable is bound to desire and the good is restricted by reason to concepts, but the beautiful to Kant is neither desired nor bound by reason. The experience of the beautiful neither expects gratification like the agreeable nor approvals like the good. The beautiful has no expectation tied to it. Further in the agreeable and the good, pleasure is determined from the interest of the senses and reason respectively. According to Kant, to freely be able to judge ones taste, one has to be disinterested and contemplative which is only possible in the experience of the beautiful. This state of indifference towards the existence of the object allows for the contemplation of the feelings of pleasure or displeasure without being grounded on or aiming for any concept. Kant claims that this is a pure aesthetic experience of the beautiful and is the basis of taste. Thus, Kant defines taste as, “[Taste is] the faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or dissatisfaction without any interest. The object of such a satisfaction is called beautiful.”[1]

According to Kant, a judgment of beauty is not only a disinterested judgment but because of this disinterestedness is universal. He claims that it differs from judgments on the agreeable because such judgments are based on comparisons and do not necessitate nor assume the agreement of all. The agreeable relies on sensations of pleasure with the expectation of some gratification and thus has only a subjective basis for judgment. Judgments of the agreeable only express a personal inclination while judgments on beauty, through disinterested, demands universal acceptance. The good, on the other hand, is a universal judgment based on concepts of understanding, but beauty differs from it because it cannot be subsumed under concepts. Judgments of the good express moral obligations that one ought to do; however, beauty is not an obligation to do but to experience.

Kant claims that judgments of beauty are singular in that they are in reference to one particular object, for instance a claim “This painting is beautiful,” is an aesthetic judgment. However, to go beyond this and claim, “All paintings are beautiful,” is no longer an aesthetic judgment but rather a logical one as it subsumes beauty within concepts of the beautiful. The first statement on the other hand only seeks the universality of the aesthetic experience without subsuming beauty within any concept, and instead relies on the imagination to attempt to form a graspable form of beauty for the understanding. Thus, according to Kant, “That is beautiful which pleases universally without a concept.”[2]

Kant states that the beautiful does not presuppose an end or purpose which the object satisfies, but none the less contains a representation of purposiveness. He claims that the purpose and form of an object partakes in the formation of the object by defining what it is through its limitations. He goes on to define purposiveness as the cause behind the concept of an object in relation to the object itself. Kant claims that the form of purposiveness can be found in beauty through the interplay of the imagination with the understanding. An object of beauty is perceived without an end or purpose allowing the imagination free rein in attempting to find a purpose for it. To Kant, beauty is present within this very attempt which can never be fully accomplished and thus preventing beauty from ever being subsumed under a concept.

Beauty, as a form of representation of purpose and as the product of the subjective imagination, is the archetype of taste itself. According to Kant this makes beauty the basis for all taste. Taste is based on each individual’s imaginative representation, where representations are intuitions required prior to the formation of a coherent concept or idea. Further, beauty differs from concepts of perfection or the good because it cannot be subsumed under a object with purpose. For each individual, the subjective powers of representation are based on the free interplay of imagination and understanding. Beauty is thus not the representation itself but the striving of the imagination to find purpose and form a coherent representation. Thus, Kant states, “Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, insofar as it is perceived in it without representation of an end.”[3]

Kant claims that the beautiful is accompanied by a necessary relation to satisfaction in that it requires the assent of all. Everyone ought to agree with a judgment on beauty. Kant states that a judgment of beauty and taste can only be made with the presupposition of a common sense which can be safely assumed to exist because of the universal communicability of cognition. Common sense is then a subjective principle that expresses the accord struck between the imagination and understanding. The harmonious interplay of the imagination and understanding create a pleasure which Kant calls delight which is experienced in the beautiful. Common sense is a necessary for universal communicability making the experience of the delight a universal necessity. Further, delight can only be experienced when the imagination is not bound to concepts and is given free rein. Thus Kant gives his fourth and final definition of beauty as, “That is beautiful which is cognized without a concept as the object of necessary satisfaction.”[4]

Kant highlights a number of peculiarities with the judgment of beauty. The first being that although beauty is judged based on a subjective experience, it still lays claim to universal validity. Further, judgments on beauty have to be conducted through each subject and cannot be enforced or empirical proven. That the taste of two people should not match, can only create doubt and ask for reevaluation, but can never force a change in judgment. Judgments of beauty are singular experiences by a single subject referring to a particular object. Kant claims that claim to universality lies in the a priori principles upon which aesthetic judgments are based. A judgment of taste, claiming an object to be beautiful is for Kant both necessary and contingent. It is necessary because the fundamental and universal nature of our cognitive capabilities i.e. a priori principles, are common to all human kind. It is contingent because, beauty is does not rely on a definite concept but instead relies on the interplay of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding.

Although Kant claims that the aesthetic judgment of beauty is made in a disinterested state in relation to the beautiful object, he goes on to claim that a certain level of interest can be indirectly related to such judgments. He identifies two levels of interest that can be combined with the disinterested satisfaction experienced in beauty: empirical interest and intellectual interest. Both these interests derive satisfaction and pleasure from the existence of the beautiful object, in contrast to beauty which is indifferent towards its existence. To Kant, the beautiful has empirical interest only within society and is derived from its involvement and association to humanity. Empirical interest is a characteristic of human nature seeking to encompass the beautiful object within understanding through reason. Beauty as an empirical interest is also a means to communicate ones feelings with everyone else. This idea of universal communicability appeals and adds value to beauty in purely empirical figures

Kant claims that at the heart of an aesthetic judgment of beauty is a moral component, namely the demand for universal agreement with ones subjective judgment of beauty. Intellectual interest in beauty stems a moral interest, even though moral judgments are subsumed under concepts while aesthetic judgments are beyond conceptualization. Kant claims one who is already predisposed to a morally good character will immediately be in tune with beauty. One who is morally conscious will immediately aware that to declare something as beautiful is to express that everyone ought to find it beautiful as well. It is an intrinsically moral demand and the fact that beauty is purely imaginative and contemplative without restriction within the concepts of objective laws of morality makes it a delightful experience.

After explaining the fundamental notions behind the judgment of taste and the experience of beauty, Kant proceed to give a deduction on the fine arts. He states that art can only be considered to be beautiful only when considered to be a product of nature. Even though art is known to be a man made work, it has none the less have to regarded as natural. Kant states, “The purposiveness in the product of beautiful art, although it is certainly intentional, must nevertheless not seem intentional.”[5] Only when an art work is taken to have to purpose and invites the imagination to creatively create a purposiveness for the work of art can a judgment on beauty occur. The actual intentions, rules and concepts that the artist utilized in creating the art work are thus not necessary and even unwanted in experiencing beauty in Kant’s deduction of beautiful art.

Kant is well aware that unintentional art seems like a contradiction, and explains how art is different from nature as well. He presents three distinct ways in which art is distinguished from nature and from other human products. First, he states that art has to be a production out of freedom grounded in reason with a specific end in mind. As human beings are the only creatures endowed with freedom, all art must necessarily be the effect of work by human beings. Second, he states that art is different from science in that knowing the technique does not mean that one can produce a work of art. There is an artistic problem of presentation that is embodied in art. He states, “Only that which one does not immediately have the skill to do even if one knows it completely belongs to that extent to art.”[6] Third, he claims that art can be distinguished from craft in that art is purposive and agreeable in itself, while craftsmanship is a labor that seeks remuneration and can be enforced. In creating art, the spirit must be free and not restricted to the mechanisms of craftsmanship, for spirit alone can animate the work of art.

Kant makes a clear distinction between art and nature on moral grounds based on intellectual interest. The beauty in nature founded on disinterest is still interested in its existence because reason still finds immediate interest in it in virtue of practical reason which finds elements of the good in nature. He states:

The mind cannot reflect on the beauty of nature without finding itself at the same time to be interested in it. Because of this affinity, however, this interest is moral, and he who takes such an interest in the beautiful in nature can do so only insofar as he has already firmly established his interest in the morally good.[7]

Although this holds true for nature, Kant specifically states that this does not hold true for art which is of interest only based on taste. According to Kant, art is specifically targeted towards the satisfaction through an end and never in itself. Kant then can be interpreted as placing natural beauty above artistic beauty in significance and experience.

While defining beauty and taste, Kant claims that one is disinterested in a beautiful object under contemplation, but it is clear that he saw problems with this claim. To avoid this problem he adds the notion of empirical and intellectual interest as indirect methods of associating an interest with beauty. Further, in trying to avoid the problem of disinterestedness in art, he claims that art has to be considered a product of nature without a specific purpose. If art were to have a specific end then it would have to be an object of interest as the concept of object and its purpose inherently assume the existence of the object. From a Kantian standpoint it can be argued that Kant counters these problems with the secondary aesthetic experiences through empirical and intellectual interest, however, even in pure aesthetic experiences of beauty the notion of being disinterested towards the object of beauty seems counter intuitive and contradictory. The most obvious reaction would be to say that it is interesting precisely because it is beautiful.

The Critique of Judgment, was not written to define a standard of taste or to educate the reader on taste, Kant’s sole purpose is to define the necessary conditions for an aesthetic judgment. In doing so he places the determining ground not on the object but rather the subjective experience. Disinterest is then the solid ground within subjectivity, devoid of interest, desire and will and the singular ground where the metaphysical meets the physical. However, disinterest precludes neither cognition nor the resumption of desires and interests even if a moment of disinterest can be experienced. If a state of disinterest were necessary to experience the pleasure of beauty, then it seems only logical to assume that an interest in maintaining the state of disinterest would manifest itself almost simultaneously.

Kant’s notion of disinterest also seems counter to his claim that in beauty the imagination and understanding attain harmony with the imagination set free to find a purpose for the object of beauty. Such a purpose behind imagination would only be possible if there was an active interest on the part of the subject in knowing and understanding the object of beauty. It can be assumed that the direction and paths the imagination follows are contingent on the beautiful object. While the subjective purposiveness would remain universal and indispensable to the experience of beauty, the ends pursed would vastly differ based on the object. This search for a purpose entails an interest in the object.

Disinterest in Kant’s aesthetic theory of beauty does not invalidate his whole theory, although it creates a ground for disagreement. A broader understanding of beauty can incorporate disinterest as a part of it without relying on it as a fundamental underpinning of the theory. Further, it does not insinuate that beauty cannot be judged under the terms of disinterest and can be one possible ground for experiencing beauty. However, it does reveal that a complete disinterested standpoint towards an object of beauty cannot be achieved. There can be a level of disinterest in being indifferent to desire as possession or control and morality as neither good nor evil, but disinterest without interest in the existence of the object and the concept behind the object while judging it as beautiful cannot be accomplished within our cognitive framework.

For a better illustration and understanding of beauty, this paper will now refer to the idea of beauty presented by Plato through Socrates in the Symposium and The Republic. In the Symposium, the character of Diotima in Socrates’ speech relates a poetic rendition of a progression through various conceptions of beauty leading to a more refined and better idea of beauty. Each step in the ladder of love is matched by a growing intellectual awareness and ends with the possibility of obtaining wisdom through beauty. The ladder progresses from material beauty up through pure cognitive and intellectual exercises. The first rug on the ladder is to see beauty in material reality. In Diotima’s speech material beauty is represented in the form of a body. For Socrates, interest is intrinsically related to beauty and to behold something as beautiful is to have an interest in the object of beauty and to develop a desire to possess, know and understand the object of beauty.

Once one gains an understanding of material beauty, the subjectivity that it is bound to can be understood. In Kantian terms, such beauty would correlate to the agreeable. Proper understanding of material beauty will lead one to seek beauty in the soul. The idea of beauty then progressively advances from the soul and within the soul to pursuits and laws, sciences and mathematics, and eventually leads to philosophy and an understanding of beauty itself. Diotima states:

Beginning from these beautiful things, always to proceed on up for the sake of that beauty, using these beautiful thigns here as steps: from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies; and from beautiful bodies to beautiful pursuits, and from pursuits to beautiful lessons; and from lessons to end at that lesson, which is the lesson of nothing else than the beautiful itself; and at last to know what is beauty itself.[8]

In all stages of this progression there is an active involvement of the subject in contemplation through an interest in the object of beauty. In each step the subject learns from the experience of beauty and is able to refine his conception of beauty. Although, each progression in the ladder does not preclude one from appreciating beauty in the earlier steps, the limitations of the lower steps become evident as one climbs the ladder. Thus, beauty to Socrates is a means to the Good, where the Good is true knowledge through wisdom.

In The Republic, Socrates gives his famous analogy of the divided line. The line is symbolic of the ladder as a progression to truth from its opposite. In the analogy, a line is divided into two unequal parts (Say A and B) and each part divided into two sections each in the same ratio as the first division (Say A = A_A + A_B, B = B_A + B_B). The first part (A) represents categories of the seen while the second part (B) represents categories of the understanding. In the second division, the first sections (A_A and B_A) represent images while the second sections (A_B and B_B) represent that which the images in the first part are of (Figure 1).

Since the first part (A) deals with the visible world, the first section (A_A) is constitute the shadows, reflections and representations of visible objects belonging to the second section (A_B). The second part (B) being the understanding contains the ideas of the visible objects in the first section (B_A) i.e. the ideas of objects in the second section of the first part (A_B). The second section of the second part (B_B) contains the higher forms of understanding which can be taken akin to Kant’s own a priori reasoning. This part is the realm of the dialectic, philosophy and wisdom. In relation to the soul or a subject’s cognition, Socrates states:

There are four conditions arising in the soul, corresponding to the four sections of the line. Understanding corresponds to the highest section, thinking to the second, belief to the third, and conjecture to the last. Classify them accordingly, believing that the degree of clarity they possess is proportional to the truth possessed by their objects.[9]

If beauty is that which lies in between steps in a progression from ignorance to wisdom, then it must be present at each division. Beauty is then the means to realize what is better about each section of the line while moving from the world of shadows to that of wisdom.

Plato’s analogy of the divided line and the ladder of love is contrived explain a progression of knowledge into wisdom based on his metaphysics of the Good. However, these analogies work well as a form of intellectual awareness without necessitating a belief in the metaphysics of the Good. If we are to consider beauty in the Kantian understanding as a free play of the imagination in conjunction with understanding through subjective purposiveness without a concept, then each step of the line can satisfy these conditions. With growing understanding and knowledge of objects of beauty a more coherent conceptualization of the object of beauty can occur, but with each step any form the concept takes is dissipated allowing for the imagination to attempt to galvanize a purpose. At the highest level, the concept cannot be made to bear and imagination remains in constant harmony with the understanding as it explores the possibilities of understanding the object of beauty.

Each step of beauty in the Platonic analogies also corresponds to both empirical and intellectual interest. Each object of beauty can contain multiple steps of the analogies in virtue of these interests, being realizable simultaneous or consecutively. The object to beauty can embody the Kantian notions of agreeableness, beauty and the good at the same time. However, a state of pure disinterest as argued earlier cannot be achieved. But disinterest to the extent of being devoid of desire and morality can be experienced, but cannot be maintained. If an object is considered to be beautiful then, its existence cannot be a matter of indifference. Further, the agreeable and the good can themselves be a part of the experience of beauty at different levels of the ladder with the agreeable feature towards the lower end while the good approaches the dialectic.

The different levels of beauty that can be derived from the Platonic analogies are compatible with the Kantian deduction on fine arts. Further, they add a level of depth to the significance of works of art and are in line with Kant’s idea of beauty in nature. The distinction of levels within beauty also reduces the subversion of art as being subordinated to nature. Within this framework art like nature can embody all levels of the analogies. The example is particularly relevant of the pictorial arts of painting and sculpture which would encompass all four levels. Paintings for instance are shadows of the real, but are real visible objects as works of art. They contain thoughts and ideas but also appeal to the higher forms of the dialectic of understanding.

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[1] Kant, Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment, pg. 96

[2] Ibid, pg. 104

[3] Ibid, pg. 120

[4] Ibid, pg. 124

[5] Ibid, pg. 185-186.

[6] Ibid, pg. 183

[7] Ibid, pg. 180

[8] Plato, Symposium, pg. 42

[9] Plato, The Republic, pg. 219