This is the final of Kant’s three treatises in his series of critiques. This book is divided into his critiques of the judgment of aesthetics and the judgment of teleology. But to start, Kant waxes on his theory of judgment, in general. For Kant, judgment is a bridge between the subjects of his first two critiques, “Judgment will bring about a transition from the pure cognitive power, i.e., from the domain of the concepts of nature, to the domain of the concept of freedom…. Judgment in general is the ability to think the particular as contained under the universal. If the universal (the rule, principle, law) is given, then judgment, which subsumes the particular under it, is determinative…. But if only the particular is given and judgment has to find the universal for it, then this power is merely reflective…. Determinative judgment, [which operates] under universal transcendental laws given by the understanding, is only subsumptive…. Reflective judgment, which is obligated to ascend from the particular in nature to the universal, requires a principle, which it cannot borrow from experience.”
Regarding the judgment of aesthetics, Kant begins, “What is merely subjective in the presentation of an object, i.e., what constitutes its reference to the subject and not to the object, is its aesthetic character…. When the senses present things outside me, the quality of the space in which these things are intuited is the merely subjective [feature] of my presentation of them (and because of this [feature] I cannot tell what such things may be as objects in themselves), and because of this subjective reference the object is moreover thought as merely appearance…. That subjective [feature] of a presentation which cannot at all become an element of cognition is the pleasure or displeasure connected with that presentation…. Not all aesthetic judgments are judgments of taste, which as such refer to the beautiful; but some of them arise from an intellectual feeling and as such refer to the sublime.”
Kant continues on about aesthetics, its subjectivity, and its necessary relationship back through the subject, “He will talk about the beautiful as if beauty were a characteristic of the object and the judgment were logical (namely, a cognition of the object through concepts of it), even though in fact the judgment is only aesthetic and refers the object’s presentation merely to the subject…. Since a judgment of taste involves the consciousness that all interest is kept out of it, it must also involve a claim to being valid for everyone, but without having a universality based on concepts. In other words, a judgment of taste must involve a claim to subjective universality…. In their logical quantity all judgments of taste are singular judgments…. There can be no rule by which someone could be compelled to acknowledge that something is beautiful. No one can use reasons or principles to talk us into a judgment on whether some garment, house, or flower is beautiful…. Beautiful is what, without a concept, is liked universally.”
Kant contrasts aesthetic beauty with the sublime, “Suppose we call something not only large, but large absolutely [schlechtin, absolut], in every respect (beyond all comparison), i.e., sublime. Clearly, in that case, we do not permit a standard adequate to it to be sought outside it, but only within it. It is a magnitude that is equal only to itself. It follows that the sublime must not be sought in things of nature, but must be sought solely in our ideas…. That is sublime in comparison with which everything else is small…. In order for the mind to be attuned to the feeling of the sublime, it must be receptive to ideas…. It is a dominance [Gewalt] that reason exerts over sensibility only for the sake of expanding it commensurately with reason’s own domain (the practical one) and letting it look outward toward the infinite, which for sensibility is an abyss. It is a fact that what is called sublime by us, having been prepared through culture, comes across as merely repellent to a person who in uncultured and lacking in the development of moral ideas…. We say that someone has no feeling if he remains unmoved in the presence of something we judge sublime.”
Kant returns to the concept of taste. “Taste lays claim merely to autonomy; but to make other people’s judgments the basis determining one’s own would be heteronomy…. Following by reference to precedent, rather than imitating, is the right term for any influence that products of an exemplary author may have on others…. Taste is precisely what stands most in need of examples regarding what has enjoyed the longest-lasting approval in the course of cultural progress…. Taste needs this because its judgment cannot be determined by concepts and precepts…. A judgment of taste, just as if it were merely subjective, cannot be determined by bases of proof…. The fact that others have liked something can never serve [the subject] as a basis for an aesthetic judgment.”
Finally, Kant discusses the nature of fine art. “What is essential in all fine art is the form that is purposive for our observation and judging, rather than the matter of sensation (i.e., charm or emotion). For the pleasure we take in purposive form is also culture, and it attunes the spirit to ideas…. Ideas, in the broadest sense, are presentations referred to an object according to a certain principle (subjective or objective) but are such that they can still never become cognition of an object. There are two kinds of ideas. One of these is referred to an intuition…. The other kind is referred to a concept…. Rational ideas are transcendent concepts; they differ from concepts of the understanding, which are called immanent because they can always be supplied with an experience…. An aesthetic idea cannot become cognition because it is an intuition (of the imagination) for which an adequate concept can never be found. A rational idea can never become cognition because it contains a concept (of the supersensible) for which no adequate intuition can ever be given…. I think we may call aesthetic ideas unexpoundable presentations of the imagination, and rational ideas indemonstrable concepts of reason.”
In the second section of his treatise, Kant lays out his critique of teleological judgment. He suggests, “Organized beings are the only beings in nature that, even when considered by themselves and apart from any relation to other things, must still be thought of as possible only as purposes of nature. It is these beings, therefore, which first give objective reality to the concept of a purpose that is a purpose of nature rather than a practical one, and which hence give natural science the basis for a teleology…. An organized product of nature is one in which everything is a purpose and reciprocally also a means. In such a product nothing is gratuitous, purposeless, or to be attributed to a blind natural mechanism.”
Kant concludes with man’s purposive role within nature, “Now in this world of ours there is only one kind of beings with a causality that is teleological, i.e., directed to purposes, but also so constituted that the law in terms of which these beings must determine their purposes is presented by these very beings as unconditioned and independent of conditions of nature, and yet necessary in itself. That being is man, but man considered as noumenon. Man is the only natural being in whom we can nonetheless cognize, as part of his own constitution, a supersensible ability (freedom) and even cognize the law and the object of this causality, the object that this being can set before itself as its highest purpose (the highest good in the world)…. His existence itself has the highest purpose within it…. Now if things in the world, which are dependent beings with regard to their existence, require a supreme cause that acts in terms of purposes, then man is the final purpose of creation…. Only in man, and even in him only as moral subject, do we find unconditioned legislation regarding purposes…. For the moral principle that determines us to action is supersensible. Hence it is the only possible [thing] in the order of purposes that is absolutely unconditioned as concerns nature, and hence alone qualifies man, the subject of morality, to be the final purpose of creation to which all of nature is subordinated.”
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