The Usefulness of Kant's Understanding of The Beautiful and The Sublime for Aesthetic - Term Paper Example

KANT’S THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME INTRODUCTION As human beings try to understand their position in this world, one approach that humanity has utilize in order to give sense and meanings to his/her experience of life and humanity is through the arts. In fact, Plato in The Republic has noted already the power of arts to influence, define and shape a person’s perspective of the things around him in particular and of the world in general. This becomes more significant as the contemporary perception of arts is such that arts is no longer just attached to the ephemeral but that its meaning is now re-connected to the very integrity of life’s context - the bringing back of arts in the day to day life – becomes the challenge. In this regard, Immanuel Kant, one of the greatest (if not the greatest) modern philosophers has provided a guide with which humanity may be able to understand and explicate visions and experience of beauty in the human world. This paper intends to present an outline of Kant’s understanding of the sublime and the beautiful. And then, the author will determine and evaluate the usefulness of Kant’s discussion of the sublime and the beautiful for understanding the aesthetic experience. In lieu with this, the paper will have the following structure: first part will be the introduction where the intention and structure of the paper is presented. The second part will be a discussion Kant’s concept of beauty. The third part will be on Kant’s concept of the sublime and fourth part will be the evaluation of Kant’s discussion on the beautiful and the sublime. In the end, it is the hope of the author that the understanding gained from this exposition helps in creating a vision of a world that is authentically responsive to the presentations and representations of what it means to be a human person. KANT AND THE BEAUTIFUL Kant’s discussion of the beautiful starts with the claim that the judgement of taste is disinterested, “Taste is the faculty of judging an object or a method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called beautiful.”1 This implies that judgment of taste is impartial of any feelings or emotions since “We must not be in the least prejudiced in favour of the existence of the things, but be quite indifferent in this respect, in order to play the judge in things of taste.”2 This is the first condition of beauty.3 The second condition is that the pleasure from the disinterested satisfaction should be a universal voice bereft of any personal satisfactions or interest. This implies that when ‘x is beautiful’, there exists a universal agreement, “we claim the assent of every one”4 that ‘x is beautiful’ regardless of ‘personal’ sentiments or feelings of the observer. Kant further stipulated that the pleasure derived from the beautiful is not designated by any concepts since “it only imputes this agreement to everyone, as a case of the rule in respect of which it expects, not confirmation by concepts ,but assent from others.”5 This becomes possible for the third condition of beauty asserts that our pleasure from the beautiful is not determinative of any concepts “it is an expression of the free play of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding that such an object induces, and that those cognitive faculties must work the same way in everyone.”6 Since, “Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, so far as this is perceived in it without any representation of a purpose.”7 This becomes feasible as the cognitive powers of imagination and understanding are inherent in all human beings and that the resulting harmony with which our cognitive powers of imagination and understanding interplays with the form of the object of satisfaction. The fourth condition of beauty, points to the necessity of the pleasure derived from the objection of satisfaction – the beautiful. For, “The beautiful is that which without any concept is cognized as the object of a necessary satisfaction.”8 As such, Kant’s discussion of the beautiful presents the notion that judgment of taste is disinterested of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. And its object of pleasure is the beautiful. Being such, when a person claims that x is beautiful, the person is not evincing a personal opinion regarding a particular x, rather, the person is making a universal claim regarding x’s beauty. The universal agreement is not subsumed on the delineation of concepts in the object. But it is the result of the free play of the cognitive powers of imagination and understanding which is inherent in all human beings as human beings. And that human beings respond to this free play of imagination and understanding by harmonizing these cognitive powers with the object’s form or even purpose. Thus, in the end, ““The beautiful is that which without any concept is cognized as the object of a necessary satisfaction”9. KANT AND THE SUBLIME Kant’s discussion of the sublime involves the division between the “mathematically and the dynamically sublime.”10 Furthermore, Kant claims that the feeling of sublime creates movements in the mind whereas “the beautiful presupposes and maintains the mind in restful contemplation”11. As the feeling of the sublime creates movement in the mind, the person is thrust into the pain of comprehending the limitation of human imagination and at the same time the pleasure of knowing that it “is our own power of reason that reveals the limits of our imagination.”12 In this regard, the mathematically sublime is the relationship between a person’s imagination and the theoretical reason. Theoretical reason is from where the person derives the idea of the infinite and our imagination points to our own limitation; “our experience of this form of the sublime is triggered by the observation of natural vistas so vast that our effort to grasp them in a single image is bound to fail, but which then pleases us because this very effort of the imagination reminds us that we have a power of reason capable of formulating the idea of the infinite”13. The mathematically sublime experience opens to the person the notion that the power of reason is technically self-sufficient. On the other hand, the dynamically sublime is “Might is that which is superior to great hindrances. It is called dominion if it is superior to the resistance of that which itself possesses might. Nature considered in an aesthetical judgement as might that has no dominion over us”14. Instance of dynamically sublime are volcanic eruption, tornadoes, virulent storms and other similar conditions wherein persons feel the threat and fear for their lives as the “in the immensity of nature, and in the inadequacy of our faculties for adopting a standard proportionate to the aesthetical estimation of the magnitude of its realm, we find our own limitation… in our mind we find a superiority to nature even in its immensity”15. Thus, in Kant’s discourse of the sublime, the human person is thrust reality of the limitation of imagination and of the power of reason in recognizing that limitation providing humanity the conception of the reason’s self sufficiency. On the other hand, as humanity recognizes the immensity of nature and its violence, “the humanity in our person remains unhumiliated”16. THE EVALUATION The influence of Immanuel Kant’s discussion on the beautiful and the sublime is definitely influential not only in the history of Philosophy but also in the history of arts as well. This is claim on the premise that the modern history of art which is marked by formalism and objectivity which are highly influenced by the Kantian concepts of beauty and the sublime17. This belief has weighty repercussion in the arts. Since, a painting is no longer viewed as representing the world, but that on its own a painting or picture can objectively stand separated from the reality of human experience.18 The work of arts has its validity independent of the world out there, “For Cezenne, art created its own reality. The physical properties of the art object itself became the compelling interests. The art object became decontextualized. Its value is intrinsic, independent of the world”19. This effect of the Kantian perspective in the understanding of the beautiful and the sublime has been subjected to rigorous criticisms in the postmodern period20. Despite this seeming controversial issue that surrounds the Kantian understanding of the beautiful and the sublime, it is undeniable that it has ushered a new appreciation of aesthetic experience. What does it mean? Kantian understanding of the beautiful and the sublime has deconstructed the age old perspective that aesthetic experience and the arts should be relegated in the periphery as it does not contribute much to human development but rather it retards human flourishing as the center of aesthetic experience is that which is thrice remove from reality21. However, with the Kantian discourse on the beautiful and the sublime, human knowledge has been integrated in the understanding of the arts. The low regard for aesthetic experience in the realm of knowledge has been changed into such that the “Kant’s philosophy holds for aesthetics is immense, since it positions the aesthetic as that realm of human experience where we appraise the relationship between the world and our conceptual understanding of it. We enjoy art, literature, and music because they move us subjectively to offer judgements which display the purposiveness required for objectivity”22. It has placed humanity’s aesthetic experience comprehensible as Knat’s articulation has provided the connection between aesthetic experience and rational consciousness23 Moreover, Kantian discourse on the beautiful and the sublime has created a paradigm wherein aesthetic experience becomes a concrete manifestation of the autonomy of the human person. In aesthetic experience, the cognitive powers of imagination and understanding, theoretical reason and practical reason combining with imagination forming a harmonious unity all of these together enable beauty in becoming “the symbol of the morally good”24. Furthermore, Kant’s understanding of the beautiful and the sublime has drawn and created the picture of the holistic human nature which is comprised of several attributes – rationality, ethics, moral values, aesthetic value, and aesthetic experience. As such, Kantian discussion of the sublime and the beautiful has tried to articulate human nature not only from within but also from the without. Thus, providing a more comprehensive and viable understanding of what it takes to be a human person. In the end, Kant’s understanding of the beautiful and the sublime do not provide the panacea for complete and perfect elucidation for aesthetic experience. But what it does is placed at the heart of aesthetic experience the human person. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cary, R. Critical art pedagogy: Foundations for postmodern art education. New York: Garland, 1998. Cazeaux, C. “Art and knowledge in Kants aesthetics.” Working Papers in Art and Design 2 (2002). Retrieved 18 January 2010 from URL http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/ papers/wpades/vol2/cazeauxfull.html. ISSN 1466-4917 Gardner, S. Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason. London: Routledge, 1999. Guyer, Paul. “Bridging the Gulf: Kant’s project in the Third Critique”. In A Companion to Kant. Ed by Graham Bird, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Trans by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987. Savile, Anthony. “Kant’s Aesthetic Theory”. In A Companion to Kant. Ed by Graham Bird, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. Read More