Kant's Critique of Judgement
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Title: Kant's Critique of Judgement
Author: Immanuel Kant
Translator: J. H. Bernard
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Language: English
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KANT’S
CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
KANT’S CRITIQUE OF
JUDGEMENT
TRANSLATED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
J. H. BERNARD, D.D., D.C.L.
BISHOP OF OSSORY
SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND ARCHBISHOP KING’S PROFESSOR
OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
_SECOND EDITION, REVISED_
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1914
COPYRIGHT
_First Edition 1892_
_Second Edition 1914_
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION xi
PREFACE 1
INTRODUCTION 7
I. Of the division of Philosophy 7
II. Of the realm of Philosophy in general 11
III. Of the Critique of Judgement as a means of combining the
two parts of Philosophy into a whole 14
IV. Of Judgement as a faculty legislating _a priori_ 17
V. The principle of the formal purposiveness of nature is a
transcendental principle of Judgement 20
VI. Of the combination of the feeling of pleasure with the
concept of the purposiveness of nature 27
VII. Of the aesthetical representation of the purposiveness of
nature 30
VIII. Of the logical representation of the purposiveness of
nature 35
IX. Of the connexion of the legislation of Understanding with
that of Reason by means of the Judgement 39
FIRST PART.--CRITIQUE OF THE AESTHETICAL JUDGEMENT 43
=First Division.=--Analytic of the Aesthetical Judgement 45
_First Book._--Analytic of the Beautiful 45
_First Moment_ of the judgement of taste, according to quality
45
§ 1. The judgement of taste is aesthetical 45
§ 2. The satisfaction which determines the judgement of taste is
disinterested 46
§ 3. The satisfaction in the pleasant is bound up with interest 48
§ 4. The satisfaction in the good is bound up with interest 50
§ 5. Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of
satisfaction 53
_Second Moment_ of the judgement of taste, viz. according to
quantity 55
§ 6. The Beautiful is that which apart from concepts is
represented as the object of a universal satisfaction 55
§ 7. Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good
by means of the above characteristic 57
§ 8. The universality of the satisfaction is represented in a
judgement of Taste only as subjective 59
§ 9. Investigation of the question whether in a judgement of
taste the feeling of pleasure precedes or follows the
judging of the object 63
_Third Moment_ of judgements of taste according to the relation
of the purposes which are brought into consideration therein 67
§ 10. Of purposiveness in general 67
§ 11. The judgement of taste has nothing at its basis but the
form of the purposiveness of an object (or of its mode of
representation) 69
§ 12. The judgement of taste rests on _a priori_ grounds 70
§ 13. The pure judgement of taste is independent of charm and
emotion 72
§ 14. Elucidation by means of examples 73
§ 15. The judgement of taste is quite independent of the concept
of perfection 77
§ 16. The judgement of taste, by which an object is declared to
be beautiful under the condition of a definite concept,
is not pure 81
§ 17. Of the Ideal of Beauty 84
_Fourth Moment_ of the judgement of taste, according to the
modality of the satisfaction in the object 91
§ 18. What the modality in a judgement of taste is 91
§ 19. The subjective necessity which we ascribe to the judgement
of taste is conditioned 92
§ 20. The condition of necessity which a judgement of taste
asserts is the Idea of a common sense 92
§ 21. Have we ground for presupposing a common sense? 93
§ 22. The necessity of the universal agreement that is thought
in a judgement of taste is a subjective necessity, which
is represented as objective under the presupposition of a
common sense 94
_General remark_ on the first section of the Analytic 96
_Second Book._--Analytic of the Sublime 101
§ 23. Transition from the faculty which judges of the Beautiful
to that which judges of the Sublime 101
§ 24. Of the divisions of an investigation into the feeling of
the Sublime 105
A.--Of the Mathematically Sublime 106
§ 25. Explanation of the term “Sublime” 106
§ 26. Of that estimation of the magnitude of natural things
which is requisite for the Idea of the Sublime 110
§ 27. Of the quality of the satisfaction in our judgements upon
the Sublime 119
B.--Of the Dynamically Sublime in Nature 123
§ 28. Of Nature regarded as Might 123
§ 29. Of the modality of the judgement upon the sublime in
nature 130
_General remark_ upon the exposition of the aesthetical
reflective Judgement 132
_Deduction_ of [pure] aesthetical judgements 150
§ 30. The Deduction of aesthetical judgements on the objects of
nature must not be directed to what we call Sublime in
nature, but only to the Beautiful 150
§ 31. Of the method of deduction of judgements of taste 152
§ 32. First peculiarity of the judgement of taste 154
§ 33. Second peculiarity of the judgement of taste 157
§ 34. There is no objective principle of taste possible 159
§ 35. The principle of Taste is the subjective principle of
Judgement in general 161
§ 36. Of the problem of a Deduction of judgements of Taste 162
§ 37. What is properly asserted _a priori_ of an object in a
judgement of taste 164
§ 38. Deduction of judgements of taste 165
§ 39. Of the communicability of a sensation 167
§ 40. Of taste as a kind of _sensus communis_ 169
§ 41. Of the empirical interest in the Beautiful 173
§ 42. Of the intellectual interest in the Beautiful 176
§ 43. Of Art in general 183
§ 44. Of beautiful Art 185
§ 45. Beautiful art is an art in so far as it seems like nature 187
§ 46. Beautiful art is the art of genius 188
§ 47. Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation of
Genius 190
§ 48. Of the relation of Genius to Taste 193
§ 49. Of the faculties of the mind that constitute Genius 197
§ 50. Of the combination of Taste with Genius in the products of
beautiful Art 205
§ 51. Of the division of the beautiful arts 206
§ 52. Of the combination of beautiful arts in one and the same
product 214
§ 53. Comparison of the respective aesthetical worth of the
beautiful arts 215
§ 54. Remark 220
=Second Division.=--Dialectic of the Aesthetical Judgement 229
§ 55. 229
§ 56. Representation of the antinomy of Taste 230
§ 57. Solution of the antinomy of Taste 231
§ 58. Of the Idealism of the purposiveness of both Nature and Art
as the unique principle of the aesthetical Judgement 241
§ 59. Of Beauty as the symbol of Morality 248
§ 60. =Appendix=:--Of the method of Taste 253
SECOND PART.--CRITIQUE OF THE TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT 257
§ 61. Of the objective purposiveness of Nature 259
=First Division.=--Analytic of the Teleological Judgement 262
§ 62. Of the objective purposiveness which is merely formal as
distinguished from that which is material 262
§ 63. Of the relative, as distinguished from the inner,
purposiveness of nature 268
§ 64. Of the peculiar character of things as natural purposes 272
§ 65. Things regarded as natural purposes are organised beings 275
§ 66. Of the principle of judging of internal purposiveness in
organised beings 280
§ 67. Of the principle of the teleological judging of nature in
general as a system of purposes 282
§ 68. Of the principle of Teleology as internal principle of
natural science 287
=Second Division.=--Dialectic of the Teleological Judgement 292
§ 69. What is an antinomy of the Judgement? 292
§ 70. Representation of this antinomy 293
§ 71. Preliminary to the solution of the above antinomy 296
§ 72. Of the different systems which deal with the purposiveness
of Nature 298
§ 73. None of the above systems give what they pretend 302
§ 74. The reason that we cannot treat the concept of a Technic
of nature dogmatically is the fact that a natural purpose
is inexplicable 306
§ 75. The concept of an objective purposiveness of nature is a
critical principle of Reason for the reflective
Judgement 309
§ 76. Remark 313
§ 77. Of the peculiarity of the human Understanding, by means of
which the concept of a natural purpose is possible 319
§ 78. Of the union of the principle of the universal mechanism of
matter with the teleological principle in the Technic of
nature 326
=Appendix.=--Methodology of the Teleological Judgement 334
§ 79. Whether Teleology must be treated as if it belonged to the
doctrine of nature 334
§ 80. Of the necessary subordination of the mechanical to the
teleological principle in the explanation of a thing as
a natural purpose 336
§ 81. Of the association of mechanism with the teleological
principle in the explanation of a natural purpose as a
natural product 342
§ 82. Of the teleological system in the external relations of
organised beings 346
§ 83. Of the ultimate purpose of nature as a teleological system 352
§ 84. Of the final purpose of the existence of a world, _i.e._
of creation itself 359
§ 85. Of Physico-theology 362
§ 86. Of Ethico-theology 370
§ 87. Of the moral proof of the Being of God 377
§ 88. Limitation of the validity of the moral proof 384
§ 89. Of the use of the moral argument 392
§ 90. Of the kind of belief in a teleological proof of the Being
of God 395
§ 91. Of the kind of belief produced by a practical faith 403
_General remark_ on Teleology 414
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
There are not wanting indications that public interest in the Critical
Philosophy has been quickened of recent days in these countries, as
well as in America. To lighten the toil of penetrating through the
wilderness of Kant’s long sentences, the English student has now many
aids, which those who began their studies fifteen or twenty years
ago did not enjoy. Translations, paraphrases, criticisms, have been
published in considerable numbers; so that if it is not yet true that
“he who runs may read,” it may at least be said that a patient student
of ordinary industry and intelligence has his way made plain before
him. And yet the very number of aids is dangerous. Whatever may be the
value of short and easy handbooks in other departments of science,
it is certain that no man will become a philosopher, no man will
even acquire a satisfactory knowledge of the history of philosophy,
without personal and prolonged study of the _ipsissima verba_ of the
great masters of human thought. “Above all,” said Schopenhauer, “my
truth-seeking young friends, beware of letting our professors tell
you what is contained in the Critique of the Pure Reason”; and the
advice has not become less wholesome with the lapse of years. The fact,
however, that many persons have not sufficient familiarity with German
to enable them to study German Philosophy in the original with ease,
makes translations an educational necessity; and this translation of
Kant’s Critique of the faculty of Judgement has been undertaken in the
hope that it may promote a more general study of that masterpiece. If
any reader wishes to follow Schopenhauer’s advice, he has only to omit
the whole of this prefatory matter and proceed at once to the Author’s
laborious Introduction.
It is somewhat surprising that the Critique of Judgement has never
yet been made accessible to the English reader. Dr. Watson has indeed
translated a few selected passages, so also has Dr. Caird in his
valuable account of the Kantian philosophy, and I have found their
renderings of considerable service; but the space devoted by both
writers to the Critique of Judgement is very small in comparison
with that given to the Critiques of Pure and Practical Reason. And
yet the work is not an unimportant one. Kant himself regarded it as
the coping-stone of his critical edifice; it even formed the point
of departure for his successors, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, in the
construction of their respective systems. Possibly the reason of
its comparative neglect lies in its repulsive style. Kant was never
careful of style, and in his later years he became more and more
enthralled by those technicalities and refined distinctions which deter
so many from the Critical Philosophy even in its earlier sections.
These “symmetrical architectonic amusements,” as Schopenhauer called
them, encumber every page of Kant’s later writings, and they are a
constant source of embarrassment to his unhappy translator. For, as
every translator knows, no single word in one language exactly covers
any single word in another; and yet if Kant’s distinctions are to be
preserved it is necessary to select with more or less arbitrariness
English equivalents for German technical terms, and retain them all
through. Instances of this will be given later on; I only remark
here on the fact that Kant’s besetting sin of over-technicality is
especially conspicuous in this treatise.
Another fault--an old fault of Kant--apparent after reading even a few
pages, is that repetitions are very frequent of the same thought in but
slightly varied language. Arguments are repeated over and over again
until they become quite wearisome; and then when the reader’s attention
has flagged, and he is glancing cursorily down the page, some important
new point is introduced without emphasis, as if the author were really
anxious to keep his meaning to himself at all hazards. A book written
in such fashion rarely attracts a wide circle of readers. And yet, not
only did Goethe think highly of it, but it received a large measure
of attention in France as well as in Germany on its first appearance.
Originally published at Berlin in 1790, a Second Edition was called
for in 1793; and a French translation was made by Imhoff in 1796. Other
French versions are those by Keratry and Weyland in 1823, and by Barni
in 1846. This last I have had before me while performing my task, but
I have not found it of much service; the older French translations
I have not seen. The existence of these French versions, when taken
in connexion with the absence until very recently of any systematic
account of the Critique of Judgement in English, may be perhaps
explained by the lively interest that was taken on the Continent in the
Philosophy of Art in the early part of the century; whereas scientific
studies on this subject received little attention in England during the
same period.
The student of the Critique of Pure Reason will remember how closely,
in his Transcendental Logic, Kant follows the lines of the ordinary
logic of the schools. He finds his whole plan ready made for him, as
it were; and he proceeds to work out the metaphysical principles which
underlie the process of syllogistic reasoning. And as there are three
propositions in every syllogism, he points out that, in correspondence
with this triplicity, the higher faculties of the soul may be regarded
as threefold. The Understanding or the faculty of concepts gives us our
major premise, as it supplies us in the first instance with a general
notion. By means of the Judgement we see that a particular case comes
under the general rule, and by the Reason we draw our conclusion.
These, as three distinct movements in the process of reasoning,
are regarded by Kant as indicating three distinct faculties, with
which the Analytic of Concepts, the Analytic of Principles, and the
Dialectic are respectively concerned. The full significance of this
important classification does not seem, however, to have occurred
to Kant at the time, as we may see from the order in which he wrote
his great books.[1] The first problem which arrests the attention
of all modern philosophers is, of course, the problem of knowledge,
its conditions and its proper objects. And in the Critique of Pure
Reason this is discussed, and the conclusion is reached that nature
as phenomenon is the only object of which we can hope to acquire any
exact knowledge. But it is apparent that there are other problems which
merit consideration; a complete philosophy includes practice as well
as theory; it has to do not only with logic, but with life. And thus
the Critique of Practical Reason was written, in which is unfolded
the doctrine of man’s freedom standing in sharp contrast with the
necessity of natural law. Here, then, it seems at first sight as if we
had covered the whole field of human activity. For we have investigated
the sources of knowledge, and at the same time have pointed out the
conditions of practical life, and have seen that the laws of freedom
are just as true in their own sphere as are the laws of nature.
But as we reflect on our mental states we find that here no proper
account has been given of the phenomena of _feeling_, which play so
large a part in experience. And this Kant saw before he had proceeded
very far with the Critique of Practical Reason; and in consequence
he adopted a threefold classification of the higher mental faculties
based on that given by previous psychologists. Knowledge, feeling,
desire, these are the three ultimate modes of consciousness, of which
the second has not yet been described. And when we compare this with
the former triple division which we took up from the Aristotelian
logic, we see that the parallelism is significant. Understanding is
_par excellence_ the faculty of knowledge, and Reason the faculty of
desire (these points are developed in Kant’s first two Critiques). And
this suggests that the Judgement corresponds to the feeling of pleasure
and pain; it occupies a position intermediate between Understanding
and Reason, just as, roughly speaking, the feeling of pleasure is
intermediate between our perception of an object and our desire to
possess it.
And so the Critique of Judgement completes the whole undertaking
of criticism; its endeavour is to show that there are _a priori_
principles at the basis of Judgement just as there are in the case
of Understanding and of Reason; that these principles, like the
principles of Reason, are not constitutive but only regulative of
experience, _i.e._ that they do not teach us anything positive about
the characteristics of objects, but only indicate the conditions under
which we find it necessary to view them; and lastly, that we are thus
furnished with an _a priori_ philosophy of pleasure.
The fundamental principle underlying the procedure of the Judgement is
seen to be that of the purposiveness of Nature; nature is everywhere
adapted to ends or purposes, and thus constitutes a κόσμος, a
well-ordered whole. By this means, nature is regarded by us as if
its particular empirical laws were not isolated and disparate, but
connected and in relation, deriving their unity in seeming diversity
from an intelligence which is at the source of nature. It is only
by the assumption of such a principle that we can construe nature
to ourselves; and the principle is then said to be a transcendental
condition of the exercise of our judging faculty, but valid only for
the reflective, not for the determinant Judgement. It gives us pleasure
to view nature in this way; just as the contemplation of chaos would be
painful.
But this purposiveness may be only formal and subjective, or real
and objective. In some cases the purposiveness resides in the felt
harmony and accordance of the form of the object with the cognitive
faculties; in others the form of the object is judged to harmonise
with the purpose in view in its existence. That is to say, in the one
case we judge the form of the object to be purposive, as in the case
of a flower, but could not explain any purpose served by it; in the
other case we have a definite notion of what it is adapted for. In the
former case the aesthetical Judgement is brought to bear, in the latter
the teleological; and it thus appears that the Critique of Judgement
has two main divisions; it treats first of the philosophy of Taste, the
Beautiful and the Sublime in Nature; and secondly, of the Teleology of
nature’s working. It is a curious literary parallel that St. Augustine
hints (_Confessions_ iv. 15) that he had written a book, _De Pulchro
et Ápto_, in which these apparently distinct topics were combined;
“pulchrum esse, quod per se ipsum; aptum, autem, quod ad aliquid
accommodatum deceret.” A beautiful object has no purpose external to
itself and the observer; but a useful object serves further ends. Both,
however, may be brought under the higher category of things that are
reckoned _purposive_ by the Judgement.
We have here then, in the first place, a basis for an _a priori_
Philosophy of Taste; and Kant works out its details with great
elaboration. He borrowed little from the writings of his predecessors,
but struck out, as was ever his plan, a line of his own. He quotes
with approval from Burke’s _Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful_,
which was accessible to him in a German translation; but is careful to
remark that it is as psychology, not as philosophy, that Burke’s work
has value. He may have read in addition Hutcheson’s _Inquiry_ which
had also been translated into German; and he was complete master of
Hume’s opinions. Of other writers on Beauty, he only names Batteux and
Lessing. Batteux was a French writer of repute who had attempted a
twofold arrangement of the Arts as they may be brought under Space and
under Time respectively, a mode of classification which would naturally
appeal to Kant. He does not seem, however, to have read the ancient
text-book on the subject, Aristotle’s _Poetics_, the principles of
which Lessing declared to be as certain as Euclid.
Following the guiding thread of the categories, he declares that
the aesthetical judgement about Beauty is according to _quality_
disinterested; a point which had been laid down by such different
writers as Hutcheson and Moses Mendelssohn. As to _quantity_, the
judgement about beauty gives universal satisfaction, although it is
based on no definite concept. The universality is only subjective; but
still it is there. The maxim _Trahit sua quemque voluptas_ does not
apply to the pleasure afforded by a pure judgement about beauty. As to
_relation_, the characteristic of the object called beautiful is that
it betrays a purposiveness without definite purpose. The pleasure is
_a priori_, independent on the one hand of the charms of sense or the
emotions of mere feeling, as Winckelmann had already declared; and
on the other hand is a pleasure quite distinct from that taken which
we feel when viewing perfection, with which Wolff and Baumgarten had
identified it. By his distinction between free and dependent beauty,
which we also find in the pages of Hutcheson, Kant further develops
his doctrine of the freedom of the pure judgement of taste from the
thraldom of concepts.
Finally, the satisfaction afforded by the contemplation of a beautiful
object is a necessary satisfaction. This necessity is not, to be sure,
theoretical like the necessity attaching to the Law of Causality; nor
is it a practical necessity as is the need to assume the Moral Law as
the guiding principle of conduct. But it may be called _exemplary_;
that is, we may set up our satisfaction in a beautiful picture as
setting an example to be followed by others. It is plain, however,
that this can only be assumed under certain presuppositions. We must
presuppose the idea of a _sensus communis_ or common sense in which all
men share. As knowledge admits of being communicated to others, so also
does the feeling for beauty. For the relation between the cognitive
faculties requisite for Taste is also requisite for Intelligence or
sound Understanding, and as we always presuppose the latter to be the
same in others as in ourselves, so may we presuppose the former.
The analysis of the Sublime which follows that of the Beautiful is
interesting and profound; indeed Schopenhauer regarded it as the
best part of the Critique of the Aesthetical Judgement. The general
characteristics of our judgements about the Sublime are similar to
those already laid down in the case of the Beautiful; but there
are marked differences in the two cases. If the pleasure taken in
beauty arises from a feeling of the purposiveness of the object in
its relation to the subject, that in sublimity rather expresses a
purposiveness of the subject in respect of the object. Nothing in
nature is sublime; and the sublimity really resides in the mind and
there alone. Indeed, as true Beauty is found, properly speaking, only
in beauty of form, the idea of sublimity is excited rather by those
objects which are formless and exhibit a violation of purpose.
A distinction not needed in the case of the Beautiful becomes
necessary when we proceed to further analyse the Sublime. For in
aesthetical judgements about the Beautiful the mind is in _restful_
contemplation; but in the case of the Sublime a mental _movement_ is
excited (pp. 105 and 120). This movement, as it is pleasing, must
involve a purposiveness in the harmony of the mental powers; and the
purposiveness may be either in reference to the faculty of cognition
or to that of desire. In the former case the sublime is called the
Mathematically Sublime--the sublime of mere magnitude--the absolutely
great; in the latter it is the sublime of power, the Dynamically
Sublime. Gioberti, an Italian writer on the philosophy of Taste, has
pushed this distinction so far as to find in it an explanation of the
relation between Beauty and Sublimity. “The dynamical Sublime,” he
says, “creates the Beautiful; the mathematical Sublime contains it,” a
remark with which probably Kant would have no quarrel.
In both cases, however, we find that the feeling of the Sublime awakens
in us a feeling of the supersensible destination of man. “The very
capacity of conceiving the sublime,” he tells us, “indicates a mental
faculty that far surpasses every standard of sense.” And to explain
the necessity belonging to our judgements about the sublime, Kant
points out that as we find ourselves compelled to postulate a _sensus
communis_ to account for the agreement of men in their appreciation of
beautiful objects, so the principle underlying their consent in judging
of the sublime is “the presupposition of the moral feeling in man.” The
feeling of the sublimity of our own moral destination is the necessary
prerequisite for forming such judgements. The connexion between Beauty
and Goodness involved to a Greek in the double sense of the word καλόν
is developed by Kant with keen insight. To feel interest in the beauty
of Nature he regards as a mark of a moral disposition, though he will
not admit that the same inference may be drawn as to the character
of the art connoisseur (§ 42). But it is specially with reference to
the connexion between the capacity for appreciating the Sublime, and
the moral feeling, that the originality of Kant’s treatment becomes
apparent.
The objects of nature, he continues, which we call sublime, inspire us
with a feeling of pain rather than of pleasure; as Lucretius has it--
Me quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit atque horror.
But this “horror” must not inspire actual fear. As no extraneous
charm must mingle with the satisfaction felt in a beautiful object,
if the judgement about beauty is to remain pure; so in the case of
the sublime we must not be afraid of the object which yet in certain
aspects is fearful.
This conception of the feelings of sublimity excited by the loneliness
of an Alpine peak or the grandeur of an earthquake is now a familiar
one; but it was not so in Kant’s day. Switzerland had not then become
the recreation-ground of Europe; and though natural beauty was a
familiar topic with poets and painters it was not generally recognised
that taste has also to do with the sublime. De Saussure’s _Travels_,
Haller’s poem _Die Alpen_, and this work of Kant’s mark the beginning
of a new epoch in our ways of looking at the sublime and terrible
aspects of Nature. And it is not a little remarkable that the man who
could write thus feelingly about the emotions inspired by grand and
savage scenery, had never seen a mountain in his life. The power and
the insight of his observations here are in marked contrast to the
poverty of some of his remarks about the characteristics of beauty. For
instance, he puts forward the curious doctrine that colour in a picture
is only an extraneous charm, and does not really add to the beauty
of the form delineated, nay rather distracts the mind from it. His
criticisms on this point, if sound, would make Flaxman a truer artist
than Titian or Paolo Veronese. But indeed his discussion of Painting or
Music is not very appreciative; he was, to the end, a creature of pure
Reason.
Upon the analysis he gives of the Arts, little need be said here. Fine
Art is regarded as the Art of Genius, “that innate mental disposition
through which Nature gives the rule to Art” (§ 46). Art differs
from Science in the absence of definite concepts in the mind of the
artist. It thus happens that the great artist can rarely communicate
his methods; indeed he cannot explain them even to himself. _Poeta
nascitur, non fit_; and the same is true in every form of fine art.
Genius is, in short, the faculty of presenting aesthetical Ideas; an
aesthetical Idea being an intuition of the Imagination, to which no
concept is adequate. And it is by the excitation of such ineffable
Ideas that a great work of art affects us. As Bacon tells us, “that is
the best part of Beauty which a picture cannot express; no, nor the
first sight of the eye.” This characteristic of the artistic genius
has been noted by all who have thought upon art; more is present in
its productions than can be perfectly expressed in language. As Pliny
said of Timanthus the painter of Iphigenia, “In omnibus ejus operibus
intelligitur plus super quam pingitur.” But this genius requires to be
kept in check by taste; quite in the spirit of the σωφροσύνη of the
best Greek art, Kant remarks that if in a work of art some feature must
be sacrificed, it is better to lose something of genius than to violate
the canons of taste. It is in this self-mastery that “the sanity of
true genius” expresses itself.
The main question with which the Critique of Judgement is concerned
is, of course, the question as to the purposiveness, the
_Zweckmässigkeit_, exhibited by nature. That nature appears to be
full of purpose is mere matter of fact. It displays purposiveness
in respect of our faculties of cognition, in those of its phenomena
which we designate beautiful. And also in its organic products we
observe methods of operation which we can only explain by describing
them as processes in which means are used to accomplish certain
ends, as processes that are _purposive_. In our observation of
natural phenomena, as Kuno Fischer puts it, we judge their _forms_
aesthetically, and their _life_ teleologically.
As regards the first kind of _Zweckmässigkeit_, that which is _ohne
Zweck_--the purposiveness of a beautiful object which does not seem to
be directed to any external end--there are two ways in which we may
account for it. We may either say that it was actually designed to
be beautiful by the Supreme Force behind Nature, or we may say that
purposiveness is not really resident in nature, but that our perception
of it is due to the subjective needs of our judging faculty. We have
to contemplate beautiful objects _as if_ they were purposive, but they
may not be so in reality. And this latter idealistic doctrine is what
Kant falls back upon. He appeals in support of it, to the phenomena of
crystallisation (pp. 243 _sqq._), in which many very beautiful forms
seem to be produced by merely mechanical processes. The beauty of a
rock crystal is apparently produced without any forethought on the
part of nature, and he urges that we are not justified in asserting
dogmatically that any laws distinct from those of mechanism are needed
to account for beauty in other cases. Mechanism can do so much; may it
not do all? And he brings forward as a consideration which ought to
settle the question, the fact that in judging of beauty “we invariably
seek its gauge _in ourselves a priori_”; we do not learn from nature,
but from ourselves, what we are to find beautiful. Mr. Kennedy in his
Donnellan Lectures has here pointed out several weak spots in Kant’s
armour. In the first place, the fact that we seek the gauge of beauty
in our own mind “may be shown from his own definition to be a necessary
result of the very nature of beauty.”[2] For Kant tells us that the
aesthetical judgement about beauty always involves “a reference of the
representation to the subject”; and this applies equally to judgements
about the beautiful in Art and the beautiful in Nature. But no one
could maintain that from this definition it follows that we are not
compelled to postulate design in the mind of the artist who paints a
beautiful picture. And thus as the fact that “we always seek the gauge
of beauty” in ourselves does not do away with the belief in a designing
mind when we are contemplating works of art, it cannot be said to
exclude the belief in a Master Hand which moulded the forms of Nature.
As Cicero has it, nature is “non artificiosa solum, sed plane artifex.”
But the cogency of this reasoning, for the details of which I must
refer the reader to Mr. Kennedy’s pages, becomes more apparent when
we reflect on that second form of purposiveness, viz. adaptation to
definite ends, with which we meet in the phenomena of organic life.
If we watch, _e.g._ the growth of a tree we perceive that its various
parts are not isolated and unconnected, but that on the contrary they
are only possible by reference to the idea of the whole. Each limb
affects every other, and is reciprocally affected by it; in short “in
such a product of nature every part not only exists _by means of_ the
other parts, but is thought as existing _for the sake of_ the others
and the whole” (p. 277). The operations of nature in organised bodies
seem to be of an entirely different character from mere mechanical
processes; we cannot construe them to ourselves except under the
hypothesis that nature in them is working towards a designed end.
The distinction between nature’s “Technic” or purposive operation,
and nature’s Mechanism is fundamental for the explanation of natural
law. The language of biology eloquently shows the impossibility of
eliminating at least the _idea_ of purpose from our investigations into
the phenomena of life, growth, and reproduction. And Kant dismisses
with scant respect that cheap and easy philosophy which would fain
deny the distinctiveness of nature’s purposive operation. A doctrine,
like that of Epicurus, in which every natural phenomenon is regarded
as the result of the blind drifting of atoms in accordance with purely
mechanical laws, really explains nothing, and least of all explains
that illusion in our teleological judgements which leads us to assume
purpose where really there is none.
It has been urged by Kirchmann and others that this distinction
between Technic and Mechanism, on which Kant lays so much stress,
has been disproved by the progress of modern science. The doctrines,
usually associated with the name of Darwin, of Natural Selection and
Survival of the Fittest, quite sufficiently explain, it is said, on
mechanical principles the semblance of purpose with which nature mocks
us. The presence of order is not due to any purpose behind the natural
operation, but to the inevitable disappearance of the disorderly. It
would be absurd, of course, to claim for Kant that he anticipated the
Darwinian doctrines of development; and yet passages are not wanting
in his writings in which he takes a view of the continuity of species
with which modern science would have little fault to find. “Nature
organises itself and its organised products in every species, no
doubt after one general pattern but yet with suitable deviations,
which self-preservation demands according to circumstances” (p. 279).
“The analogy of forms, which with all their differences seem to have
been produced according to a common original type, strengthens our
suspicions of an actual relationship between them in their production
from a common parent, through the gradual approximation of one animal
genus to another--from those in which the principle of purposes seems
to be best authenticated, _i.e._ from man, down to the polype and again
from this down to mosses and lichens, and finally to crude matter.
And so the whole Technic of nature, which is so incomprehensible to
us in organised beings that we believe ourselves compelled to think a
different principle for it, seems to be derived from matter and its
powers according to mechanical laws (like those by which it works in
the formation of crystals)” (p. 337). Such a theory he calls “a daring
venture of reason,” and its coincidences with modern science are real
and striking. But he is careful to add that such a theory, even if
established, would not eliminate purpose from the universe; it would
indeed suggest that certain special processes having the semblance of
purpose may be elucidated on mechanical principles, but on the whole,
purposive operation on the part of Mother Nature it would still be
needful to assume (p. 338). “No finite Reason can hope to understand
the production of even a blade of grass by mere mechanical causes”
(p. 326). “It is absurd to hope that another Newton will arise in the
future who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of
grass according to natural laws which no design has ordered” (p. 312).
Crude materialism thus affording no explanation of the purposiveness
in nature, we go on to ask what other theories are logically possible.
We may dismiss at once the doctrine of Hylozoism, according to which
the purposes in nature are explained in reference to a world-soul,
which is the inner principle of the material universe and constitutes
its life. For such a doctrine is self-contradictory, inasmuch as
lifelessness, _inertia_, is the essential characteristic of matter,
and to talk of living matter is absurd (p. 304). A much more plausible
system is that of Spinoza, who aimed at establishing the ideality
of the principle of natural purposes. He regarded the world whole
as a complex of manifold determinations inhering in a single simple
substance; and thus reduced our concepts of the purposive in nature to
our own consciousness of existing in an all-embracing Being. But on
reflection we see that this does not so much explain as explain away
the purposiveness of nature; it gives us an unity of inherence _in_ one
Substance, but not an unity of causal dependence _on_ one Substance (p.
303). And this latter would be necessary in order to explain the unity
of purpose which nature exhibits in its phenomenal working. Spinozism,
therefore, does not give what it pretends to give; it puts us off with
a vague and unfruitful unity of ground, when what we seek is a unity
that shall itself contain the causes of the differences manifest in
nature.
We have left then as the only remaining possible doctrine, Theism,
which represents natural purposes as produced in accordance with the
Will and Design of an Intelligent Author and Governor of Nature.
This theory is, in the first place, “superior to all other grounds
of explanation” (p. 305), for it gives a full solution of the
problem before us and enables us to maintain the reality of the
_Zweckmässigkeit_ of nature. “Teleology finds the consummation of its
investigations only in Theology” (p. 311). To represent the world
and the natural purposes therein as produced by an intelligent Cause
is “completely satisfactory from every human point of view for both
the speculative and practical use of our Reason” (p. 312). Thus the
contemplation of natural purposes, _i.e._ the common Argument from
Design, enables us to reach a highest Understanding as Cause of the
world “in accordance with the principles of the reflective Judgement,
_i.e._ _in accordance with the constitution of our human faculty of
cognition_” (p. 416).
It is in this qualifying clause that Kant’s negative attitude in
respect of Theism betrays itself. He regards it as a necessary
assumption for the guidance of scientific investigation, no less than
for the practical needs of morals; but he does not admit that we can
claim for it objective validity. In the language of the Critique of
Pure Reason, the Idea of God furnishes a regulative, not a constitutive
principle of Reason; or as he prefers to put it in the present work, it
is valid only for the reflective, not for the determinant Judgement. We
are not justified, Kant maintains, in asserting dogmatically that God
exists; there is only permitted to us the limited formula “We cannot
otherwise conceive the purposiveness which must lie at the basis of our
cognition of the internal possibility of many natural things, than by
representing it and the world in general as produced by an intelligent
cause, _i.e._ a God” (p. 312).
We ask then, whence arises this impossibility of objective statement?
It is in the true Kantian spirit to assert that no synthetical
proposition can be made with reference to what lies above and behind
the world of sense; but there is a difficulty in carrying out this
principle into details. Kant’s refusal to infer a designing Hand behind
the apparent order of nature is based, he tells us, on the fact that
the concept of a “natural purpose” is one that cannot be justified to
the speculative Reason. For all we know it may only indicate our way of
looking at things, and may point to no corresponding objective reality.
That we are forced by the limited nature of our faculties to view
nature as working towards ends, as purposive, does not prove that it is
really so. We cannot justify such pretended insight into what is behind
the veil.
It is to be observed, however, that precisely similar arguments might
be urged against our affirmation of purpose, design, will, as the
spring of the actions of other human beings.[3] For let us consider
why it is that, mind being assumed as the basis of our own individual
consciousness, we go on to attribute minds of like character to other
men. We see that the external behaviour of other men is similar to our
own, and that the most reasonable way of accounting for such behaviour
is to suppose that they have minds like ourselves, that they are
possessed of an active and spontaneously energising faculty, which is
the seat of their personality. But it is instructive to observe that
neither on Kantian principles nor on any other can we _demonstrate_
this; to cross the chasm which separates one man’s personality from
another’s requires a venture of faith just as emphatically as any
theological formula. I can by no means _prove_ to the determinant
Judgement that the complex of sensations which I constantly experience,
and which I call the Prime Minister, is anything more than a
well-ordered machine. It is improbable that this is the case--highly
improbable; but the falsity of such an hypothesis cannot be proved in
the same way that we would prove the falsity of the assertion that two
and two make five. But then though the hypothesis cannot be thus ruled
out of court by demonstration of its absurdity, it is not the simplest
hypothesis, nor is it that one which best accounts for the facts. The
assumption, on the other hand, that the men whom I meet every day have
minds like my own, perfectly accounts for all the facts, and is a very
simple assumption. It merely extends by induction the sphere of a force
which I already know to exist. Or in other words, crude materialism not
giving me an intelligent account of my own individual consciousness,
I recognise mind, νοῦς, as a _vera causa_, as something which really
does produce effects in the field of experience, and which therefore I
may legitimately put forward as the cause of those actions of other
men which externally so much resemble my own. But, as has been said
before, this argument, though entirely convincing to any sane person,
is not demonstrative; in Kantian language and on Kantian principles
the reasoning here used would seem to be valid only for the reflective
and not for the determinant Judgement. If the principle of design or
conscious adaptation of means to ends be not a constitutive principle
of experience, but only a regulative principle introduced to account
for the facts, what right have we to put it forward dogmatically as
affording an explanation of the actions of other human beings?
It cannot be said that Kant’s attempted answer to such a defence of
the Design Argument is quite conclusive. In § 90 of the _Methodology_
(p. 399) he pleads that though it is perfectly legitimate to argue by
analogy from our own minds to the minds of other men,--nay further,
although we may conclude from those actions of the lower animals
which display plan, that they are not, as Descartes alleged, mere
machines--yet it is not legitimate to conclude from the apparent
presence of design in the operations of nature that a conscious mind
directs those operations. For, he argues, that in comparing the actions
of men and the lower animals, or in comparing the actions of one man
with those of another, we are not pressing our analogy beyond the
limits of experience. Men and beasts alike are finite living beings,
subject to the limitations of finite existence; and hence the law which
governs the one series of operations may be regarded by analogy as
sufficiently explaining the other series. But the power at the basis of
Nature is utterly above definition or comprehension, and we are going
beyond our legitimate province if we venture to ascribe to it a mode
of operation with which we are only conversant in the case of beings
subject to the conditions of space and time. He urges in short that
when speaking about man and his mind we thoroughly understand what we
are talking about; but in speaking of the Mind of Deity we are dealing
with something of which we have no experience, and of which therefore
we have no right to predicate anything.
But it is apparent that, as has been pointed out, even when we infer
the existence of another finite mind from certain observed operations,
we are making an inference about something which is as mysterious an
_x_ as anything can be. Mind is not a thing that is subject to the
laws and conditions of the world of sense; it is “_in_ the world but
not _of_ the world.” And so to infer the existence of the mind of any
individual except myself is a quite different kind of inference from
that by which, for example, we infer the presence of an electro-magnet
in a given field. The action of the latter we understand to a large
extent; but we do not understand the action of mind, which yet we
know from daily experience of ourselves does produce effects in the
phenomenal world, often permanent and important effects. Briefly,
the action of mind upon matter (to use the ordinary phraseology for
the sake of clearness) is--we may assume for our present purpose--an
established fact. Hence the causality of mind is a _vera causa_; we
bring it in to account for the actions of other human beings, and by
precisely the same process of reasoning we invoke it to explain the
operations of nature.
And it is altogether beside the point to urge, as Kant does
incessantly, that in the latter case the intelligence inferred is
_infinite_; in the former only _finite_. All that the Design Argument
undertakes to prove is that mind lies at the basis of nature. It
is quite beyond its province to say whether this mind is finite or
infinite; and thus Kant’s criticisms on p. 364 are somewhat wide of
the mark. There is always a difficulty in any argument which tries to
establish the operation of mind anywhere, for mind cannot be seen or
touched or felt; but the difficulty is not peculiar to that particular
form of argument with which theological interests are involved.
The real plausibility of this objection arises from a vague idea,
often present to us when we speak of _infinite_ wisdom or _infinite_
intelligence, namely that the epithet _infinite_ in some way alters
the meaning of the attributes to which it is applied. But the truth is
that the word _infinite_, when applied to wisdom or knowledge or any
other intellectual or moral quality, can only properly have reference
to the number of acts of wisdom or knowledge that we suppose to have
been performed. The only sense in which we have any right to speak of
_infinite_ wisdom is that it is that which performs an infinite number
of wise acts. And so when we speak of infinite _intelligence_, we have
not the slightest warrant, either in logic or in common sense, for
supposing that such intelligence is not similar in kind to that finite
intelligence which we know in man.
To understand Kant’s attitude fully, we must also take into
consideration the great weight that he attaches to the Moral Argument
for the existence of God. The positive side of his teaching on Theism
is summed up in the following sentence (p. 388): “For the theoretical
reflective Judgement physical Teleology sufficiently proves from the
purposes of Nature an intelligent world-cause; for the practical
Judgement moral Teleology establishes it by the concept of a final
purpose, which it is forced to ascribe to creation.” That side of his
system which is akin to Agnosticism finds expression in his determined
refusal to admit anything more than this. The existence of God is for
him a “thing of faith”; and is not a fact of knowledge, strictly so
called. “Faith” he holds (p. 409) “is the moral attitude of Reason as
to belief in that which is unattainable by theoretical cognition. It
is therefore the constant principle of the mind to assume as true that
which it is necessary to presuppose as condition of the possibility of
the highest moral final purpose.” As he says elsewhere (Introduction
to Logic, ix. p. 60), “That man is morally _unbelieving_ who does not
accept that which, though _impossible_ to know, is _morally necessary_
to suppose.” And as far as he goes a Theist may agree with him, and he
has done yeoman’s service to Theism by his insistence on the absolute
impossibility of any other working hypothesis as an explanation of the
phenomena of nature. But I have endeavoured to indicate at what points
he does not seem to me to have gone as far as even his own declared
principles would justify him in going. If the existence of a Supreme
Mind be a “thing of faith,” this may with equal justice be said of the
finite minds of the men all around us; and his attempt to show that the
argument from analogy is here without foundation is not convincing.
Kant, however, in the Critique of Judgement is sadly fettered by
the chains that he himself had forged, and frequently chafes under
the restraints they impose. He indicates more than once a point of
view higher than that of the Critique of Pure Reason, from which
the phenomena of life and mind may be contemplated. He had already
hinted in that work that the supersensible substrate of the ego and
the non-ego might be identical. “Both kinds of objects differ from
each other, not internally, but only so far as the one _appears_
external to the other; possibly what is at the basis of phenomenal
matter as a thing in itself may not be so heterogeneous after all
as we imagine.”[4] This hypothesis which remains a bare undeveloped
possibility in the earlier work is put forward as a positive doctrine
in the Critique of Judgement. “There must,” says Kant, “be a ground
of the _unity_ of the supersensible, which lies at the basis of
nature, with that which the concept of freedom practically contains”
(Introduction, p. 13). That is to say, he maintains that to explain
the phenomena of organic life and the purposiveness of nature we must
hold that the world of sense is not disparate from and opposed to the
world of thought, but that _nature is the development of freedom_.
The connexion of nature and freedom is suggested by, nay is involved
in, the notion of natural adaptation; and although we can arrive
at no knowledge of the supersensible substrate of both, yet such a
common ground there must be. This principle is the starting-point of
the systems which followed that of Kant; and the philosophy of later
Idealism is little more than a development of the principle in its
consequences.
He approaches the same doctrine by a different path in the Critique of
the Teleological Judgement (§ 77), where he argues that the distinction
between the mechanical and the teleological working of nature, upon
which so much stress has been justly laid, depends for its validity
upon the peculiar character of our Understanding. When we give what may
be called a mechanical elucidation of any natural phenomenon, we begin
with its parts, and from what we know of them we explain the whole. But
in the case of certain objects, _e.g._ organised bodies, this cannot be
done. In their case we can only account for the parts by a reference to
the whole. Now, were it possible for us to perceive a whole before its
parts and derive the latter from the former,[5] then an organism would
be capable of being understood and would be an object of knowledge in
the strictest sense. But our Understanding is not able to do this, and
its inadequacy for such a task leads us to conceive the possibility of
an Understanding, not discursive like ours, but intuitive, for which
knowledge of the whole would precede that of the parts. “It is at
least possible to consider the material world as mere phenomenon, and
to think as its substrate something like a thing in itself (which is
not phenomenon), and to attach to this a corresponding intellectual
intuition. Thus there would be, although incognisable by us, a
supersensible real ground for nature, to which we ourselves belong”
(p. 325). Hence, although Mechanism and Technic must not be confused
and must ever stand side by side in our scientific investigation of
natural law, yet must they be regarded as coalescing in a single higher
principle incognisable by us. The ground of union is “the supersensible
substrate of nature of which we can determine nothing positively,
except that it is the being in itself of which we merely know the
phenomenon.” Thus, then, it appears that the whole force of Kant’s
main argument has proceeded upon an assumption, viz. the permanent
opposition between Sense and Understanding, which the progress of the
argument has shown to be unsound. “Kant seems,” says Goethe,[6] “to
have woven a certain element of irony into his method. For, while at
one time he seemed to be bent on limiting our faculties of knowledge in
the narrowest way, at another time he pointed, as it were with a side
gesture, beyond the limits which he himself had drawn.” The fact of
adaptation of means to ends observable in nature seems to break down
the barrier between Nature and Freedom; and if we once relinquish the
distinction between Mechanism and Technic in the operations of nature
we are led to the Idea of an absolute Being, who manifests Himself by
action which, though necessary, is yet the outcome of perfect freedom.
Kant, however, though he approaches such a position more than once,
can never be said to have risen to it. He deprecates unceasingly the
attempt to combine principles of nature with the principles of freedom
as a task beyond the modest capacity of human reason; and while
strenuously insisting on the practical force of the Moral Argument for
the Being of God, which is found in the witness of man’s conscience,
will not admit that it can in any way be regarded as strengthening the
theoretical arguments adduced by Teleology. The two lines of proof, he
holds, are quite distinct; and nothing but confusion and intellectual
disaster can result from the effort to combine them. The moral proof
stands by itself, and it needs no such crutches as the argument
from Design can offer. But, as Mr. Kennedy has pointed out in his
acute criticism[7] of the Kantian doctrine of Theism, it would not
be possible to combine a theoretical _disbelief_ in God with a frank
acceptance of the practical belief of His existence borne in upon us
by the Moral Law. Kant himself admits this: “A dogmatical _unbelief_,”
he says (p. 411), “cannot subsist together with a moral maxim dominant
in the mental attitude.” That is, though the theoretical argument be
incomplete, we cannot reject the conclusion to which it leads, for this
is confirmed by the moral necessities of conscience.
Kant’s position, then, seems to come to this, that though he never
doubts the existence of God, he has very grave doubts that He can
be theoretically known by man. _That_ He is, is certain; _what_ He
is, we cannot determine. It is a position not dissimilar to current
Agnostic doctrines; and as long as the antithesis between Sense and
Understanding, between Matter and Mind, is insisted upon as expressing
a real and abiding truth, Kant’s reasoning can hardly be refuted
with completeness. No doubt it may be urged that since the practical
and theoretical arguments both arrive at the same conclusion, the
cogency of our reasoning in the latter should confirm our trust in
the former. But true conclusions may sometimes seem to follow from
quite insufficient premises; and Kant is thus justified in demanding
that each argument shall be submitted to independent tests. I have
endeavoured to show above that he has not treated the theoretical line
of reasoning quite fairly, and that he has underestimated its force;
but its value _as an argument_ is not increased by showing that another
entirely different process of thought leads to the same result. And
that the witness of conscience affords the most powerful and convincing
argument for the existence of a Supreme Being, the source of law as of
love, is a simple matter of experience. Induction, syllogism, analogy,
do not really generate belief in God, though they may serve to justify
to reason a faith that we already possess. The poet has the truth of it:
Wer Gott nicht fühlt in sich und allen Lebenskreisen,
Dem werdet Ihr Ihn nicht beweisen mit Beweisen.
* * * * *
I give at the end of this Introduction a Glossary of the chief
philosophical terms used by Kant; I have tried to render them by the
same English equivalents all through the work, in order to preserve,
as far as may be, the exactness of expression in the original. I am
conscious that this makes the translation clumsy in many places, but
have thought it best to sacrifice elegance to precision. This course
is the more necessary to adopt, as Kant cannot be understood unless
his nice verbal distinctions be attended to. Thus _real_ means quite
a different thing from _wirklich_; _Hang_ from _Neigung_; _Rührung_
from _Affekt_ or _Leidenschaft_; _Anschauung_ from _Empfindung_
or _Wahrnehmung_; _Endzweck_ from _letzter Zweck_; _Idee_ from
_Vorstellung_; _Eigenschaft_ from _Attribut_ or _Beschaffenheit_;
_Schranke_ from _Grenze_; _überreden_ from _überzeugen_, etc. I am not
satisfied with “gratification” and “grief” as the English equivalents
for _Vergnügen_ and _Schmerz_; but it is necessary to distinguish these
words from _Lust_ and _Unlust_, and “mental pleasure,” “mental pain,”
which would nearly hit the sense, are awkward. Again, the constant
rendering of _schön_ by beautiful involves the expression “beautiful
art” instead of the more usual phrase “fine art.” _Purposive_ is an
ugly word, but it has come into use lately; and its employment enables
us to preserve the connexion between _Zweck_ and _zweckmässig_. I
have printed _Judgement_ with a capital letter when it signifies
the _faculty_, with a small initial when it signifies the _act_, of
judging. And in like manner I distinguish _Objekt_ from _Gegenstand_,
by printing the word “Object,” when it represents the former, with a
large initial.
The text I have followed is, in the main, that printed by Hartenstein;
but occasionally Rosenkranz preserves the better reading. All important
variants between the First and Second Editions have been indicated at
the foot of the page. A few notes have been added, which are enclosed
in square brackets, to distinguish them from those which formed part
of the original work. I have in general quoted Kant’s _Introduction to
Logic_ and _Critique of Practical Reason_ in Dr. Abbott’s translations.
My best thanks are due to Rev. J. H. Kennedy and Mr. F. Purser for much
valuable aid during the passage of this translation through the press.
And I am under even greater obligations to Mr. Mahaffy, who was good
enough to read through the whole of the proof; by his acute and learned
criticisms many errors have been avoided. Others I have no doubt still
remain, but for these I must be accounted alone responsible.
J. H. BERNARD.
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN,
_May 24, 1892_.
* * * * *
More than twenty-one years have passed since the first edition of this
Translation was published, and during that time much has been written,
both in Germany and in England, on the subject of Kant’s _Critique
of Judgement_. In particular, the German text has been critically
determined by the labours of Professor Windelband, whose fine edition
forms the fifth volume of Kant’s Collected Works as issued by the Royal
Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin, 1908). It will be indispensable
to future students. An excellent account of the significance, in the
Kantian system, of the _Urtheilskraft_, by Mr. R. A. C. Macmillan,
appeared in 1912; and Mr. J. C. Meredith has published recently an
English edition of the _Critique of Aesthetical Judgement_, with notes
and essays, dealing with the philosophy of art, which goes over the
ground very fully.
Some critics of my first edition took exception to the clumsiness
of the word “representation” as the equivalent of _Vorstellung_, but
I have made no change in this respect, as it seems to me (and so far
as I have observed to others who have worked on the _Critique of
Judgement_), that it is necessary to preserve in English the relation
between the noun _Vorstellung_ and the verb _vorstellen_, if Kant’s
reasoning is to be exhibited clearly. I have, however, abandoned the
attempt to preserve the word _Kritik_ in English, and have replaced it
by _Critique_ or _criticism_, throughout. The other changes that have
been made are mere corrections or emendations of faulty or obscure
renderings, with a few additional notes. I have left my original
Introduction as it was written in 1892, without attempting any fresh
examination of the problems that Kant set himself.
JOHN OSSORY.
THE PALACE, KILKENNY,
_January 6, 1914_.
GLOSSARY OF KANT’S PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS
Absicht; _design_.
Achtung; _respect_.
Affekt; _affection_.
Angenehm; _pleasant_.
Anschauung; _intuition_.
Attribut; _attribute_.
Aufklärung; _enlightenment_.
Begehr; _desire_.
Begriff; _concept_.
Beschaffenheit; _constitution_ or _characteristic_.
Bestimmen; _to determine_.
Darstellen; _to present_.
Dasein; _presence_ or _being_.
Eigenschaft; _property_.
Empfindung; _sensation_.
Endzweck; _final purpose_.
Erkenntniss; _cognition_ or _knowledge_.
Erklärung; _explanation_.
Erscheinung; _phenomenon_.
Existenz; _existence_.
Fürwahrhalten; _belief_.
Gebiet; _realm_.
Gefühl; _feeling_.
Gegenstand; _object_.
Geist; _spirit_.
Geniessen; _enjoyment_.
Geschicklichkeit; _skill_.
Geschmack; _Taste_.
Gesetzmässigkeit; _conformity to law_.
Gewalt; _dominion_ or _authority_.
Glaube; _faith_.
Grenze; _bound_.
Grundsatz; _fundamental proposition_ or _principle_.
Hang; _propension_.
Idee; _Idea_.
Leidenschaft; _passion_.
Letzter Zweck; _ultimate purpose_.
Lust; _pleasure_.
Meinen; _opinion_.
Neigung; _inclination_.
Objekt; _Object_.
Prinzip; _principle_.
Real; _real_.
Reich; _kingdom_.
Reiz; _charm_.
Rührung; _emotion_.
Schein; _illusion_.
Schmerz; _grief_.
Schön; _beautiful_.
Schranke; _limit_.
Schwärmerei; _fanaticism_.
Seele; _soul_.
Ueberreden; _to persuade_.
Ueberschwänglich; _transcendent_.
Ueberzeugen; _to convince_.
Unlust; _pain_.
Urtheil; _judgement_.
Urtheilskraft; _Judgement_.
Verbindung; _combination_.
Vergnügen; _gratification_.
Verknüpfung; _connexion_.
Vermögen; _faculty_.
Vernunft; _Reason_.
Vernünftelei; _sophistry_ or _subtlety_.
Verstand; _Understanding_.
Vorstellung; _representation_.
Wahrnehmung; _perception_.
Wesen; _being_.
Willkühr; _elective will_.
Wirklich; _actual_.
Wohlgefallen; _satisfaction_.
Zufriedenheit; _contentment_.
Zweck; _purpose_.
Zweckmässig; _purposive_.
Zweckverbindung; _purposive combination_, etc.
PREFACE
We may call the faculty of cognition from principles _a priori_, _pure
Reason_, and the inquiry into its possibility and bounds generally the
Critique of pure Reason, although by this faculty we only understand
Reason in its theoretical employment, as it appears under that name
in the former work; without wishing to inquire into its faculty, as
practical Reason, according to its special principles. That [Critique]
goes merely into our faculty of knowing things _a priori_, and busies
itself therefore only with the _cognitive faculty_ to the exclusion
of the feeling of pleasure and pain and the faculty of desire; and of
the cognitive faculties it only concerns itself with _Understanding_,
according to its principles _a priori_, to the exclusion of _Judgement_
and _Reason_ (as faculties alike belonging to theoretical cognition),
because it is found in the sequel that no other cognitive faculty but
the Understanding can furnish constitutive principles of cognition _a
priori_. The Critique, then, which sifts them all, as regards the share
which each of the other faculties might pretend to have in the clear
possession of knowledge from its own peculiar root, leaves nothing but
what the _Understanding_ prescribes _a priori_ as law for nature as
the complex of phenomena (whose form also is given _a priori_). It
relegates all other pure concepts under Ideas, which are transcendent
for our theoretical faculty of cognition, but are not therefore useless
or to be dispensed with. For they serve as regulative principles;
partly to check the dangerous pretensions of Understanding, as if
(because it can furnish _a priori_ the conditions of the possibility
of all things which it can know) it had thereby confined within
these bounds the possibility of all things in general; and partly to
lead it to the consideration of nature according to a principle of
completeness, although it can never attain to this, and thus to further
the final design of all knowledge.
It was then properly the _Understanding_ which has its special realm in
the _cognitive faculty_, so far as it contains constitutive principles
of cognition _a priori_, which by the Critique, comprehensively called
the Critique of pure Reason, was to be placed in certain and sole
possession[8] against all other competitors. And so also to _Reason_,
which contains constitutive principles _a priori_ nowhere except simply
in respect of the _faculty of desire_, should be assigned its place in
the Critique of practical Reason.
Whether now the _Judgement_, which in the order of our cognitive
faculties forms a mediating link between Understanding and Reason, has
also principles _a priori_ for itself; whether these are constitutive
or merely regulative (thus indicating no special realm); and whether
they give a rule _a priori_ to the feeling of pleasure and pain, as the
mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire
(just as the Understanding prescribes laws _a priori_ to the first,
Reason to the second); these are the questions with which the present
Critique of Judgement is concerned.
A Critique of pure Reason, _i.e._ of our faculty of judging _a priori_
according to principles, would be incomplete, if the Judgement, which
as a cognitive faculty also makes claim to such principles, were not
treated as a particular part of it; although its principles in a
system of pure Philosophy need form no particular part between the
theoretical and the practical, but can be annexed when needful to one
or both as occasion requires. For if such a system is one day to be
completed under the general name of Metaphysic (which it is possible
to achieve quite completely, and which is supremely important for the
use of Reason in every reference), the soil for the edifice must be
explored by Criticism as deep down as the foundation of the faculty of
principles independent of experience, in order that it may sink in no
part, for this would inevitably bring about the downfall of the whole.
We can easily infer from the nature of the Judgement (whose right use
is so necessarily and so universally requisite, that by the name of
sound Understanding nothing else but this faculty is meant), that it
must be attended with great difficulties to find a principle peculiar
to it; (some such it must contain _a priori_ in itself, for otherwise
it would not be set apart by the commonest Criticism as a special
cognitive faculty). This principle must not be derived _a priori_ from
concepts, for these belong to the Understanding, and Judgement is only
concerned with their application. It must, therefore, furnish of itself
a concept, through which, properly speaking, no thing is cognised,
but which only serves as a rule, though not an objective one to which
it can adapt its judgement; because for this latter another faculty
of Judgement would be requisite, in order to be able to distinguish
whether [any given case] is or is not the case for the rule.
This perplexity about a principle (whether it is subjective or
objective) presents itself mainly in those judgements that we call
aesthetical, which concern the Beautiful and the Sublime of Nature or
of Art. And, nevertheless, the critical investigation of a principle
of Judgement in these is the most important part in a Critique of
this faculty. For although they do not by themselves contribute to
the knowledge of things, yet they belong to the cognitive faculty
alone, and point to an immediate reference of this faculty to the
feeling of pleasure or pain according to some principle _a priori_;
without confusing this with what may be the determining ground of the
faculty of desire, which has its principles _a priori_ in concepts
of Reason.--In the logical judging of nature, experience exhibits a
conformity to law in things, to the understanding or to the explanation
of which the general concept of the sensible does not attain; here the
Judgement can only derive from itself a principle of the reference of
the natural thing to the unknowable supersensible (a principle which it
must only use from its own point of view for the cognition of nature).
And so, though in this case such a principle _a priori_ can and must be
applied to the _cognition_ of the beings of the world, and opens out
at the same time prospects which are advantageous for the practical
Reason, yet it has no immediate reference to the feeling of pleasure
and pain. But this reference is precisely the puzzle in the principle
of Judgement, which renders a special section for this faculty
necessary in the Critique; since the logical judging according to
concepts (from which an immediate inference can never be drawn to the
feeling of pleasure and pain) along with their critical limitation, has
at all events been capable of being appended to the theoretical part of
Philosophy.
The examination of the faculty of taste, as the aesthetical Judgement,
is not here planned in reference to the formation or the culture of
taste (for this will take its course in the future as in the past
without any such investigations), but merely in a transcendental point
of view. Hence, I trust that as regards the deficiency of the former
purpose it will be judged with indulgence, though in the latter point
of view it must be prepared for the severest scrutiny. But I hope that
the great difficulty of solving a problem so involved by nature may
serve as excuse for some hardly avoidable obscurity in its solution, if
only it be clearly established that the principle is correctly stated.
I grant that the mode of deriving the phenomena of the Judgement from
it has not all the clearness which might be rightly demanded elsewhere,
viz. in the case of cognition according to concepts; but I believe that
I have attained to it in the second part of this work.
Here then I end my whole critical undertaking. I shall proceed without
delay to the doctrinal [part] in order to profit, as far as is
possible, by the more favourable moments of my increasing years. It is
obvious that in this [part] there will be no special section for the
Judgement, because in respect of this faculty Criticism serves instead
of Theory; but, according to the division of Philosophy (and also of
pure Philosophy) into theoretical and practical, the Metaphysic of
Nature and of Morals will complete the undertaking.
INTRODUCTION
I. OF THE DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY
We proceed quite correctly if, as usual, we divide Philosophy, as
containing the principles of the rational cognition of things by means
of concepts (not merely, as logic does, principles of the form of
thought in general without distinction of Objects), into _theoretical_
and _practical_. But then the concepts, which furnish their Object
to the principles of this rational cognition, must be specifically
distinct; otherwise they would not justify a division, which always
presupposes a contrast between the principles of the rational cognition
belonging to the different parts of a science.
Now there are only two kinds of concepts, and these admit as many
distinct principles of the possibility of their objects, viz. _natural
concepts_ and the _concept of freedom_. The former render possible
_theoretical_ cognition according to principles _a priori_; the latter
in respect of this theoretical cognition only supplies in itself a
negative principle (that of mere contrast), but on the other hand it
furnishes fundamental propositions which extend the sphere of the
determination of the will and are therefore called practical. Thus
Philosophy is correctly divided into two parts, quite distinct in
their principles; the theoretical part or _Natural Philosophy_, and
the practical part or _Moral Philosophy_ (for that is the name given
to the practical legislation of Reason in accordance with the concept
of freedom). But up to the present a gross misuse of these expressions
has prevailed, both in the division of the different principles and
consequently also of Philosophy itself. For what is practical according
to natural concepts has been identified with the practical according
to the concept of freedom; and so with the like titles, ‘theoretical’
and ‘practical’ Philosophy, a division has been made, by which in
fact nothing has been divided (for both parts might in such case have
principles of the same kind).
The will, regarded as the faculty of desire, is (in this view) one
of the many natural causes in the world, viz. that cause which acts
in accordance with concepts. All that is represented as possible (or
necessary) by means of a will is called practically possible (or
necessary); as distinguished from the physical possibility or necessity
of an effect, whose cause is not determined to causality by concepts
(but in lifeless matter by mechanism and in animals by instinct).
Here, in respect of the practical, it is left undetermined whether the
concept which gives the rule to the causality of the will, is a natural
concept or a concept of freedom.
But the last distinction is essential. For if the concept which
determines the causality is a natural concept, then the principles are
_technically practical_; whereas, if it is a concept of freedom they
are _morally practical_. And as the division of a rational science
depends on the distinction between objects whose cognition needs
distinct principles, the former will belong to theoretical Philosophy
(doctrine of Nature), but the latter alone will constitute the second
part, viz. practical Philosophy (doctrine of Morals).
All technically practical rules (_i.e._ the rules of art and skill
generally, or of prudence regarded as skill in exercising an influence
over men and their wills), so far as their principles rest on concepts,
must be reckoned only as corollaries to theoretical Philosophy. For
they concern only the possibility of things according to natural
concepts, to which belong not only the means which are to be met
with in nature, but also the will itself (as a faculty of desire
and consequently a natural faculty), so far as it can be determined
conformably to these rules by natural motives. However, practical
rules of this kind are not called laws (like physical laws), but only
precepts; because the will does not stand merely under the natural
concept, but also under the concept of freedom, in relation to which
its principles are called laws. These with their consequences alone
constitute the second or practical part of Philosophy.
The solution of the problems of pure geometry does not belong to a
particular part of the science; mensuration does not deserve the
name of practical, in contrast to pure, geometry, as a second part
of geometry in general; and just as little ought the mechanical
or chemical art of experiment or observation to be reckoned as a
practical part of the doctrine of Nature. Just as little, in fine,
ought housekeeping, farming, statesmanship, the art of conversation,
the prescribing of diet, the universal doctrine of happiness itself,
or the curbing of the inclinations and checking of the affections
for the sake of happiness, to be reckoned as practical Philosophy,
or taken to constitute the second part of Philosophy in general.
For all these contain only rules of skill (and are consequently only
technically practical) for bringing about an effect that is possible
according to the natural concepts of causes and effects, which, since
they belong to theoretical Philosophy, are subject to those precepts
as mere corollaries from it (viz. natural science), and can therefore
claim no place in a special Philosophy called practical. On the other
hand, the morally practical precepts, which are altogether based on the
concept of freedom to the complete exclusion of the natural determining
grounds of the will, constitute a quite special class. These, like the
rules which nature obeys, are called simply laws, but they do not, like
them, rest on sensuous conditions but on a supersensible principle;
and accordingly they require for themselves a quite different part of
Philosophy, called practical, corresponding to its theoretical part.
We hence see that a complex of practical precepts given by Philosophy
does not constitute a distinct part of Philosophy, as opposed to the
theoretical part, because these precepts are practical; for they might
be that, even if their principles were derived altogether from the
theoretical cognition of nature (as technically practical rules). [A
distinct branch of Philosophy is constituted only] if their principle,
as it is not borrowed from the natural concept, which is always
sensuously conditioned, rests on the supersensible, which alone makes
the concept of freedom cognisable by formal laws. These precepts are
then morally practical, _i.e._ not merely precepts or rules in this
or that aspect, but, without any preceding reference to purposes and
designs, are laws.
II. OF THE REALM OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL
So far as our concepts have _a priori_ application, so far extends
the use of our cognitive faculty according to principles, and with it
Philosophy.
But the complex of all objects, to which those concepts are referred,
in order to bring about a knowledge of them where it is possible,
may be subdivided according to the adequacy or inadequacy of our
[cognitive] faculty to this design.
Concepts, so far as they are referred to objects, independently of the
possibility or impossibility of the cognition of these objects, have
their field which is determined merely according to the relation that
their Object has to our cognitive faculty in general. The part of this
field in which knowledge is possible for us is a ground or territory
(_territorium_) for these concepts and the requisite cognitive faculty.
The part of this territory, where they are legislative, is the realm
(_ditio_) of these concepts and of the corresponding cognitive
faculties. Empirical concepts have, therefore, their territory in
nature, as the complex of all objects of sense, but no realm, only
a dwelling-place (_domicilium_); for though they are produced in
conformity to law they are not legislative, but the rules based on them
are empirical and consequently contingent.
Our whole cognitive faculty has two realms, that of natural concepts
and that of the concept of freedom; for through both it is legislative
_a priori_. In accordance with this, Philosophy is divided into
theoretical and practical. But the territory to which its realm extends
and in which its legislation is _exercised_, is always only the complex
of objects of all possible experience, so long as they are taken for
nothing more than mere phenomena; for otherwise no legislation of the
Understanding in respect of them is conceivable.
Legislation through natural concepts is carried on by means of the
Understanding and is theoretical. Legislation through the concept of
freedom is carried on by the Reason and is merely practical. It is
only in the practical [sphere] that the Reason can be legislative;
in respect of theoretical cognition (of nature) it can merely (as
acquainted with law by the Understanding) deduce from given laws
consequences which always remain within [the limits of] nature. But on
the other hand, Reason is not always therefore _legislative_, where
there are practical rules, for they may be only technically practical.
Understanding and Reason exercise, therefore, two distinct legislations
in regard to one and the same territory of experience, without
prejudice to each other. The concept of freedom as little disturbs
the legislation of nature, as the natural concept influences the
legislation through the former.--The possibility of at least thinking
without contradiction the co-existence of both legislations, and of
the corresponding faculties in the same subject, has been shown in the
Critique of pure Reason; for it annulled the objections on the other
side by exposing the dialectical illusion which they contain.
These two different realms then do not limit each other in their
legislation, though they perpetually do so in the world of sense.
That they do not constitute _one_ realm, arises from this, that the
natural concept represents its objects in intuition, not as things
in themselves, but as mere phenomena; the concept of freedom, on the
other hand, represents in its Object a thing in itself, but not in
intuition. Hence, neither of them can furnish a theoretical knowledge
of its Object (or even of the thinking subject) as a thing in itself;
this would be the supersensible, the Idea of which we must indeed make
the basis of the possibility of all these objects of experience, but
which we can never extend or elevate into a cognition.
There is, then, an unbounded but also inaccessible field for our whole
cognitive faculty--the field of the supersensible--wherein we find no
territory, and, therefore, can have in it, for theoretical cognition,
no realm either for concepts of Understanding or Reason. This field we
must indeed occupy with Ideas on behalf of the theoretical as well as
the practical use of Reason, but we can supply to them in reference to
the laws [arising] from the concept of freedom no other than practical
reality, by which our theoretical cognition is not extended in the
slightest degree towards the supersensible.
Now even if an immeasurable gulf is fixed between the sensible realm
of the concept of nature and the supersensible realm of the concept of
freedom, so that no transition is possible from the first to the second
(by means of the theoretical use of Reason), just as if they were two
different worlds of which the first could have no influence upon the
second, yet the second is _meant_ to have an influence upon the first.
The concept of freedom is meant to actualise in the world of sense
the purpose proposed by its laws, and consequently nature must be so
thought that the conformity to law of its form, at least harmonises
with the possibility of the purposes to be effected in it according to
laws of freedom.--There must, therefore, be a ground of the _unity_
of the supersensible, which lies at the basis of nature, with that
which the concept of freedom practically contains; and the concept
of this ground, although it does not attain either theoretically or
practically to a knowledge of the same, and hence has no peculiar
realm, nevertheless makes possible the transition from the mode of
thought according to the principles of the one to that according to the
principles of the other.
III. OF THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT AS A MEANS OF COMBINING THE TWO PARTS
OF PHILOSOPHY INTO A WHOLE.
The Critique of the cognitive faculties, as regards what they can
furnish _a priori_, has properly speaking no realm in respect of
Objects, because it is not a doctrine, but only has to investigate
whether and how, in accordance with the state of these faculties, a
doctrine is possible by their means. Its field extends to all their
pretensions, in order to confine them within their legitimate bounds.
But what cannot enter into the division of Philosophy may yet enter,
as a chief part, into the Critique of the pure faculty of cognition in
general, viz. if it contains principles which are available neither for
theoretical nor for practical use.
The natural concepts, which contain the ground of all
theoretical knowledge _a priori_, rest on the legislation of the
Understanding.--The concept of freedom, which contains the ground of
all sensuously-unconditioned practical precepts _a priori_, rests on
the legislation of the Reason. Both faculties, therefore, besides being
capable of application as regards their logical form to principles of
whatever origin, have also as regards their content, their special
legislations above which there is no other (_a priori_); and hence the
division of Philosophy into theoretical and practical is justified.
But in the family of the higher cognitive faculties there is a middle
term between the Understanding and the Reason. This is the _Judgement_,
of which we have cause for supposing according to analogy that it
may contain in itself, if not a special legislation, yet a special
principle of its own to be sought according to laws, though merely
subjective _a priori_. This principle, even if it have no field of
objects as its realm, yet may have somewhere a territory with a certain
character, for which no other principle can be valid.
But besides (to judge by analogy) there is a new ground for bringing
the Judgement into connexion with another arrangement of our
representative faculties, which seems to be of even greater importance
than that of its relationship with the family of the cognitive
faculties. For all faculties or capacities of the soul can be reduced
to three, which cannot be any further derived from one common ground:
the _faculty of knowledge_, the _feeling of pleasure and pain_, and the
_faculty of desire_.[9] For the faculty of knowledge the Understanding
is alone legislative, if (as must happen when it is considered by
itself without confusion with the faculty of desire) this faculty is
referred to nature as the faculty of _theoretical knowledge_; for in
respect of nature (as phenomenon) it is alone possible for us to give
laws by means of natural concepts _a priori_, _i.e._ by pure concepts
of Understanding.--For the faculty of desire, as a higher faculty
according to the concept of freedom, the Reason (in which alone this
concept has a place) is alone _a priori_ legislative.--Now between the
faculties of knowledge and desire there is the feeling of pleasure,
just as the Judgement is intermediate between the Understanding and
the Reason. We may therefore suppose provisionally that the Judgement
likewise contains in itself an _a priori_ principle. And as pleasure
or pain is necessarily combined with the faculty of desire (either
preceding this principle as in the lower desires, or following it as
in the higher, when the desire is determined by the moral law), we may
also suppose that the Judgement will bring about a transition from the
pure faculty of knowledge, the realm of natural concepts, to the realm
of the concept of freedom, just as in its logical use it makes possible
the transition from Understanding to Reason.
Although, then, Philosophy can be divided only into two main parts,
the theoretical and the practical, and although all that we may be
able to say of the special principles of Judgement must be counted as
belonging in it to the theoretical part, _i.e._ to rational cognition
in accordance with natural concepts; yet the Critique of pure Reason,
which must decide all this, as regards the possibility of the system
before undertaking it, consists of three parts; the Critique of pure
Understanding, of pure Judgement, and of pure Reason, which faculties
are called pure because they are legislative _a priori_.
IV. OF JUDGEMENT AS A FACULTY LEGISLATING _A PRIORI_
Judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as
contained under the Universal. If the universal (the rule, the
principle, the law) be given, the Judgement which subsumes the
particular under it (even if, as transcendental Judgement, it furnishes
_a priori_, the conditions in conformity with which subsumption under
that universal is alone possible) is _determinant_. But if only the
particular be given for which the universal has to be found, the
Judgement is merely _reflective_.
The determinant Judgement only subsumes under universal transcendental
laws given by the Understanding; the law is marked out for it, _a
priori_, and it has therefore no need to seek a law for itself in
order to be able to subordinate the particular in nature to the
universal.--But the forms of nature are so manifold, and there
are so many modifications of the universal transcendental natural
concepts left undetermined by the laws given, _a priori_, by the pure
Understanding,--because these only concern the possibility of a nature
in general (as an object of sense),--that there must be laws for these
[forms] also. These, as empirical, may be contingent from the point
of view of _our_ Understanding, and yet, if they are to be called
laws (as the concept of a nature requires), they must be regarded as
necessary in virtue of a principle of the unity of the manifold, though
it be unknown to us.--The reflective Judgement, which is obliged to
ascend from the particular in nature to the universal, requires on that
account a principle that it cannot borrow from experience, because its
function is to establish the unity of all empirical principles under
higher ones, and hence to establish the possibility of their systematic
subordination. Such a transcendental principle, then, the reflective
Judgement can only give as a law from and to itself. It cannot derive
it from outside (because then it would be the determinant Judgement);
nor can it prescribe it to nature, because reflection upon the laws
of nature adjusts itself by nature, and not nature by the conditions
according to which we attempt to arrive at a concept of it which is
quite contingent in respect of these.
This principle can be no other than the following: As universal laws
of nature have their ground in our Understanding, which prescribes
them to nature (although only according to the universal concept of
it as nature); so particular empirical laws, in respect of what is in
them left undetermined by these universal laws, must be considered in
accordance with such a unity as they would have if an Understanding
(although not our Understanding) had furnished them to our cognitive
faculties, so as to make possible a system of experience according
to particular laws of nature. Not as if, in this way, such an
Understanding must be assumed as actual (for it is only our reflective
Judgement to which this Idea serves as a principle--for reflecting, not
for determining); but this faculty thus gives a law only to itself and
not to nature.
Now the concept of an Object, so far as it contains the ground of
the actuality of this Object, is the _purpose_; and the agreement
of a thing with that constitution of things, which is only possible
according to purposes, is called the _purposiveness_ of its form. Thus
the principle of Judgement, in respect of the form of things of nature
under empirical laws generally, is the _purposiveness of nature_ in its
manifoldness. That is, nature is represented by means of this concept,
as if an Understanding contained the ground of the unity of the
manifold of its empirical laws.
The purposiveness of nature is therefore a particular concept, _a
priori_, which has its origin solely in the reflective Judgement. For
we cannot ascribe to natural products anything like a reference of
nature in them to purposes; we can only use this concept to reflect
upon such products in respect of the connexion of phenomena which is
given in nature according to empirical laws. This concept is also quite
different from practical purposiveness (in human art or in morals),
though it is certainly thought according to the analogy of these last.
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORMAL PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE IS A
TRANSCENDENTAL PRINCIPLE OF JUDGEMENT.
A transcendental principle is one by means of which is represented, _a
priori_, the universal condition under which alone things can be in
general Objects of our cognition. On the other hand, a principle is
called metaphysical if it represents the _a priori_ condition under
which alone Objects, whose concept must be empirically given, can be
further determined _a priori_. Thus the principle of the cognition of
bodies as substances, and as changeable substances, is transcendental,
if thereby it is asserted that their changes must have a cause; it is
metaphysical if it asserts that their changes must have an _external_
cause. For in the former case bodies need only be thought by means
of ontological predicates (pure concepts of Understanding), _e.g._
substance, in order to cognise the proposition _a priori_; but in
the latter case the empirical concept of a body (as a movable thing
in space) must lie at the basis of the proposition, although once
this basis has been laid down, it may be seen completely _a priori_
that this latter predicate (motion only by external causes) belongs
to body.--Thus, as I shall presently show, the principle of the
purposiveness of nature (in the manifoldness of its empirical laws) is
a transcendental principle. For the concept of Objects, so far as they
are thought as standing under this principle, is only the pure concept
of objects of possible empirical cognition in general and contains
nothing empirical. On the other hand, the principle of practical
purposiveness, which must be thought in the Idea of the _determination_
of a free _will_, is a metaphysical principle; because the concept of a
faculty of desire as a will must be given empirically (_i.e._ does not
belong to transcendental predicates). Both principles are, however, not
empirical, but _a priori_; because for the combination of the predicate
with the empirical concept of the subject of their judgements no
further experience is needed, but it can be apprehended completely _a
priori_.
That the concept of a purposiveness of nature belongs to transcendental
principles can be sufficiently seen from the maxims of the Judgement,
which lie at the basis of the investigation of nature _a priori_,
and yet do not go further than the possibility of experience, and
consequently of the cognition of nature--not indeed nature in general,
but nature as determined through a variety of particular laws. These
maxims present themselves in the course of this science often enough,
though in a scattered way, as sentences of metaphysical wisdom,
whose necessity we cannot demonstrate from concepts. “Nature takes
the shortest way (_lex parsimoniae_); at the same time it makes no
leaps, either in the course of its changes or in the juxtaposition
of specifically different forms (_lex continui in natura_); its
great variety in empirical laws is yet unity under a few principles
(_principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda_),” etc.
If we propose to set forth the origin of these fundamental propositions
and try to do so by the psychological method, we violate their sense.
For they do not tell us what happens, _i.e._ by what rule our cognitive
powers actually operate, and how we judge, but how we ought to judge;
and this logical objective necessity does not emerge if the principles
are merely empirical. Hence that purposiveness of nature for our
cognitive faculties and their use, which is plainly apparent from them,
is a transcendental principle of judgements, and needs therefore also a
Transcendental Deduction, by means of which the ground for so judging
must be sought in the sources of cognition _a priori_.
We find in the grounds of the possibility of an experience in the
very first place something necessary, viz. the universal laws without
which nature in general (as an object of sense) cannot be thought;
and these rest upon the Categories, applied to the formal conditions
of all intuition possible for us, so far as it is also given _a
priori_. Now under these laws the Judgement is determinant, for it
has nothing to do but to subsume under given laws. For example, the
Understanding says that every change has its cause (universal law of
nature); the transcendental Judgement has nothing further to do than
to supply _a priori_ the condition of subsumption under the concept
of the Understanding placed before it, _i.e._ the succession [in
time] of the determinations of one and the same thing. For nature in
general (as an object of possible experience) that law is cognised as
absolutely necessary.--But now the objects of empirical cognition are
determined in many other ways than by that formal time-condition,
or, at least as far as we can judge _a priori_, are determinable.
Hence specifically different natures can be causes in an infinite
variety of ways, as well as in virtue of what they have in common
as belonging to nature in general; and each of these modes must (in
accordance with the concept of a cause in general) have its rule, which
is a law and therefore brings necessity with it, although we do not
at all comprehend this necessity, in virtue of the constitution and
the limitations of our cognitive faculties. We must therefore think
in nature, in respect of its merely empirical laws, a possibility of
infinitely various empirical laws, which are, as far as our insight
goes, contingent (cannot be cognised _a priori_), and in respect of
which we judge nature, according to empirical laws and the possibility
of the unity of experience (as a system according to empirical laws),
to be contingent. But such a unity must be necessarily presupposed and
assumed, for otherwise there would be no thoroughgoing connexion of
empirical cognitions in a whole of experience. The universal laws of
nature no doubt furnish such a connexion of things according to their
kind as things of nature in general, but not specifically, as such
particular beings of nature. Hence the Judgement must assume for its
special use this principle _a priori_, that what in the particular
(empirical) laws of nature is from the human point of view contingent,
yet contains a unity of law in the combination of its manifold into an
experience possible in itself--a unity not indeed to be fathomed by us,
but yet thinkable. Consequently as the unity of law in a combination,
which we cognise as contingent in itself, although in conformity with
a necessary design (a need) of Understanding, is represented as the
purposiveness of Objects (here of nature); so must the Judgement, which
in respect of things under possible (not yet discovered) empirical
laws is merely reflection, think of nature in respect of the latter
according to _a principle of purposiveness_ for our cognitive faculty,
which then is expressed in the above maxims of the Judgement. This
transcendental concept of a purposiveness of nature is neither a
natural concept nor a concept of freedom, because it ascribes nothing
to the Object (of nature), but only represents the peculiar way in
which we must proceed in reflection upon the objects of nature in
reference to a thoroughly connected experience, and is consequently a
subjective principle (maxim) of the Judgement. Hence, as if it were a
lucky chance favouring our design, we are rejoiced (properly speaking,
relieved of a want), if we meet with such systematic unity under merely
empirical laws; although we must necessarily assume that there is such
a unity without our comprehending it or being able to prove it.
In order to convince ourselves of the correctness of this Deduction
of the concept before us, and the necessity of assuming it as a
transcendental principle of cognition, just consider the magnitude of
the problem. The problem, which lies _a priori_ in our Understanding,
is to make a connected experience out of given perceptions of a nature
containing at all events an infinite variety of empirical laws. The
Understanding is, no doubt, in possession _a priori_ of universal laws
of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience;
but it needs in addition a certain order of nature in its particular
rules, which can only be empirically known and which are, as regards
the Understanding, contingent. These rules, without which we could
not proceed from the universal analogy of a possible experience in
general to the particular, must be thought by it as laws (_i.e._ as
necessary), for otherwise they would not constitute an order of nature;
although their necessity can never be cognised or comprehended by
it. Although, therefore, the Understanding can determine nothing _a
priori_ in respect of Objects, it must, in order to trace out these
empirical so-called laws, place at the basis of all reflection upon
Objects an _a priori_ principle, viz. that a cognisable order of nature
is possible in accordance with these laws. The following propositions
express some such principle. There is in nature a subordination of
genera and species comprehensible by us. Each one approximates to some
other according to a common principle, so that a transition from one to
another and so on to a higher genus may be possible. Though it seems at
the outset unavoidable for our Understanding to assume different kinds
of causality for the specific differences of natural operations, yet
these different kinds may stand under a small number of principles,
with the investigation of which we have to busy ourselves. This harmony
of nature with our cognitive faculty is presupposed _a priori_ by the
Judgement, on behalf of its reflection upon nature in accordance with
its empirical laws; whilst the Understanding at the same time cognises
it objectively as contingent, and it is only the Judgement that
ascribes it to nature as a trancendental purposiveness (in relation to
the cognitive faculty of the subject). For without this presupposition
we should have no order of nature in accordance with empirical laws,
and consequently no guiding thread for an experience ordered by these
in all their variety, or for an investigation of them.
For it might easily be thought that, in spite of all the uniformity of
natural things according to the universal laws, without which we should
not have the form of an empirical cognition in general, the specific
variety of the empirical laws of nature including their effects might
yet be so great, that it would be impossible for our Understanding, to
detect in nature a comprehensible order; to divide its products into
genera and species, so as to use the principles which explain and make
intelligible one for the explanation and comprehension of another; or
out of such confused material (strictly we should say, so infinitely
various and not to be measured by our faculty of comprehension) to make
a connected experience.
The Judgement has therefore also in itself a principle _a priori_ of
the possibility of nature, but only in a subjective aspect; by which
it prescribes, not to nature (autonomy), but to itself (heautonomy)
a law for its reflection upon nature. This we might call the _law of
the specification of nature_ in respect of its empirical laws. The
Judgement does not cognise this _a priori_ in nature, but assumes it
on behalf of a natural order cognisable by our Understanding in the
division which it makes of the universal laws of nature when it wishes
to subordinate to these the variety of particular laws. If then we say
that nature specifies its universal laws according to the principles of
purposiveness for our cognitive faculty, _i.e._ in accordance with the
necessary business of the human Understanding of finding the universal
for the particular which perception offers it, and again of finding
connexion for the diverse (which however is a universal for each
species) in the unity of a principle,--we thus neither prescribe to
nature a law, nor do we learn one from it by observation (although such
a principle may be confirmed by this means). For it is not a principle
of the determinant but merely of the reflective Judgement. We only
require that, be nature disposed as it may as regards its universal
laws, investigation into its empirical laws may be carried on in
accordance with that principle and the maxims founded thereon, because
it is only so far as that holds that we can make any progress with the
use of our Understanding in experience, or gain knowledge.
VI. OF THE COMBINATION OF THE FEELING OF PLEASURE WITH THE CONCEPT OF
THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE.
The thought harmony of nature in the variety of its particular laws
with our need of finding universality of principles for it, must
be judged as contingent in respect of our insight, but yet at the
same time as indispensable for the needs of our Understanding, and
consequently as a purposiveness by which nature is harmonised with our
design, which, however, has only knowledge for its aim. The universal
laws of the Understanding, which are at the same time laws of nature,
are just as necessary (although arising from spontaneity) as the
material laws of motion. Their production presupposes no design on the
part of our cognitive faculty, because it is only by means of them
that we, in the first place, attain a concept of what the cognition
of things (of nature) is, and attribute them necessarily to nature as
Object of our cognition in general. But, so far as we can see, it is
contingent that the order of nature according to its particular laws,
in all its variety and heterogeneity possibly at least transcending
our comprehension, should be actually conformable to these [laws]. The
discovery of this [order] is the business of the Understanding which
is designedly borne towards a necessary purpose, viz. the bringing of
unity of principles into nature, which purpose then the Judgement must
ascribe to nature, because the Understanding cannot here prescribe any
law to it.
The attainment of that design is bound up with the feeling of pleasure,
and since the condition of this attainment is a representation
_a priori_,--as here a principle for the reflective Judgement in
general,--therefore the feeling of pleasure is determined by a ground
_a priori_ and valid for every man, and that merely by the reference of
the Object to the cognitive faculty, the concept of purposiveness here
not having the least reference to the faculty of desire. It is thus
quite distinguished from all practical purposiveness of nature.
In fact, although from the agreement of perceptions with laws in
accordance with universal natural concepts (the categories), we do not
and cannot find in ourselves the slightest effect upon the feeling of
pleasure, because the Understanding necessarily proceeds according to
its nature without any design; yet, on the other hand, the discovery
that two or more empirical heterogeneous laws of nature may be combined
under one principle comprehending them both, is the ground of a very
marked pleasure, often even of an admiration, which does not cease,
though we may be already quite familiar with the objects of it. We no
longer find, it is true, any marked pleasure in the comprehensibility
of nature and in the unity of its divisions into genera and species,
whereby are possible all empirical concepts, through which we cognise
it according to its particular laws. But this pleasure has certainly
been present at one time, and it is only because the commonest
experience would be impossible without it that it is gradually
confounded with mere cognition and no longer arrests particular
attention. There is then something in our judgements upon nature which
makes us attentive to its purposiveness for our Understanding--an
endeavour to bring, where possible, its dissimilar laws under higher
ones, though still always empirical--and thus, if successful, makes
us feel pleasure in that harmony of these with our cognitive faculty,
which harmony we regard as merely contingent. On the other hand, a
representation of nature would altogether displease, by which it
should be foretold to us that in the smallest investigation beyond the
commonest experience we should meet with a heterogeneity of its laws,
which would make the union of its particular laws under universal
empirical laws impossible for our Understanding. For this would
contradict the principle of the subjectively-purposive specification of
nature in its genera, and also of our reflective Judgement in respect
of such principle.
This presupposition of the Judgement is, however, at the same time so
indeterminate as to how far that ideal purposiveness of nature for
our cognitive faculty should be extended, that if we were told that
a deeper or wider knowledge of nature derived from observation must
lead at last to a variety of laws, which no human Understanding could
reduce to a principle, we should at once acquiesce. But still we more
gladly listen to one who offers hope that the more we know nature
internally, and can compare it with external members now unknown to
us, the more simple shall we find it in its principles, and that the
further our experience reaches the more uniform shall we find it amid
the apparent heterogeneity of its empirical laws. For it is a mandate
of our Judgement to proceed according to the principle of the harmony
of nature with our cognitive faculty so far as that reaches, without
deciding (because it is not the determinant Judgement which gives us
this rule) whether or not it is bounded anywhere. For although in
respect of the rational use of our cognitive faculty we can determine
such bounds, this is not possible in the empirical field.
VII. OF THE AESTHETICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE.
That which in the representation of an Object is merely subjective,
_i.e._ which decides its reference to the subject, not to the object,
is its aesthetical character; but that which serves or can be used
for the determination of the object (for cognition), is its logical
validity. In the cognition of an object of sense both references
present themselves. In the sense-representation of external things
the quality of space wherein we intuite them is the merely subjective
[element] of my representation (by which it remains undecided what
they may be in themselves as Objects), on account of which reference
the object is thought thereby merely as phenomenon. But space,
notwithstanding its merely subjective quality, is at the same time
an ingredient in the cognition of things as phenomena. _Sensation_,
again (_i.e._ external sensation), expresses the merely subjective
[element] of our representations of external things, but it is also the
proper material (reale) of them (by which something existing is given),
just as space is the mere form _a priori_ of the possibility of their
intuition. Nevertheless, however, sensation is also employed in the
cognition of external Objects.
But the subjective [element] in a representation _which cannot be
an ingredient of cognition_, is the _pleasure_ or _pain_ which is
bound up with it; for through it I cognise nothing in the object of
the representation, although it may be the effect of some cognition.
Now the purposiveness of a thing, so far as it is represented in
perception, is no characteristic of the Object itself (for such cannot
be perceived), although it may be inferred from a cognition of things.
The purposiveness, therefore, which precedes the cognition of an
Object, and which, even without our wishing to use the representation
of it for cognition, is, at the same time, immediately bound up
with it, is that subjective [element] which cannot be an ingredient
in cognition. Hence the object is only called purposive, when its
representation is immediately combined with the feeling of pleasure;
and this very representation is an aesthetical representation of
purposiveness.--The only question is whether there is, in general, such
a representation of purposiveness.
If pleasure is bound up with the mere apprehension (_apprehensio_) of
the form of an object of intuition, without reference to a concept for
a definite cognition, then the representation is thereby not referred
to the Object, but simply to the subject; and the pleasure can express
nothing else than its harmony with the cognitive faculties which come
into play in the reflective Judgement, and so far as they are in play;
and hence can only express a subjective formal purposiveness of the
Object. For that apprehension of forms in the Imagination can never
take place without the reflective Judgement, though undesignedly,
at least comparing them with its faculty of referring intuitions to
concepts. If now in this comparison the Imagination (as the faculty of
_a priori_ intuitions) is placed by means of a given representation
undesignedly in agreement with the Understanding, as the faculty of
concepts, and thus a feeling of pleasure is aroused, the object must
then be regarded as purposive for the reflective Judgement. Such a
judgement is an aesthetical judgement upon the purposiveness of the
Object, which does not base itself upon any present concept of the
object, nor does it furnish any such. In the case of an object whose
form (not the matter of its representation, as sensation), in the mere
reflection upon it (without reference to any concept to be obtained
of it), is judged as the ground of a pleasure in the representation
of such an Object, this pleasure is judged as bound up with the
representation necessarily; and, consequently, not only for the subject
which apprehends this form, but for every judging being in general. The
object is then called beautiful; and the faculty of judging by means
of such a pleasure (and, consequently, with universal validity) is
called Taste. For since the ground of the pleasure is placed merely in
the form of the object for reflection in general--and, consequently,
in no sensation of the object, and also without reference to any
concept which anywhere involves design--it is only the conformity
to law in the empirical use of the Judgement in general (unity of
the Imagination with the Understanding) in the subject, with which
the representation of the Object in reflection, whose conditions are
universally valid _a priori_, harmonises. And since this harmony of the
object with the faculties of the subject is contingent, it brings about
the representation of its purposiveness in respect of the cognitive
faculties of the subject.
Here now is a pleasure, which, like all pleasure or pain that is not
produced through the concept of freedom (_i.e._ through the preceding
determination of the higher faculties of desire by pure Reason), can
never be comprehended from concepts, as necessarily bound up with the
representation of an object. It must always be cognised as combined
with this only by means of reflective perception; and, consequently,
like all empirical judgements, it can declare no objective necessity
and lay claim to no _a priori_ validity. But the judgement of taste
also claims, as every other empirical judgement does, to be valid
for every one; and in spite of its inner contingency this is always
possible. The strange and irregular thing is that it is not an
empirical concept, but a feeling of pleasure (consequently not a
concept at all), which by the judgement of taste is attributed to every
one,--just as if it were a predicate bound up with the cognition of the
Object--and which is connected with the representation thereof.
A singular judgement of experience, _e.g._, when we perceive a moveable
drop of water in an ice-crystal, may justly claim that every one
else should find it the same; because we have formed this judgement,
according to the universal conditions of the determinant faculty of
Judgement, under the laws of a possible experience in general. Just
in the same way he who feels pleasure in the mere reflection upon
the form of an object without respect to any concept, although this
judgement be empirical and singular, justly claims the agreement
of every one; because the ground of this pleasure is found in the
universal, although subjective, condition of reflective judgements,
viz., the purposive harmony of an object (whether a product of nature
or of art) with the mutual relations of the cognitive faculties (the
Imagination and the Understanding), a harmony which is requisite for
every empirical cognition. The pleasure, therefore, in the judgement
of taste is dependent on an empirical representation, and cannot be
bound up _a priori_ with any concept (we cannot determine _a priori_
what object is or is not according to taste; that we must find out
by experiment). But the pleasure is the determining ground of this
judgement only because we are conscious that it rests merely on
reflection and on the universal though only subjective conditions
of the harmony of that reflection with the cognition of Objects in
general, for which the form of the Object is purposive.
Thus the reason why judgements of taste according to their possibility
are subjected to a Critique is that they presuppose a principle _a
priori_, although this principle is neither one of cognition for the
Understanding nor of practice for the Will, and therefore is not in any
way determinant _a priori_.
Susceptibility to pleasure from reflection upon the forms of things (of
Nature as well as of Art), indicates not only a purposiveness of the
Objects in relation to the reflective Judgement, conformably to the
concept of nature in the subject; but also conversely a purposiveness
of the subject in respect of the objects according to their form or
even their formlessness, in virtue of the concept of freedom. Hence
the aesthetical judgement is not only related as a judgement of taste
to the beautiful, but also as springing from a spiritual feeling is
related to the _sublime_; and thus the Critique of the aesthetical
Judgement must be divided into two corresponding sections.
VIII. OF THE LOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE
Purposiveness may be represented in an object given in experience
on a merely subjective ground, as the harmony of its form,--in the
_apprehension_ (_apprehensio_) of it prior to any concept,--with the
cognitive faculties, in order to unite the intuition with concepts
for a cognition generally. Or it may be represented objectively as
the harmony of the form of the object with the possibility of the
thing itself, according to a concept of it which precedes and contains
the ground of this form. We have seen that the representation of
purposiveness of the first kind rests on the immediate pleasure
in the form of the object in the mere reflection upon it. But the
representation of purposiveness of the second kind, since it refers
the form of the Object, not to the cognitive faculties of the subject
in the apprehension of it, but to a definite cognition of the object
under a given concept, has nothing to do with a feeling of pleasure in
things, but only with the Understanding in its judgement upon them.
If the concept of an object is given, the business of the Judgement
in the use of the concept for cognition consists in _presentation_
(_exhibitio_), _i.e._ in setting a corresponding intuition beside the
concept. This may take place either through our own Imagination, as
in Art when we realise a preconceived concept of an object which is
a purpose of ours; or through Nature in its Technic (as in organised
bodies) when we supply to it our concept of its purpose in order
to judge of its products. In the latter case it is not merely the
_purposiveness_ of nature in the form of the thing that is represented,
but this its product is represented as a _natural purpose_.--Although
our concept of a subjective purposiveness of nature in its forms
according to empirical laws is not a concept of the Object, but only
a principle of the Judgement for furnishing itself with concepts amid
the immense variety of nature (and thus being able to ascertain its
own position), yet we thus ascribe to nature as it were a regard to
our cognitive faculty according to the analogy of purpose. Thus we can
regard _natural beauty_ as the _presentation_ of the concept of the
formal (merely subjective) purposiveness, and _natural purposes_ as
the presentation of the concept of a real (objective) purposiveness.
The former of these we judge of by Taste (aesthetically, by the medium
of the feeling of pleasure), the latter by Understanding and Reason
(logically, according to concepts).
On this is based the division of the Critique of Judgement into the
Critique of _aesthetical_ and of _teleological_ Judgement. By the
first we understand the faculty of judging of the formal purposiveness
(otherwise called subjective) of Nature by means of the feeling of
pleasure or pain; by the second the faculty of judging its real
(objective) purposiveness by means of Understanding and Reason.
In a Critique of Judgement the part containing the aesthetical
Judgement is essential, because this alone contains a principle
which the Judgement places quite _a priori_ at the basis of its
reflection upon nature; viz., the principle of a formal purposiveness
of nature, according to its particular (empirical) laws, for our
cognitive faculty, without which the Understanding could not find
itself in nature. On the other hand no reason _a priori_ could be
specified,--and even the possibility of a reason would not be apparent
from the concept of nature as an object of experience whether general
or particular,--why there should be objective purposes of nature,
_i.e._ things which are only possible as natural purposes; but the
Judgement, without containing such a principle _a priori_ in itself,
in given cases (of certain products), in order to make use of the
concept of purposes on behalf of Reason, would only contain the rule
according to which that transcendental principle has already prepared
the Understanding to apply to nature the concept of a purpose (at least
as regards its form).
But the transcendental principle which represents a purposiveness of
nature (in subjective reference to our cognitive faculty) in the form
of a thing as a principle by which we judge of nature, leaves it quite
undetermined where and in what cases I have to judge of a product
according to a principle of purposiveness, and not rather according to
universal natural laws. It leaves it to the _aesthetical_ Judgement
to decide by taste the harmony of this product (of its form) with our
cognitive faculty (so far as this decision rests not on any agreement
with concepts but on feeling). On the other hand, the Judgement
teleologically employed furnishes conditions determinately under which
something (_e.g._ an organised body) is to be judged according to
the Idea of a purpose of nature; but it can adduce no fundamental
proposition from the concept of nature as an object of experience
authorising it to ascribe to nature _a priori_ a reference to purposes,
or even indeterminately to assume this of such products in actual
experience. The reason of this is that we must have many particular
experiences, and consider them under the unity of their principle, in
order to be able to cognise, even empirically, objective purposiveness
in a certain object.--The aesthetical Judgement is therefore a special
faculty for judging of things according to a rule, but not according
to concepts. The teleological Judgement is not a special faculty, but
only the reflective Judgement in general, so far as it proceeds, as it
always does in theoretical cognition, according to concepts; but in
respect of certain objects of nature according to special principles,
viz., of a merely reflective Judgement, and not of a Judgement that
determines Objects. Thus as regards its application it belongs to
the theoretical part of Philosophy; and on account of its special
principles which are not determinant, as they must be in Doctrine, it
must constitute a special part of the Critique. On the other hand, the
aesthetical Judgement contributes nothing towards the knowledge of
its objects, and thus must be reckoned as belonging to the criticism
of the judging subject and its cognitive faculties, _only_ so far as
they are susceptible of _a priori_ principles, of whatever other use
(theoretical or practical) they may be. This is the propaedeutic of all
Philosophy.
IX. OF THE CONNEXION OF THE LEGISLATION OF UNDERSTANDING WITH THAT OF
REASON BY MEANS OF THE JUDGEMENT
The Understanding legislates _a priori_ for nature as an Object of
sense--for a theoretical knowledge of it in a possible experience.
Reason legislates _a priori_ for freedom and its peculiar casuality;
as the supersensible in the subject, for an unconditioned practical
knowledge. The realm of the natural concept under the one legislation
and that of the concept of freedom under the other are entirely removed
from all mutual influence which they might have on one another (each
according to its fundamental laws) by the great gulf that separates
the supersensible from phenomena. The concept of freedom determines
nothing in respect of the theoretical cognition of nature; and the
natural concept determines nothing in respect of the practical laws of
freedom. So far then it is not possible to throw a bridge from the one
realm to the other. But although the determining grounds of causality
according to the concept of freedom (and the practical rules which it
contains) are not resident in nature, and the sensible cannot determine
the supersensible in the subject, yet this is possible conversely (not,
to be sure, in respect of the cognition of nature, but as regards
the effects of the supersensible upon the sensible). This in fact is
involved in the concept of a causality through freedom, the _effect_
of which is to take place in the world according to its formal laws.
The word _cause_, of course, when used of the supersensible only
signifies the _ground_ which determines the causality of natural
things to an effect in accordance with their proper natural laws,
although harmoniously with the formal principle of the laws of
Reason. Although the possibility of this cannot be comprehended, yet
the objection of a contradiction alleged to be found in it can be
sufficiently answered.[10]--The effect in accordance with the concept
of freedom is the final purpose which (or its phenomenon in the world
of sense) ought to exist; and the condition of the possibility of this
is presupposed in nature (in the nature of the subject as a sensible
being, that is, as man). The Judgement presupposes this _a priori_ and
without reference to the practical; and thus furnishes the mediating
concept between the concepts of nature and that of freedom. It makes
possible the transition from the conformity to law in accordance with
the former to the final purpose in accordance with the latter, and this
by the concept of a _purposiveness_ of nature. For thus is cognised
the possibility of the final purpose which alone can be actualised in
nature in harmony with its laws.
The Understanding by the possibility of its _a priori_ laws for
nature, gives a proof that nature is only cognised by us as phenomenon;
and implies at the same time that it has a supersensible substrate,
though it leaves this quite _undetermined_. The Judgement by its _a
priori_ principle for the judging of nature according to its possible
particular laws, makes the supersensible substrate (both in us and
without us) _determinable by means of the intellectual faculty_. But
the Reason by its practical _a priori_ law _determines_ it; and thus
the Judgement makes possible the transition from the realm of the
concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom.
As regards the faculties of the soul in general, in their higher
aspect, as containing an autonomy; the Understanding is that which
contains the _constitutive_ principles _a priori_ for the _cognitive
faculty_ (the theoretical cognition of nature). For the _feeling of
pleasure and pain_ there is the Judgement, independently of concepts
and sensations which relate to the determination of the faculty of
desire and can thus be immediately practical. For the _faculty of
desire_ there is the Reason which is practical without the mediation
of any pleasure whatever. It determines for the faculty of desire,
as a superior faculty, the final purpose which carries with it the
pure intellectual satisfaction in the Object.--The concept formed by
Judgement of a purposiveness of nature belongs to natural concepts,
but only as a regulative principle of the cognitive faculty; although
the aesthetical judgement upon certain objects (of Nature or Art)
which occasions it is, in respect of the feeling of pleasure or pain,
a constitutive principle. The spontaneity in the play of the cognitive
faculties, the harmony of which contains the ground of this pleasure,
makes the above concept [of the purposiveness of nature] fit to be the
mediating link between the realm of the natural concept and that of the
concept of freedom in its effects; whilst at the same time it promotes
the sensibility of the mind for moral feeling.--The following table may
facilitate the review of all the higher faculties according to their
systematic unity.[11]
_All the faculties of the mind_
Cognitive faculties. Faculties of desire.
Feeling of pleasure and pain.
_Cognitive faculties_
Understanding. Judgement. Reason.
_A priori principles_
Conformity to law. Purposiveness. Final purpose.
_Application to_
Nature. Art. Freedom.
THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
PART I
CRITIQUE OF THE AESTHETICAL JUDGEMENT
FIRST DIVISION
ANALYTIC OF THE AESTHETICAL JUDGEMENT
FIRST BOOK
ANALYTIC OF THE BEAUTIFUL
FIRST MOMENT
OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE[12] ACCORDING TO QUALITY
§ 1. _The judgement of taste is aesthetical_
In order to decide whether anything is beautiful or not, we refer the
representation, not by the Understanding to the Object for cognition
but, by the Imagination (perhaps in conjunction with the Understanding)
to the subject, and its feeling of pleasure or pain. The judgement of
taste is therefore not a judgement of cognition, and is consequently
not logical but aesthetical, by which we understand that whose
determining ground can be _no other than subjective_. Every reference
of representations, even that of sensations, may be objective (and
then it signifies the real in an empirical representation); save only
the reference to the feeling of pleasure and pain, by which nothing in
the Object is signified, but through which there is a feeling in the
subject, as it is affected by the representation.
To apprehend a regular, purposive building by means of one’s
cognitive faculty (whether in a clear or a confused way of
representation) is something quite different from being conscious of
this representation as connected with the sensation of satisfaction.
Here the representation is altogether referred to the subject and
to its feeling of life, under the name of the feeling of pleasure
or pain. This establishes a quite separate faculty of distinction
and of judgement, adding nothing to cognition, but only comparing
the given representation in the subject with the whole faculty of
representations, of which the mind is conscious in the feeling of
its state. Given representations in a judgement can be empirical
(consequently, aesthetical); but the judgement which is formed by means
of them is logical, provided they are referred in the judgement to the
Object. Conversely, if the given representations are rational, but are
referred in a judgement simply to the subject (to its feeling), the
judgement is so far always aesthetical.
§ 2. _The satisfaction which determines the judgement of taste is
disinterested_
The satisfaction which we combine with the representation of the
existence of an object is called interest. Such satisfaction always
has reference to the faculty of desire, either as its determining
ground or as necessarily connected with its determining ground. Now
when the question is if a thing is beautiful, we do not want to know
whether anything depends or can depend on the existence of the thing
either for myself or for any one else, but how we judge it by mere
observation (intuition or reflection). If any one asks me if I find
that palace beautiful which I see before me, I may answer: I do not
like things of that kind which are made merely to be stared at. Or I
can answer like that Iroquois _sachem_ who was pleased in Paris by
nothing more than by the cook-shops. Or again after the manner of
_Rousseau_ I may rebuke the vanity of the great who waste the sweat of
the people on such superfluous things. In fine I could easily convince
myself that if I found myself on an uninhabited island without the
hope of ever again coming among men, and could conjure up just such
a splendid building by my mere wish, I should not even give myself
the trouble if I had a sufficiently comfortable hut. This may all be
admitted and approved; but we are not now talking of this. We wish
only to know if this mere representation of the object is accompanied
in me with satisfaction, however indifferent I may be as regards the
existence of the object of this representation. We easily see that
in saying it is _beautiful_ and in showing that I have taste, I am
concerned, not with that in which I depend on the existence of the
object, but with that which I make out of this representation in
myself. Every one must admit that a judgement about beauty, in which
the least interest mingles, is very partial and is not a pure judgement
of taste. 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.
We cannot, however, better elucidate this proposition, which is of
capital importance, than by contrasting the pure disinterested[13]
satisfaction in judgements of taste, with that which is bound up with
an interest, especially if we can at the same time be certain that
there are no other kinds of interest than those which are now to be
specified.
§ 3. _The satisfaction in the_ PLEASANT _is bound up with interest_
_That which pleases the senses in sensation is_ PLEASANT. Here the
opportunity presents itself of censuring a very common confusion of
the double sense which the word sensation can have, and of calling
attention to it. All satisfaction (it is said or thought) is itself
sensation (of a pleasure). Consequently everything that pleases is
pleasant because it pleases (and according to its different degrees
or its relations to other pleasant sensations it is _agreeable_,
_lovely_, _delightful_, _enjoyable_, etc.). But if this be admitted,
then impressions of Sense which determine the inclination, fundamental
propositions of Reason which determine the Will, mere reflective forms
of intuition which determine the Judgement, are quite the same, as
regards the effect upon the feeling of pleasure. For this would be
pleasantness in the sensation of one’s state, and since in the end all
the operations of our faculties must issue in the practical and unite
in it as their goal, we could suppose no other way of estimating things
and their worth than that which consists in the gratification that
they promise. It is of no consequence at all how this is attained, and
since then the choice of means alone could make a difference, men could
indeed blame one another for stupidity and indiscretion, but never for
baseness and wickedness. For all, each according to his own way of
seeing things, seek one goal, that is, gratification.
If a determination of the feeling of pleasure or pain is called
sensation, this expression signifies something quite different from
what I mean when I call the representation of a thing (by sense, as a
receptivity belonging to the cognitive faculty) sensation. For in the
latter case the representation is referred to the Object, in the former
simply to the subject, and is available for no cognition whatever, not
even for that by which the subject _cognises_ itself.
In the above elucidation we understand by the word sensation,
an objective representation of sense; and in order to avoid
misinterpretation, we shall call that, which must always remain merely
subjective and can constitute absolutely no representation of an
object, by the ordinary term “feeling.” The green colour of the meadows
belongs to _objective_ sensation, as a perception of an object of
sense; the pleasantness of this belongs to _subjective_ sensation by
which no object is represented, _i.e._ to feeling, by which the object
is considered as an Object of satisfaction (which does not furnish a
cognition of it).
Now that a judgement about an object, by which I describe it as
pleasant, expresses an interest in it, is plain from the fact that by
sensation it excites a desire for objects of that kind; consequently
the satisfaction presupposes not the mere judgement about it, but the
relation of its existence to my state, so far as this is affected
by such an Object. Hence we do not merely say of the pleasant, _it
pleases_; but, _it gratifies_. I give to it no mere approval, but
inclination is aroused by it; and in the case of what is pleasant
in the most lively fashion, there is no judgement at all upon the
character of the Object, for those who always lay themselves out only
for enjoyment (for that is the word describing intense gratification)
would fain dispense with all judgement.
§ 4. _The satisfaction in the_ GOOD _is bound up with interest_
Whatever by means of Reason pleases through the mere concept is GOOD.
That which pleases only as a means we call _good for something_ (the
useful); but that which pleases for itself is _good in itself_. In both
there is always involved the concept of a purpose, and consequently
the relation of Reason to the (at least possible) volition, and thus a
satisfaction in the _presence_ of an Object or an action, _i.e._ some
kind of interest.
In order to find anything good, I must always know what sort of a
thing the object ought to be, _i.e._ I must have a concept of it. But
there is no need of this, to find a thing beautiful. Flowers, free
delineations, outlines intertwined with one another without design
and called foliage, have no meaning, depend on no definite concept,
and yet they please. The satisfaction in the beautiful must depend
on the reflection upon an object, leading to any concept (however
indefinite); and it is thus distinguished from the pleasant which rests
entirely upon sensation.
It is true, the Pleasant seems in many cases to be the same as the
Good. Thus people are accustomed to say that all gratification
(especially if it lasts) is good in itself; which is very much the
same as to say that lasting pleasure and the good are the same. But
we can soon see that this is merely a confusion of words; for the
concepts which properly belong to these expressions can in no way be
interchanged. The pleasant, which, as such, represents the object
simply in relation to Sense, must first be brought by the concept of
a purpose under principles of Reason, in order to call it good, as an
object of the Will. But that there is [involved] a quite different
relation to satisfaction in calling that which gratifies at the same
time _good_, may be seen from the fact that in the case of the good the
question always is, whether it is mediately or immediately good (useful
or good in itself); but on the contrary in the case of the pleasant
there can be no question about this at all, for the word always
signifies something which pleases immediately. (The same is applicable
to what I call beautiful.)
Even in common speech men distinguish the Pleasant from the Good.
Of a dish which stimulates the taste by spices and other condiments
we say unhesitatingly that it is pleasant, though it is at the same
time admitted not to be good; for though it immediately _delights_
the senses, yet mediately, _i.e._ considered by Reason which looks to
the after results, it displeases. Even in the judging of health we
may notice this distinction. It is immediately pleasant to every one
possessing it (at least negatively, _i.e._ as the absence of all bodily
pains). But in order to say that it is good, it must be considered
by Reason with reference to purposes; viz. that it is a state which
makes us fit for all our business. Finally in respect of happiness
every one believes himself entitled to describe the greatest sum of
the pleasantnesses of life (as regards both their number and their
duration) as a true, even as the highest, good. However Reason is
opposed to this. Pleasantness is enjoyment. And if we were concerned
with this alone, it would be foolish to be scrupulous as regards the
means which procure it for us, or [to care] whether it is obtained
passively by the bounty of nature or by our own activity and work.
But Reason can never be persuaded that the existence of a man who
merely lives for _enjoyment_ (however busy he may be in this point of
view), has a worth in itself; even if he at the same time is conducive
as a means to the best enjoyment of others, and shares in all their
gratifications by sympathy. Only what he does, without reference to
enjoyment, in full freedom and independently of what nature can procure
for him passively, gives an [absolute[14]] worth to his being, as the
existence of a person; and happiness, with the whole abundance of its
pleasures, is far from being an unconditioned good.[15]
However, notwithstanding all this difference between the pleasant and
the good, they both agree in this that they are always bound up with an
interest in their object. [This is true] not only of the pleasant(§ 3),
and the mediate good (the useful) which is pleasing as a means towards
pleasantness somewhere, but also of that which is good absolutely and
in every aspect, viz. moral good, which brings with it the highest
interest. For the good is the Object of will (_i.e._ of a faculty of
desire determined by Reason). But to will something, and to have a
satisfaction in its existence, _i.e._ to take an interest in it, are
identical.
§ 5. _Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of
satisfaction_
The pleasant and the good have both a reference to the faculty
of desire; and they bring with them--the former a satisfaction
pathologically conditioned (by impulses, _stimuli_)--the latter a
pure practical satisfaction, which is determined not merely by the
representation of the object, but also by the represented connexion
of the subject with the existence of the object. [It is not merely
the object that pleases, but also its existence.[16]] On the other
hand, the judgement of taste is merely _contemplative_; _i.e._ it is
a judgement which, indifferent as regards the being of an object,
compares its character with the feeling of pleasure and pain. But this
contemplation itself is not directed to concepts; for the judgement of
taste is not a cognitive judgement (either theoretical or practical),
and thus is not _based_ on concepts, nor has it concepts as its
_purpose_.
The Pleasant, the Beautiful, and the Good, designate then, three
different relations of representations to the feeling of pleasure and
pain, in reference to which we distinguish from each other objects or
methods of representing them. And the expressions corresponding to
each, by which we mark our complacency in them, are not the same. That
which GRATIFIES a man is called _pleasant_; that which merely PLEASES
him is _beautiful_; that which is ESTEEMED [or _approved_[17]] by
him, _i.e._ that to which he accords an objective worth, is _good_.
Pleasantness concerns irrational animals also; but Beauty only
concerns men, _i.e._ animal, but still rational, beings--not merely
_quâ_ rational (_e.g._ spirits), but _quâ_ animal also; and the Good
concerns every rational being in general. This is a proposition which
can only be completely established and explained in the sequel. We may
say that of all these three kinds of satisfaction, that of taste in
the Beautiful is alone a disinterested and _free_ satisfaction; for no
interest, either of Sense or of Reason, here forces our assent. Hence
we may say of satisfaction that it is related in the three aforesaid
cases to _inclination_, to _favour_, or to _respect_. Now _favour_ is
the only free satisfaction. An object of inclination, and one that
is proposed to our desire by a law of Reason, leave us no freedom in
forming for ourselves anywhere an object of pleasure. All interest
presupposes or generates a want; and, as the determining ground of
assent, it leaves the judgement about the object no longer free.
As regards the interest of inclination in the case of the Pleasant,
every one says that hunger is the best sauce, and everything that is
eatable is relished by people with a healthy appetite; and thus a
satisfaction of this sort does not indicate choice directed by taste.
It is only when the want is appeased that we can distinguish which of
many men has or has not taste. In the same way there may be manners
(conduct) without virtue, politeness without goodwill, decorum without
modesty, etc. For where the moral law speaks there is no longer,
objectively, a free choice as regards what is to be done; and to
display taste in its fulfilment (or in judging of another’s fulfilment
of it) is something quite different from manifesting the moral attitude
of thought. For this involves a command and generates a want, whilst
moral taste only plays with the objects of satisfaction, without
attaching itself to one of them.
EXPLANATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL RESULTING FROM THE FIRST MOMENT
_Taste_ is the faculty of judging of an object or a method of
representing it by an _entirely disinterested_ satisfaction
or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called
_beautiful_.[18]
SECOND MOMENT
OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE, VIZ. ACCORDING TO QUANTITY
§ 6. _The beautiful is that which apart from concepts is represented as
the object of a universal satisfaction_
This explanation of the beautiful can be derived from the preceding
explanation of it as the object of an entirely disinterested
satisfaction. For the fact of which every one is conscious, that the
satisfaction is for him quite disinterested, implies in his judgement a
ground of satisfaction for every one. For since it does not rest on any
inclination of the subject (nor upon any other premeditated interest),
but since he who judges feels himself quite _free_ as regards the
satisfaction which he attaches to the object, he cannot find the ground
of this satisfaction in any private conditions connected with his own
subject; and hence it must be regarded as grounded on what he can
presuppose in every other man. Consequently he must believe that he has
reason for attributing a similar satisfaction to every one. He will
therefore speak of the beautiful, as if beauty were a characteristic
of the object and the judgement logical (constituting a cognition of
the Object by means of concepts of it); although it is only aesthetical
and involves merely a reference of the representation of the object to
the subject. For it has this similarity to a logical judgement that we
can presuppose its validity for every one. But this universality cannot
arise from concepts; for from concepts there is no transition to the
feeling of pleasure or pain (except in pure practical laws, which bring
an interest with them such as is not bound up with the pure judgement
of taste). Consequently the judgement of taste, accompanied with the
consciousness of separation from all interest, must claim validity for
every one, without this universality depending on Objects. That is,
there must be bound up with it a title to subjective universality.
§ 7. _Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by
means of the above characteristic_
As regards the Pleasant every one is content that his judgement, which
he bases upon private feeling, and by which he says of an object that
it pleases him, should be limited merely to his own person. Thus he
is quite contented that if he says “Canary wine is pleasant,” another
man may correct his expression and remind him that he ought to say “It
is pleasant _to me_.” And this is the case not only as regards the
taste of the tongue, the palate, and the throat, but for whatever is
pleasant to any one’s eyes and ears. To one violet colour is soft and
lovely, to another it is faded and dead. One man likes the tone of wind
instruments, another that of strings. To strive here with the design of
reproving as incorrect another man’s judgement which is different from
our own, as if the judgements were logically opposed, would be folly.
As regards the pleasant therefore the fundamental proposition is valid,
_every one has his own taste_ (the taste of Sense).
The case is quite different with the Beautiful. It would (on the
contrary) be laughable if a man who imagined anything to his own taste,
thought to justify himself by saying: “This object (the house we see,
the coat that person wears, the concert we hear, the poem submitted
to our judgement) is beautiful _for me_.” For he must not call it
_beautiful_ if it merely pleases himself. Many things may have for
him charm and pleasantness; no one troubles himself at that; but if
he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same
satisfaction--he judges not merely for himself, but for every one,
and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Hence he says
“the _thing_ is beautiful”; and he does not count on the agreement of
others with this his judgement of satisfaction, because he has found
this agreement several times before, but he _demands_ it of them. He
blames them if they judge otherwise and he denies them taste, which he
nevertheless requires from them. Here then we cannot say that each man
has his own particular taste. For this would be as much as to say that
there is no taste whatever; _i.e._ no aesthetical judgement, which can
make a rightful claim upon every one’s assent.
At the same time we find as regards the Pleasant that there is an
agreement among men in their judgements upon it, in regard to which
we deny Taste to some and attribute it to others; by this not meaning
one of our organic senses, but a faculty of judging in respect of the
pleasant generally. Thus we say of a man who knows how to entertain
his guests with pleasures (of enjoyment for all the senses), so that
they are all pleased, “he has taste.” But here the universality is only
taken comparatively; and there emerge rules which are only _general_
(like all empirical ones), and not _universal_; which latter the
judgement of Taste upon the beautiful undertakes or lays claim to. It
is a judgement in reference to sociability, so far as this rests on
empirical rules. In respect of the Good it is true that judgements make
rightful claim to validity for every one; but the Good is represented
only _by means of a concept_ as the Object of a universal satisfaction,
which is the case neither with the Pleasant nor with the Beautiful.
§ 8. _The universality of the satisfaction is represented in a
judgement of Taste only as subjective_
This particular determination of the universality of an aesthetical
judgement, which is to be met with in a judgement of taste, is
noteworthy, not indeed for the logician, but for the transcendental
philosopher. It requires no small trouble to discover its origin, but
we thus detect a property of our cognitive faculty which without this
analysis would remain unknown.
First, we must be fully convinced of the fact that in a judgement
of taste (about the Beautiful) the satisfaction in the object is
imputed to _every one_, without being based on a concept (for then
it would be the Good). Further, this claim to universal validity so
essentially belongs to a judgement by which we describe anything as
_beautiful_, that if this were not thought in it, it would never come
into our thoughts to use the expression at all, but everything which
pleases without a concept would be counted as pleasant. In respect
of the latter every one has his own opinion; and no one assumes, in
another, agreement with his judgement of taste, which is always the
case in a judgement of taste about beauty. I may call the first the
taste of Sense, the second the taste of Reflection; so far as the
first lays down mere private judgements, and the second judgements
supposed to be generally valid (public), but in both cases aesthetical
(not practical) judgements about an object merely in respect of the
relation of its representation to the feeling of pleasure and pain.
Now here is something strange. As regards the taste of Sense not only
does experience show that its judgement (of pleasure or pain connected
with anything) is not valid universally, but every one is content not
to impute agreement with it to others (although actually there is
often found a very extended concurrence in these judgements). On the
other hand, the taste of Reflection has its claim to the universal
validity of its judgements (about the beautiful) rejected often
enough, as experience teaches; although it may find it possible (as it
actually does) to represent judgements which can demand this universal
agreement. In fact for each of its judgements of taste it imputes
this to every one, without the persons that judge disputing as to the
possibility of such a claim; although in particular cases they cannot
agree as to the correct application of this faculty.
Here we must, in the first place, remark that a universality which
does not rest on concepts of Objects (not even on empirical ones) is
not logical but aesthetical, _i.e._ it involves no objective quantity
of the judgement but only that which is subjective. For this I use
the expression _general validity_ which signifies the validity of the
reference of a representation, not to the cognitive faculty but, to the
feeling of pleasure and pain for every subject. (We can avail ourselves
also of the same expression for the logical quantity of the judgement,
if only we prefix _objective_ to “universal validity,” to distinguish
it from that which is merely subjective and aesthetical.)
A judgement with _objective universal validity_ is also always valid
subjectively; _i.e._ if the judgement holds for everything contained
under a given concept, it holds also for every one who represents an
object by means of this concept. But from a _subjective universal
validity_, _i.e._ aesthetical and resting on no concept, we cannot
infer that which is logical; because that kind of judgement does not
extend to the Object. Hence the aesthetical universality which is
ascribed to a judgement must be of a particular kind, because it does
not unite the predicate of beauty with the concept of the _Object_,
considered in its whole logical sphere, and yet extends it to the whole
sphere of judging persons.
In respect of logical quantity all judgements of taste are _singular_
judgements. For because I must refer the object immediately to my
feeling of pleasure and pain, and that not by means of concepts, they
cannot have the quantity of objective generally valid judgements.
Nevertheless if the singular representation of the Object of the
judgement of taste in accordance with the conditions determining the
latter, were transformed by comparison into a concept, a logically
universal judgement could result therefrom. _E.g._ I describe by
a judgement of taste the rose, that I see, as beautiful. But the
judgement which results from the comparison of several singular
judgements, “Roses in general are beautiful” is no longer described
simply as aesthetical, but as a logical judgement based on an
aesthetical one. Again the judgement “The rose is pleasant” (to smell)
is, although aesthetical and singular, not a judgement of Taste but
of Sense. It is distinguished from the former by the fact that the
judgement of Taste carries with it an _aesthetical quantity_ of
universality, _i.e._ of validity for every one; which cannot be found
in a judgement about the Pleasant. It is only judgements about the Good
which--although they also determine satisfaction in an object,--have
logical and not merely aesthetical universality; for they are valid of
the Object, as cognitive of it, and thus are valid for every one.
If we judge Objects merely according to concepts, then all
representation of beauty is lost. Thus there can be no rule according
to which any one is to be forced to recognise anything as beautiful.
We cannot press [upon others] by the aid of any reasons or fundamental
propositions our judgement that a coat, a house, or a flower is
beautiful. We wish to submit the Object to our own eyes, as if the
satisfaction in it depended on sensation; and yet if we then call the
object beautiful, we believe that we speak with a universal voice, and
we claim the assent of every one, although on the contrary all private
sensation can only decide for the observer himself and his satisfaction.
We may see now that in the judgement of taste nothing is postulated but
such a _universal voice_, in respect of the satisfaction without the
intervention of concepts; and thus the _possibility_ of an aesthetical
judgement that can, at the same time, be regarded as valid for every
one. The judgement of taste itself does not _postulate_ the agreement
of every one (for that can only be done by a logically universal
judgement because it can adduce reasons); it only _imputes_ this
agreement to every one, as a case of the rule in respect of which it
expects, not confirmation by concepts, but assent from others. The
universal voice is, therefore, only an Idea (we do not yet inquire
upon what it rests). It may be uncertain whether or not the man, who
believes that he is laying down a judgement of taste, is, as a matter
of fact, judging in conformity with that Idea; but that he refers his
judgement thereto, and, consequently, that it is intended to be a
judgement of taste, he announces by the expression “beauty.” He can
be quite certain of this for himself by the mere consciousness of the
separation of everything belonging to the Pleasant and the Good from
the satisfaction which is left; and this is all for which he promises
himself the agreement of every one--a claim which would be justifiable
under these conditions, provided only he did not often make mistakes,
and thus lay down an erroneous judgement of taste.
§ 9. _Investigation of the question whether in the judgement of taste
the feeling of pleasure precedes or follows the judging of the object_
The solution of this question is the key to the Critique of Taste, and
so is worthy of all attention.
If the pleasure in the given object precedes, and it is only its
universal communicability that is to be acknowledged in the judgement
of taste about the representation of the object, there would be a
contradiction. For such pleasure would be nothing different from the
mere pleasantness in the sensation, and so in accordance with its
nature could have only private validity, because it is immediately
dependent on the representation through which the object _is given_.
Hence, it is the universal capability of communication of the mental
state in the given representation which, as the subjective condition of
the judgement of taste, must be fundamental, and must have the pleasure
in the object as its consequent. But nothing can be universally
communicated except cognition and representation, so far as it belongs
to cognition. For it is only thus that this latter can be objective;
and only through this has it a universal point of reference, with
which the representative power of every one is compelled to harmonise.
If the determining ground of our judgement as to this universal
communicability of the representation is to be merely subjective,
_i.e._ is conceived independently of any concept of the object, it can
be nothing else than the state of mind, which is to be met with in the
relation of our representative powers to each other, so far as they
refer a given representation to _cognition in general_.
The cognitive powers, which are involved by this representation,
are here in free play, because no definite concept limits them to a
particular[19] rule of cognition. Hence, the state of mind in this
representation must be a feeling of the free play of the representative
powers in a given representation with reference to a cognition in
general. Now a representation by which an object is given, that is
to become a cognition in general, requires _Imagination_, for the
gathering together the manifold of intuition, and _Understanding_, for
the unity of the concept uniting the representations. This state of
_free play_ of the cognitive faculties in a representation by which an
object is given, must be universally communicable; because cognition,
as the determination of the Object with which given representations
(in whatever subject) are to agree, is the only kind of representation
which is valid for every one.
The subjective universal communicability of the mode of representation
in a judgement of taste, since it is to be possible without
presupposing a definite concept, can refer to nothing else than the
state of mind in the free play of the Imagination and the Understanding
(so far as they agree with each other, as is requisite for _cognition
in general_). We are conscious that this subjective relation, suitable
for cognition in general, must be valid for every one, and thus must
be universally communicable, just as if it were a definite cognition,
resting always on that relation as its subjective condition.
This merely subjective (aesthetical) judging of the object, or of the
representation by which it is given, precedes the pleasure in it,
and is the ground of this pleasure in the harmony of the cognitive
faculties; but on the universality of the subjective conditions for
judging of objects is alone based the universal subjective validity of
the satisfaction bound up by us with the representation of the object
that we call beautiful.
The power of communicating one’s state of mind, even though only in
respect of the cognitive faculties, carries a pleasure with it, as we
can easily show from the natural propension of man towards sociability
(empirical and psychological). But this is not enough for our design.
The pleasure that we feel is, in a judgement of taste, necessarily
imputed by us to every one else; as if, when we call a thing beautiful,
it is to be regarded as a characteristic of the object which is
determined in it according to concepts; though beauty, without a
reference to the feeling of the subject, is nothing by itself. But we
must reserve the examination of this question until we have answered
another, viz. “If and how aesthetical judgements are possible _a
priori_?”
We now occupy ourselves with the easier question, in what way we are
conscious of a mutual subjective harmony of the cognitive powers
with one another in the judgement of taste; is it aesthetically by
mere internal sense and sensation? or is it intellectually by the
consciousness of our designed activity, by which we bring them into
play?
If the given representation, which occasions the judgement of taste,
were a concept uniting Understanding and Imagination in the judging
of the object, into a cognition of the Object, the consciousness of
this relation would be intellectual (as in the objective schematism
of the Judgement of which the Critique[20] treats). But then the
judgement would not be laid down in reference to pleasure and pain, and
consequently would not be a judgement of taste. But the judgement of
taste, independently of concepts, determines the Object in respect of
satisfaction and of the predicate of beauty. Therefore that subjective
unity of relation can only make itself known by means of sensation.
The excitement of both faculties (Imagination and Understanding) to
indeterminate, but yet, through the stimulus of the given sensation,
harmonious activity, viz. that which belongs to cognition in general,
is the sensation whose universal communicability is postulated by the
judgement of taste. An objective relation can only be thought, but
yet, so far as it is subjective according to its conditions, can be
felt in its effect on the mind; and, of a relation based on no concept
(like the relation of the representative powers to a cognitive faculty
in general), no other consciousness is possible than that through the
sensation of the effect, which consists in the more lively play of both
mental powers (the Imagination and the Understanding) when animated by
mutual agreement. A representation which, as singular and apart from
comparison with others, yet has an agreement with the conditions of
universality which it is the business of the Understanding to supply,
brings the cognitive faculties into that proportionate accord which
we require for all cognition, and so regard as holding for every one
who is determined to judge by means of Understanding and Sense in
combination (_i.e._ for every man).
EXPLANATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL RESULTING FROM THE SECOND MOMENT
The _beautiful_ is that which pleases universally, without a concept.
THIRD MOMENT
OF JUDGEMENTS OF TASTE, ACCORDING TO THE RELATION OF THE PURPOSES WHICH
ARE BROUGHT INTO CONSIDERATION THEREIN.
§ 10. _Of purposiveness in general_
If we wish to explain what a purpose is according to its transcendental
determinations (without presupposing anything empirical like the
feeling of pleasure) [we say that] the purpose is the object of a
concept, in so far as the concept is regarded as the cause of the
object (the real ground of its possibility); and the causality of a
_concept_ in respect of its _Object_ is its purposiveness (_forma
finalis_). Where then not merely the cognition of an object, but the
object itself (its form and existence) is thought as an effect only
possible by means of the concept of this latter, there we think a
purpose. The representation of the effect is here the determining
ground of its cause and precedes it. The consciousness of the causality
of a representation, for _maintaining_ the subject in the same state,
may here generally denote what we call pleasure; while on the other
hand pain is that representation which contains the ground of the
determination of the state of representations into their opposite [of
restraining or removing them[21]].
The faculty of desire, so far as it is determinable only through
concepts, _i.e._ to act in conformity with the representation of a
purpose, would be the Will. But an Object, or a state of mind, or even
an action, is called purposive, although its possibility does not
necessarily presuppose the representation of a purpose, merely because
its possibility can be explained and conceived by us only so far as we
assume for its ground a causality according to purposes, _i.e._ a will
which would have so disposed it according to the representation of a
certain rule. There can be, then, purposiveness without[22] purpose,
so far as we do not place the causes of this form in a will, but yet
can only make the explanation of its possibility intelligible to
ourselves by deriving it from a will. Again, we are not always forced
to regard what we observe (in respect of its possibility) from the
point of view of Reason. Thus we can at least observe a purposiveness
according to form, without basing it on a purpose (as the material of
the _nexus finalis_), and we can notice it in objects, although only
by reflection.
§ 11. _The judgement of taste has nothing at its basis but the_ form of
the purposiveness _of an object (or of its mode of representation)_
Every purpose, if it be regarded as a ground of satisfaction, always
carries with it an interest--as the determining ground of the
judgement--about the object of pleasure. Therefore no subjective
purpose can lie at the basis of the judgement of taste. But neither
can the judgement of taste be determined by any representation of an
objective purpose, _i.e._ of the possibility of the object itself in
accordance with principles of purposive combination, and consequently
it can be determined by no concept of the good; because it is an
aesthetical and not a cognitive judgement. It therefore has to do with
no _concept_ of the character and internal or external possibility of
the object by means of this or that cause, but merely with the relation
of the representative powers to one another, so far as they are
determined by a representation.
Now this relation in the determination of an object as beautiful
is bound up with the feeling of pleasure, which is declared by the
judgement of taste to be valid for every one; hence a pleasantness,
accompanying the representation, can as little contain the determining
ground [of the judgement] as the representation of the perfection of
the object and the concept of the good can. Therefore it can be nothing
else than the subjective purposiveness in the representation of an
object without any purpose (either objective or subjective); and thus
it is the mere form of purposiveness in the representation by which
an object is _given_ to us, so far as we are conscious of it, which
constitutes the satisfaction that we without a concept judge to be
universally communicable; and, consequently, this is the determining
ground of the judgement of taste.
§ 12. _The judgement of taste rests on_ a priori _grounds_
To establish _a priori_ the connexion of the feeling of a pleasure
or pain as an effect, with any representation whatever (sensation or
concept) as its cause, is absolutely impossible; for that would be a
[particular][23] causal relation which (with objects of experience)
can always only be cognised _a posteriori_, and through the medium
of experience itself. We actually have, indeed, in the Critique of
practical Reason, derived from universal moral concepts _a priori_ the
feeling of respect (as a special and peculiar modification of feeling
which will not strictly correspond either to the pleasure or the pain
that we get from empirical objects). But there we could go beyond
the bounds of experience and call in a causality which rested on a
supersensible attribute of the subject, viz. freedom. And even there,
properly speaking, it was not this _feeling_ which we derived from the
Idea of the moral as cause, but merely the determination of the will.
But the state of mind which accompanies any determination of the will
is in itself a feeling of pleasure and identical with it, and therefore
does not follow from it as its effect. This last must only be assumed
if the concept of the moral as a good precede the determination of the
will by the law; for in that case the pleasure that is bound up with
the concept could not be derived from it as from a mere cognition.
Now the case is similar with the pleasure in aesthetical judgements,
only that here it is merely contemplative and does not bring about
an interest in the Object, which on the other hand in the moral
judgement it is practical.[24] The consciousness of the mere formal
purposiveness in the play of the subject’s cognitive powers, in a
representation through which an object is given, is the pleasure
itself; because it contains a determining ground of the activity of
the subject in respect of the excitement of its cognitive powers,
and therefore an inner causality (which is purposive) in respect of
cognition in general without however being limited to any definite
cognition; and consequently contains a mere form of the subjective
purposiveness of a representation in an aesthetical judgement. This
pleasure is in no way practical, neither like that arising from the
pathological ground of pleasantness, nor that from the intellectual
ground of the represented good. But yet it involves causality, viz. of
_maintaining_ the state of the representation itself, and the exercise
of the cognitive powers without further design. We _linger_ over the
contemplation of the beautiful, because this contemplation strengthens
and reproduces itself, which is analogous to (though not of the same
kind as) that lingering which takes place when a [physical] charm in
the representation of the object repeatedly arouses the attention, the
mind being passive.
§ 13. _The pure judgement of taste is independent of charm and emotion_
Every interest spoils the judgement of taste and takes from its
impartiality, especially if the purposiveness is not, as with the
interest of Reason, placed before the feeling of pleasure but grounded
on it. This last always happens in an aesthetical judgement upon
anything so far as it gratifies or grieves us. Hence judgements so
affected can lay no claim at all to a universally valid satisfaction,
or at least so much the less claim, in proportion as there are
sensations of this sort among the determining grounds of taste.
That taste is still barbaric which needs a mixture of _charms_ and
_emotions_ in order that there may be satisfaction, and still more so
if it make these the measure of its assent.
Nevertheless charms are often not only taken account of in the case
of beauty (which properly speaking ought merely to be concerned with
form) as contributory to the aesthetical universal satisfaction; but
they are passed off as in themselves beauties, and thus the matter of
satisfaction is substituted for the form. This misconception, however,
like so many others which have something true at their basis, may be
removed by a careful definition of these concepts.
A judgement of taste on which charm and emotion have no influence
(although they may be bound up with the satisfaction in the
beautiful),--which therefore has as its determining ground merely the
purposiveness of the form,--is a _pure judgement of taste_.
§ 14. _Elucidation by means of examples_
Aesthetical judgements can be divided just like theoretical (logical)
judgements into empirical and pure. The first assert pleasantness or
unpleasantness; the second assert the beauty of an object or of the
manner of representing it. The former are judgements of Sense (material
aesthetical judgements); the latter [as formal[25]] are alone strictly
judgements of Taste.
A judgement of taste is therefore pure, only so far as no merely
empirical satisfaction is mingled with its determining ground. But this
always happens if charm or emotion have any share in the judgement by
which anything is to be described as beautiful.
Now here many objections present themselves, which fallaciously put
forward charm not merely as a necessary ingredient of beauty, but
as alone sufficient [to justify] a thing’s being called beautiful.
A mere colour, _e.g._ the green of a grass plot, a mere tone (as
distinguished from sound and noise) like that of a violin, are by most
people described as beautiful in themselves; although both seem to
have at their basis merely the matter of representations, viz. simply
sensation, and therefore only deserve to be called pleasant. But we
must at the same time remark that the sensations of colours and of tone
have a right to be regarded as beautiful only in so far as they are
_pure_. This is a determination which concerns their form, and is the
only [element] of these representations which admits with certainty of
universal communicability; for we cannot assume that the quality of
sensations is the same in all subjects, and we can hardly say that the
pleasantness of one colour or the tone of one musical instrument is
judged preferable to that of another in the same[26] way by every one.
If we assume with _Euler_ that colours are isochronous vibrations
(_pulsus_) of the aether, as sounds are of the air in a state of
disturbance, and,--what is most important,--that the mind not only
perceives by sense the effect of these in exciting the organ, but also
perceives by reflection the regular play of impressions (and thus the
form of the combination of different representations) which I still
do not doubt[27]--then colours and tone cannot be reckoned as mere
sensations, but as the formal determination of the unity of a manifold
of sensations, and thus as beauties in themselves.
But “pure” in a simple mode of sensation means that its uniformity is
troubled and interrupted by no foreign sensation, and it belongs merely
to the form; because here we can abstract from the quality of that
mode of sensation (abstract from the colours and tone, if any, which
it represents). Hence all simple colours, so far as they are pure,
are regarded as beautiful; composite colours have not this advantage,
because, as they are not simple, we have no standard for judging
whether they should be called pure or not.
But as regards the beauty attributed to the object on account of its
form, to suppose it to be capable of augmentation through the charm
of the object is a common error, and one very prejudicial to genuine,
uncorrupted, well-founded taste. We can doubtless add these charms to
beauty, in order to interest the mind by the representation of the
object, apart from the bare satisfaction [received]; and thus they may
serve as a recommendation of taste and its cultivation, especially when
it is yet crude and unexercised. But they actually do injury to the
judgement of taste if they draw attention to themselves as the grounds
for judging of beauty. So far are they from adding to beauty that they
must only be admitted by indulgence as aliens; and provided always that
they do not disturb the beautiful form, in cases when taste is yet weak
and untrained.
In painting, sculpture, and in all the formative arts--in architecture,
and horticulture, so far as they are beautiful arts--the _delineation_
is the essential thing; and here it is not what gratifies in sensation
but what pleases by means of its form that is fundamental for taste.
The colours which light up the sketch belong to the charm; they may
indeed enliven[28] the object for sensation, but they cannot make it
worthy of contemplation and beautiful. In most cases they are rather
limited by the requirements of the beautiful form; and even where charm
is permissible it is ennobled solely by this.
Every form of the objects of sense (both of external sense and also
mediately of internal) is either _figure_ or _play_. In the latter case
it is either play of figures (in space, viz. pantomime and dancing), or
the mere play of sensations (in time). The _charm_ of colours or of the
pleasant tones of an instrument may be added; but the _delineation_
in the first case and the composition in the second constitute the
proper object of the pure judgement of taste. To say that the purity
of colours and of tones, or their variety and contrast, seems to add
to beauty, does not mean that they supply a homogeneous addition to
our satisfaction in the form because they are pleasant in themselves;
but they do so, because they make the form more exactly, definitely,
and completely, intuitible, and besides by their charm [excite the
representation, whilst they[29]] awaken and fix our attention on the
object itself.
Even what we call _ornaments_ [parerga[29]], _i.e._ those things which
do not belong to the complete representation of the object internally
as elements but only externally as complements, and which augment the
satisfaction of taste, do so only by their form; as for example [the
frames of pictures,[29] or] the draperies of statues or the colonnades
of palaces. But if the ornament does not itself consist in beautiful
form, and if it is used as a golden frame is used, merely to recommend
the painting by its _charm_, it is then called _finery_ and injures
genuine beauty.
_Emotion_, _i.e._ a sensation in which pleasantness is produced by
means of a momentary checking and a consequent more powerful outflow of
the vital force, does not belong at all to beauty. But sublimity [with
which the feeling of emotion is bound up[29]] requires a different
standard of judgement from that which is at the foundation of taste;
and thus a pure judgement of taste has for its determining ground
neither charm nor emotion, in a word, no sensation as the material of
the aesthetical judgement.
§ 15. _The judgement of taste is quite independent of the concept of
perfection_
_Objective_ purposiveness can only be cognised by means of the
reference of the manifold to a definite purpose, and therefore only
through a concept. From this alone it is plain that the Beautiful, the
judging of which has at its basis a merely formal purposiveness, _i.e._
a purposiveness without purpose, is quite independent of the concept of
the Good; because the latter presupposes an objective purposiveness,
_i.e._ the reference of the object to a definite purpose.
Objective purposiveness is either external, _i.e._ the _utility_, or
internal, _i.e._ the _perfection_ of the object. That the satisfaction
in an object, on account of which we call it beautiful, cannot rest on
the representation of its utility, is sufficiently obvious from the two
preceding sections; because in that case it would not be an immediate
satisfaction in the object, which is the essential condition of a
judgement about beauty. But objective internal purposiveness, _i.e._
perfection, comes nearer to the predicate of beauty; and it has been
regarded by celebrated philosophers[30] as the same as beauty, with the
proviso, _if it is thought in a confused way_. It is of the greatest
importance in a Critique of Taste to decide whether beauty can thus
actually be resolved into the concept of perfection.
To judge of objective purposiveness we always need not only the
concept of a purpose, but (if that purposiveness is not to be external
utility but internal) the concept of an internal purpose which shall
contain the ground of the internal possibility of the object. Now
as a purpose in general is that whose _concept_ can be regarded as
the ground of the possibility of the object itself; so, in order to
represent objective purposiveness in a thing, the concept of _what sort
of thing it is to be_ must come first. The agreement of the manifold
in it with this concept (which furnishes the rule for combining the
manifold) is the _qualitative perfection_ of the thing. Quite different
from this is _quantitative_ perfection, the completeness of a thing
after its kind, which is a mere concept of magnitude (of totality).[31]
In this _what the thing ought to be_ is conceived as already
determined, and it is only asked if it has _all_ its requisites. The
formal [element] in the representation of a thing, _i.e._ the agreement
of the manifold with a unity (it being undetermined what this ought
to be), gives to cognition no objective purposiveness whatever. For
since abstraction is made of this unity as _purpose_ (what the thing
ought to be), nothing remains but the subjective purposiveness of
the representations in the mind of the intuiting subject. And this,
although it furnishes a certain purposiveness of the representative
state of the subject, and so a facility of apprehending a given form
by the Imagination, yet furnishes no perfection of an Object, since
the Object is not here conceived by means of the concept of a purpose.
For example, if in a forest I come across a plot of sward, round which
trees stand in a circle, and do not then represent to myself a purpose,
viz. that it is intended to serve for country dances, not the least
concept of perfection is furnished by the mere form. But to represent
to oneself a formal _objective_ purposiveness without purpose, _i.e._
the mere form of a _perfection_ (without any matter and without
the _concept_ of that with which it is accordant, even if it were
merely the Idea of conformity to law in general[32]) is a veritable
contradiction.
Now the judgement of taste is an aesthetical judgement, _i.e._ such
as rests on subjective grounds, the determining ground of which
cannot be a concept, and consequently cannot be the concept of a
definite purpose. Therefore in beauty, regarded as a formal subjective
purposiveness, there is in no way thought a perfection of the object,
as a would-be formal purposiveness, which yet is objective. And thus to
distinguish between the concepts of the Beautiful and the Good, as if
they were only different in logical form, the first being a confused,
the second a clear concept of perfection, but identical in content and
origin, is quite fallacious. For then there would be no _specific_
difference between them, but a judgement of taste would be as much a
cognitive judgement as the judgement by which a thing is described as
good; just as when the ordinary man says that fraud is unjust he bases
his judgement on confused grounds, whilst the philosopher bases it
on clear grounds, but both on identical principles of Reason. I have
already, however, said that an aesthetical judgement is unique of its
kind, and gives absolutely no cognition (not even a confused cognition)
of the Object; this is only supplied by a logical judgement. On the
contrary, it simply refers the representation, by which an Object is
given, to the subject; and brings to our notice no characteristic
of the object, but only the purposive form in the determination of
the representative powers which are occupying themselves therewith.
The judgement is called aesthetical just because its determining
ground is not a concept, but the feeling (of internal sense) of that
harmony in the play of the mental powers, so far as it can be felt in
sensation. On the other hand, if we wish to call confused concepts and
the objective judgement based on them, aesthetical, we shall have an
Understanding judging sensibly or a Sense representing its Objects by
means of concepts [both of which are contradictory.[33]] The faculty
of concepts, be they confused or clear, is the Understanding; and
although Understanding has to do with the judgement of taste, as an
aesthetical judgement (as it has with all judgements), yet it has to
do with it not as a faculty by which an object is cognised, but as the
faculty which determines the judgement and its representation (without
any concept) in accordance with its relation to the subject and the
subject’s internal feeling, in so far as this judgement may be possible
in accordance with a universal rule.
§ 16. _The judgement of taste, by which an object is declared to be
beautiful under the condition of a definite concept, is not pure_
There are two kinds of beauty; free beauty (_pulchritudo vaga_)
or merely dependent beauty (_pulchritudo adhaerens_). The first
presupposes no concept of what the object ought to be; the second
does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in
accordance therewith. The first is called the (self-subsistent)
beauty of this or that thing; the second, as dependent upon a concept
(conditioned beauty), is ascribed to Objects which come under the
concept of a particular purpose.
Flowers are free natural beauties. Hardly any one but a botanist
knows what sort of a thing a flower ought to be; and even he, though
recognising in the flower the reproductive organ of the plant, pays no
regard to this natural purpose if he is passing judgement on the flower
by Taste. There is then at the basis of this judgement no perfection
of any kind, no internal purposiveness, to which the collection of the
manifold is referred. Many birds (such as the parrot, the humming bird,
the bird of paradise), and many sea shells are beauties in themselves,
which do not belong to any object determined in respect of its purpose
by concepts, but please freely and in themselves. So also delineations
_à la grecque_, foliage for borders or wall-papers, mean nothing
in themselves; they represent nothing--no Object under a definite
concept,--and are free beauties. We can refer to the same class what
are called in music phantasies (_i.e._ pieces without any theme), and
in fact all music without words.
In the judging of a free beauty (according to the mere form) the
judgement of taste is pure. There is presupposed no concept of any
purpose, for which the manifold should serve the given Object, and
which therefore is to be represented therein. By such a concept the
freedom of the Imagination which disports itself in the contemplation
of the figure would be only limited.
But human beauty (_i.e._ of a man, a woman, or a child), the beauty of
a horse, or a building (be it church, palace, arsenal, or summer-house)
presupposes a concept of the purpose which determines what the thing is
to be, and consequently a concept of its perfection; it is therefore
adherent beauty. Now as the combination of the Pleasant (in sensation)
with Beauty, which properly is only concerned with form, is a hindrance
to the purity of the judgement of taste; so also is its purity injured
by the combination with Beauty of the Good (viz. that manifold which is
good for the thing itself in accordance with its purpose).
We could add much to a building which would immediately please the eye,
if only it were not to be a church. We could adorn a figure with all
kinds of spirals and light but regular lines, as the New Zealanders do
with their tattooing, if only it were not the figure of a human being.
And again this could have much finer features and a more pleasing and
gentle cast of countenance provided it were not intended to represent a
man, much less a warrior.
Now the satisfaction in the manifold of a thing in reference to the
internal purpose which determines its possibility is a satisfaction
grounded on a concept; but the satisfaction in beauty is such as
presupposes no concept, but is immediately bound up with the
representation through which the object is given (not through which it
is thought). If now the judgement of Taste in respect of the beauty
of a thing is made dependent on the purpose in its manifold, like a
judgement of Reason, and thus limited, it is no longer a free and pure
judgement of Taste.
It is true that taste gains by this combination of aesthetical with
intellectual satisfaction, inasmuch as it becomes fixed; and though
it is not universal, yet in respect to certain purposively determined
Objects it becomes possible to prescribe rules for it. These, however,
are not rules of taste, but merely rules for the unification of Taste
with Reason, _i.e._ of the Beautiful with the Good, by which the former
becomes available as an instrument of design in respect of the latter.
Thus the tone of mind which is self-maintaining and of subjective
universal validity is subordinated to the way of thinking which can
be maintained only by painful resolve, but is of objective universal
validity. Properly speaking, however, perfection gains nothing by
beauty or beauty by perfection; but, when we compare the representation
by which an object is given to us with the Object (as regards what it
ought to be) by means of a concept, we cannot avoid considering along
with it the sensation in the subject. And thus when both states of mind
are in harmony our _whole faculty_ of representative power gains.
A judgement of taste, then, in respect of an object with a definite
internal purpose, can only be pure, if either the person judging
has no concept of this purpose, or else abstracts from it in his
judgement. Such a person, although forming an accurate judgement of
taste in judging of the object as free beauty, would yet by another
who considers the beauty in it only as a dependent attribute (who looks
to the purpose of the object) be blamed, and accused of false taste;
although both are right in their own way, the one in reference to what
he has before his eyes, the other in reference to what he has in his
thought. By means of this distinction we can settle many disputes about
beauty between judges of taste; by showing that the one is speaking of
free, the other of dependent, beauty,--that the first is making a pure,
the second an applied, judgement of taste.
§ 17. _Of the Ideal of beauty_
There can be no objective rule of taste which shall determine by
means of concepts what is beautiful. For every judgement from this
source is aesthetical; _i.e._ the feeling of the subject, and not
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