Brent Kalar - The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics (Continuum Studies in Philosophy) (2006) PDF

The Demands of Taste in
Kant’s Aesthetics
Brent Kalar
Continuum
The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics
Continuum Studies in Philosophy:
Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin
Aesthetics in Kant, James Kirwan

Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Mature, Justin Skirry
Kierkegaard's Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts

Leibniz Re-interpreted, Lloyd Strickland
Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson
Platonism, Music and the Listener's Share, Christopher Norris

Popper's Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia
Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney
Rousseau's Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson
St Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John M. Mattox

St Augustine of Hippo, R. W. Dyson
Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala
Wittgenstein's Religious Point of View, Tim Labron

The Demands of Taste in Kant's
Aesthetics
Brent Kalar
continuum
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© Brent Kalar 2006
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To my parents, Allen and Barbara Kalar
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
I What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?

1. Overview of the Chapter 9
2. Hume's Problems with Taste 11
3. The Humean Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste: Guyer 19
4. The Normative Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste 26
5. The Two Demands in the Judgement of Taste 32
6. Conclusions 35
II The Problem of Free Play

2. Introduction to the Harmony of the Faculties in Free Play 38
3. Background to Free Play 41
4. A Preliminary Interpretation of Free Play: Allison 50
5. Problems with the Preliminary Interpretation 55
6. Conclusions 64
III The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness

2. The Form of Purposiveness: A Preliminary Account (Critique of 66
Judgment §§10-15)
3. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure in the Beautiful: 71
Opening
4. Excursus on the Subjectivity of the Beautiful 73
5. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure in the Beautiful: 78
Closing
6. Free and Adherent Beauty and the Ideal of the Beautiful 82
7. Conclusions 89
viii Contents
IV Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas

2. Aesthetic Ideas: Opening Remarks 92
3. The Standardness Condition 96
4. The Originality Condition 102
5. Standardness and Originality in the Form of the Beautiful 106
6. Standardness and Originality in Free Play 112
7. Conclusions 119
V Pleasure and Justification

2. Free Play and Pleasure 121
3. The Problem of the Deduction 127
4. The 'Official' Deduction of Taste in §38 133
5. The Transcendental Deduction of Taste: §21 137
6. Conclusions 145
Notes 147
Bibliography 167
Index 173
Acknowledgement
The present study of Kant's theory of the foundations of taste began as a revision
of my Ph.D. thesis for publication, but ended, as such projects often do, as a
completely new book. While The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics contains
very little of the original text of my earlier thesis, is structured differently, and
changes several key claims, I believe that it nevertheless could not have been
written had I not first done the dissertation. Accordingly, I owe significant
thanks to the individuals with whom I studied Kant in graduate school for
making the present work possible. I would like first to thank my dissertation
committee — Stanley Cavell, Christine Korsgaard and Richard Moran — for
their years of encouragement and support, intellectual and otherwise. My debts
to each of them are unfathomable. I would also like to acknowledge the
contributions of Henry Allison and Charles Parsons to my thinking about Kant.
Both of these eminent Kant scholars were very generous in allowing me to sit in
on their Kant seminars in the late nineties, for which I will be forever grateful. I
was especially fortunate to attend a year-long seminar on the Third Critique
given by Professor Allison in 1998—99 that dramatically improved my
understanding of Kant's aesthetics. More disturbingly for someone trying to
complete a Ph.D. thesis, the experience of Professor Allison's vast erudition and
keen analytical intellect made me question, for a while at least, whether I could
hope to improve on his interpretation of Kant's theory of the beautiful. While I
no longer agree with his reading in its entirety, Professor Allison's influence
remains, I trust, evident throughout what follows — particularly in my
endorsement of what I call the 'normative' reading of the judgement of taste
and the 'intentionalistic' reading of aesthetic pleasure.
My thinking about Kant's aesthetics began to evolve away from my
dissertation largely as a result of repeatedly teaching the Third Critique to
undergraduates and graduates at the University of New Mexico. I would like to
thank the students in my aesthetics courses for useful interchange. I would also
like to express my gratitude to my colleagues at the University of New Mexico,
especially Russell Goodman and Iain Thomson, for stimulating discussions
about Kant. I also owe special thanks to colleagues John Taber and Mary
Domski for their useful comments on earlier drafts. Professor Taber was
instrumental in keeping this project on track, and in providing much-
appreciated encouragement and moral support. I am indebted to Professor
x Acknowledgements
Domski's expert knowledge of the First Critique for several improvements to

Chapter II, and I am sorry that I could not incorporate or deal adequately with
more of her criticisms and suggestions.
Most of all, I would like to thank my parents, Allen and Barbara Kalar, for
their love, encouragement and support of my academic career throughout the
years. This work is dedicated, with much love and gratitude, to them.
Abbreviations
Citations of Kant's works and Hume's 'Of the Standard of Taste' are given
parenthetically in the text, using the abbreviations below. In all citations of
Kant except for those of the Critique of Pure Reason, two page references are given.
The first cites the page number(s) of the relevant volume of the standard
Akademie edition of Kants gesammelte Schriften. The second cites the page
number (s) of the translation from which I have quoted (sometimes with slight
modifications). Critique of Pure Reason, however, which is found in Akademie
edition, vols. 3—4:, is cited according to its own standard method, by the page
numbers of both the first or 'A' edition (1781) and second or 'B' edition (1787),
followed by the page number(s) in the translation by Paul Guyer and Allen
Wood. The key to the other abbreviations, together with the year of original
publication, and (for Kant) the number of the Akademie edition volume for each
work, is given below. Full source information is provided in the bibliography.
CJ Critique of Judgment (1790) (0.0

CPR Critique of Practical Reason (1788) (V)
DWL 'The Dohna-Wundlacken Logic' (1792) (XXIV)
FI 'First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment' (1790) (XX)
GW Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) (VI)
JL 'The Jasche Logic' (1800) (IX)
MM Metaphysics of Morals (1797) (VI)
PFM Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) (IV)
ST 'Of the Standard of Taste' (1757)
Introduction
Immanuel Kant is widely recognized to be a seminal figure in the history of

philosophical aesthetics. This is not because he was the first to inquire into the
nature of beauty, art, genius or the sublime. Philosophers had been doing that
since at least Plato. Nor was he the first to produce a 'system' of aesthetics.
Others, including Hutcheson, Burke and Baumgarten, could have claimed to
have done that earlier than Kant. Rather, Kant is a founding figure because he
was the first to construct a system of aesthetics centred around a problem that is
truly unique to this discipline: the problem of the 'subjective universality' of the
beautiful. 1 Kant is concerned throughout the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment with
either laying out the elements or examining the implications of his solution to
this problem. His particular views about the nature of the beautiful — many of
which took on a life of their own in the subsequent history of European and
world culture — all need to be understood in light of this overarching project.
What exactly is this project? Kant is concerned to show that the judgement of
taste regarding the beautiful, 2 despite being 'subjective', possesses a valid or
justified claim to universality. As I just mentioned, philosophers had been
contemplating the nature of beauty long before Kant. Some questions that they
had considered included: What features make something beautiful? Is beauty a
real feature of the world, or something that exists merely in our perception of it?
Are judgements of the beautiful capable of universal validity? Typically
philosophers had taken one of two divergent paths in their answers to these
questions. Either they viewed beauty as objective and regarded judgements of
the beautiful as universally valid, or else they viewed beauty as subjective and
regarded judgements of the beautiful as having merely private validity. Kant's
contribution to aesthetics was his unique third path. Kant argues that beauty is
subjective, but also that the judgement of taste about the beautiful is capable of
universal validity. In his view, the beautiful is not a feature of objects themselves,
but merely represents the way in which we respond to objects. This is the
significance of Kant's claim that the judgement of taste about beauty is a merely
'aesthetic' judgement: it is one based on the pleasure that we take in an object,
which is a purely subjective sensation. On the other hand, the judgement of taste
also has a peculiar implication: it demands the agreement of everyone. This is what
Kant terms the 'universal validity' or 'universal communicability' of the
judgement of taste. This unique combination of positions on the nature of the
2 The Demands of Taste in Kant's Aesthetics
beautiful and judgements of taste is what sets the task for the Critique of Aesthetic
Judgment', how can a judgement that is based merely on the pleasure that we take
in an object demand the agreement of everyone? Kant's aesthetics is of interest
not only for its answer to this question, but also for the distinctive conception of
the beautiful that Kant formulates in his attempt to provide this answer. In
attempting to make sense of the beautiful as the subjectively universal, Kant in
effect invented the first distinctively modern conception of the aesthetic.
Unsurprisingly, scholars have differed over the interpretation of virtually
every aspect of this conception. They have disagreed not only about the nature
of Kant's solution to the problem of subjective universality and whether this
solution is successful, but even about the nature of the problem itself. The basic
issue in the latter domain concerns how the universal validity of taste is to be
understood. According to what is still probably the most widely held reading,
the universal validity of the judgement of taste is an implied theoretical or factual
claim that one may expect all other subjects to agree with it, at least if they fulfil
certain conditions. The leading advocate of this reading has been Paul Guyer,
who first advocated it in his landmark 1979 study, Kant and the Claims of Taste.
Against this reading, an increasing number of commentators in recent years
have advocated a view of universal validity according to which it consists, not in
a theoretical claim, but rather in a normative demand for agreement — i.e., a
requirement that everyone ought to agree, whether or not one actually expects them
to do so.3 I shall argue in what follows on the side of those who see the universal
validity of the judgement of taste as an irreducibly normative feature of such
judgements.
Normativity relates to what one ought to be, do, think, choose, desire, feel, and
so on.4 When we ascribe normativity to a particular form of judgement, we take
it that this form contains an 'ought'. But making such an ascription raises the
question: what sort of'ought'? It also raises the question (though this is less often
noted) of how many different 'ought'-claims are being made in the judgement.
These are two critical questions for understanding the semantic content of
Kant's judgement of taste. In my answers to these questions, I conclude that the
'ought' implied in the Kantian judgement of taste is actually complex, involving
two separate demands or 'imperatives'. First, there is a demand to take pleasure in a
given object] in addition to this, however, there is also a demand to attend to that
object. I refer to these as the 'pleasure-imperative' and the 'attention-
imperative' respectively. These two distinct imperatives, in my view, flow from
two distinct sources of normativity. Whereas the former claim is given a uniquely
aesthetic grounding, the latter, I argue, must for Kant be grounded in morality.
This implies that, whereas the first 'ought' is a peculiarly aesthetic 'ought', the
second is actually not aesthetic at all, but rather moral in character. In this study,
for reasons that I shall discuss shortly, I restrict my attention to the first,
distinctively aesthetic imperative.
Normativity for Kant always requires a rational or justificatory grounding,
and in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, this grounding takes the form of a
'transcendental deduction' of taste. The deduction is, in my view, the
Introduction 3
culmination of the central discussions of the Critique] it is also one of the most
controversial parts of Kant's aesthetics. Contradicting the negative assessment of
this argument common to many contemporary readings, a major aim of the
present study will be to defend the deduction as a successful endeavour.
Achieving this purpose will require, of course, a precise grasp of the problem
with which the deduction deals, as well as an exact understanding of the
argument itself. In my view, the sole objective of the transcendental deduction of
judgements of taste is to show that the pleasure-imperative is legitimately posed
in a judgement that reflects a particular sort of aesthetic response. Provided that
the experience of an object at the basis of my judgement of taste is in fact of a
certain specific type, I am warranted in issuing a demand which says that
everyone else ought to take pleasure in this object as well.
Understanding how the deduction works thus requires us to undertake an
examination of the ground of aesthetic response itself. Kant's strategy for
discovering this ground leads him into an investigation of what we might call the
'subjective' and 'objective' poles of the beautiful. The subjective pole is Kant's
theory of the psychological process involved in the pleasurable response to the
beautiful, which is centred around his notion of the 'harmony of the faculties in
free play'. The objective pole, on the other hand, is what we might call the
'phenomenology' of the beautiful object, which for Kant is centred around the
notion of an object's 'form of purposiveness without a purpose'. In order to
understand how Kant vindicates the normative demand contained in a
judgement of taste, we need to delve deeply into these two accounts.
The notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play is undeniably central
to Kant's theory of taste. This notion explains not only our pleasurable response
to beautiful objects, but also the normativity of the judgement resulting from this
response. Kant maintains that the pleasure in the beautiful is accounted for by
the fact that the mental faculties of the understanding and the imagination are
engaged in a 'free' yet 'harmonious' 'play' in the aesthetic experience. The
aesthetic harmony of these two faculties is supposedly related to the way in
which the same faculties cooperate in cognitive (or 'knowing') perception, in
which the imagination 'synthesizes' a manifold of intuition for the sake of the
conceptual needs of the understanding. This cryptic suggestion has occasionally
been regarded as something of an intellectual embarrassment. It has been seen,
that is, as an obscure foray into speculative psychology that should be replaced
with, or reinterpreted as, something that is less offensively psychologistic.5 In my
own view, one cannot avoid the fact that the theory of the harmony of the
faculties in free play is, in some sense, a speculative psychological theory; the only
question is — in which sense? It is well known that Kant accepts the view,
common in the eighteenth century, that the mind is composed of several discrete
'powers' or 'faculties', each of which is differentiated according to its own proper
function. 6 Less often explicitly noted, however, is that this notion of a faculty is
intrinsically normative. This is because one cannot say what a particular faculty is
without assigning it a task. Sensibility is just the power of receiving sensations or
being affected by objects, the understanding is just the power of judging
determinatively or conceptualizing, the imagination is just the power of

representing in intuition what is not directly present to the senses, the will is
just the power of choosing a course of action, and so forth. But by virtue of
assigning it a task, one places the faculty in question under a norm of success or
failure in performing that task. One can therefore speak of a 'bad' or 'poor'
understanding, which would be one that grasps things poorly, or a 'weak' will
that fails to make effective choices, and so on. I can summarize my view of the
normativity at the source of the pleasure-imperative by saying that it is rooted in
this notion of the proper functioning of the cognitive faculties, and is therefore a
'quasi-cognitive' normativity. I thus concur with Mary McCloskey's comment
that, for Kant, 'failure to comply with the demand [of taste] would amount to
refusal to exercise one's cognitive powers to the full and to be only partially alive
to the world'. 7 By calling this normativity 'quasi-cognitive', I mean to indicate
that (1) it has an intimate relationship to the norms governing the faculties as
they engage in cognitive perception, yet (2) the 'success' of the faculties in the
aesthetic experience is not determined by whether they manage to accomplish
the task of cognition. Because the normativity involved is merely quasi-cognitive,
it is, to my mind at least, still properly considered a uniquely aesthetic brand of
normativity. An important point to note in this connection is that, since the
notion of a faculty is itself intrinsically normative, the normativity in question
here is normative 'all the way down': i.e., at no point can it be reduced to a
factual claim.
Is a normative faculty psychology of this sort objectionably speculative? That
depends, in my view, upon whether one is prepared to countenance the notion
that our discursive practices of making knowledge-claims also commit us to
acknowledging the existence of certain 'transcendental' functions of the mind,
and that the understanding and imagination, construed as Kant understands
them, are among these conditions. In other words, it depends upon whether we
are prepared to entertain the notion of 'transcendental' psychology. A
'transcendental' psychological theory, as exemplified by the transcendental
psychology of the First Critique, is one that purports to describe a priori the
necessary metaphysical conditions of experience by appeal to certain
'transcendental' or experience-constitutive functions of the mind. 8 These
'transcendental' functions are the functions that any mind such as ours, in
which a manifold of given intuition must be grasped through concepts of the
understanding in order for cognition to occur, must necessarily perform —
regardless of whatever particular laws of association might obtain. In short,
'transcendental' psychology spells out what is involved in the concept of a
'discursive' intellect in general.9 An 'empirical' psychology, by contrast, would
attempt to discover the particular, contingent laws according to which the mind
actually associates ideas.10 The doctrine of the free play of the faculties is best
thought of as a doctrine belonging to transcendental, rather than empirical
psychology. In his theory of harmonious free play, Kant is basing his account of
our experience of the beautiful on the 'transcendental' functions of the faculties,
as opposed to any laws of empirical association. As such, it ultimately will derive
Introduction 5
whatever legitimacy it enjoys from whatever warrant for positing transcendental

functions of the mind can be derived from the successes of Kant's epistemology.
Obviously, this immensely large issue is not one that can be considered here.
The notion of the form of purposiveness is just as essential to Kant's theory of
taste as the notion of the harmony of the faculties. In the official deduction of
taste provided in §38, Kant is quite clear that only a pleasure that 'is connected
with our mere judging of the form of the object' can be the basis for a legitimate
demand on the pleasure of everyone (CJ 289/155). This notion of aesthetic form
has, of course, been immensely influential in the history of aesthetics through the
'formalism' of Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Clement Greenberg, and their respective
followers. For the most part, this familiar brand of formalism emphasizes the
formal arrangement of an object over its representational content. While this twentieth-
century view has its affinities with Kant's, the careful reader must quickly notice
that the form—matter contrast that Kant draws is decidedly different from the
one drawn by modern formalism. Kant contrasts the form of purposiveness, not
with the 'subject-matter' represented, but rather with the perfections, charms
and emotions embodied or expressed in our representation of an object. This
leaves him with what appears to be a very Spartan notion of beauty, one that
involves only the mere appearance of design, as this is embodied solely in the
spatiotemporal configuration of an object. Commentators have found this view
to be particularly objectionable, since it excludes from aesthetic consideration
features such as the colours of a painting and the choice of instruments in a
musical composition that seem to be essential to the beauty of such things. In
what follows, I attempt, if not exactly to justify, then at least to rationalize what
Kant was doing in advocating what has come to be known as his 'restrictive'
formalism. Like many previous commentators, I regard this exclusion of the
'matter' of colours and tones as derived from Kant's overarching philosophical
goal of underwriting the universal validity of taste. Such universal validity can
only hold of a judgement if it is based on the form of purposiveness alone, and it
is for this reason that Kant thinks that the form of the beautiful must be
restricted to the spatiotemporal design. Yet unlike other commentators, I do not
regard this as an ill-considered conclusion stemming from an erroneous inference
from the First Critique — the inference, in short, that because space and time are
the a priori and hence necessary 'forms' of appearances, only they can be the
ground of a universally valid judgement. Instead, I try to show how Kant's
restrictive formalism is rooted in his deeper analysis of what the form of
purposiveness actually involves. Therefore, to a certain extent, I defend Kant's
restrictive formalism, suggesting that it is a legitimate aim of an aesthetic theory
to advocate some revisions in our ordinary intuitions about the beautiful, if it
does so for the sake of a 'worthy' purpose — such as Kant's purpose of carving out
a subset of our judgements of beauty that make good on these judgements'
semantic claim to universality.
This conclusion, however, depends, as I have just suggested, upon a deeper
analysis of what the form of purposiveness involves. The most distinctive feature
of my interpretation of Kant's theory of taste, as I see it, is the central role that I
give to his notion of an 'aesthetic idea' in explaining the nature of each of the
two poles of aesthetic response. Kant claims that beauty is not just the form of
purposiveness; it is also 'the expression of aesthetic ideas' (CJ 320/189). I argue
that this latter conception is both significantly more important and significantly
more complex than has generally been acknowledged. Most commentators have
viewed Kant's doctrine of aesthetic ideas as exclusively or primarily a part of his
theory of fine art, and emphasized their relation to the so-called 'rational ideas'
of God, the highest good, freedom, moral perfection, and the like. Some have
thought of the aesthetic ideas as simply Kant's version of symbols or metaphors,
and argued that their essential function is the 'exhibition' of the rational ideas to
the senses.11 In my view, aesthetic ideas must rather be regarded as the means
through which we experience the form of an object as beautiful in the first place.
They are therefore much more basic to Kant's account of beauty than has
usually been supposed. Moreover, their symbolic function is much less essential
to the conception of aesthetic ideas than has generally been thought. I argue
that the conception of an aesthetic idea that appears in the discussion of fine art
must be paired with the discussion of the 'aesthetic standard idea' in §17 to yield
an expanded account of what an aesthetic idea is for Kant that can explain why
he thinks that all beauty is the expression of such ideas. I then go on to use this
expanded conception of aesthetic ideas to develop an enriched conception of the
form of the beautiful.
Much of what I have to say in this study will be controversial. The meaning I
derive from Kant's theory of taste is not, I think, one that is obvious on a first
reading (I certainly did not see it on my first reading); I hope, however, that it
becomes obvious — or something like it — after it is pointed out to the reader. Some
will wonder whether I am offering this reading as an 'interpretation of the
author's intentions', or rather as a 'reconstruction' of Kant's text. I would reply
by agreeing with Paul Guyer when he says that 'there can be no interpretation
of Kant's theory of taste without some reconstruction of it'. 12 I should note,
however, that readers expecting a line-by-line commentary on the Critique of
Aesthetic Judgment will be disappointed. Mine is a problem-centred reading, and a
quite limited one at that. I have wished to find something in Kant's thought that
was defensible and philosophically pertinent, and this has led me to adopt a
restricted focus.
There are several attention-worthy topics in Kant's aesthetics that I refrain
from discussing, but one of these in particular deserves special comment: the
connection that Kant makes between beauty and morality.13 There has been an
increasing emphasis in recent years on the centrality of this connection to Kant's
aesthetic theory.14 Even Guyer, who initially was the greatest counter-influence
to this trend, has since crossed over to the view that 'the real heart of Kant's
aesthetic theory and the underlying motivation for its creation is the connection
to his moral theory.' 15 I do not wish to deny that, in Kant's mind, the connection
of taste to morality was essential to the systematic significance of the Third
Critique for his critical philosophy, nor do I wish to deny that, without this
systematic aim of 'completing the critical system' by linking theoretical and
Introduction 1
practical philosophy via the concept of the moral purposiveness of nature, the
Critique of Judgment probably would not have been written. 16 Nevertheless, I do
wish to demur respectfully from those who find anything defensible or
philosophically alive in this area of Kant's thought, which rests, as I understand
it, upon the shaky foundation of his moral religion. On my reading (and very,
very roughly), Kant argues that the beauties of nature and (less obviously) fine
art can be viewed as signs of the existence of a moral God. Since, for Kant, at
least 'moral' or 'practical' faith in God is morally required for the rational
pursuit of the ultimate moral end of humanity, the highest good, the existence of
beauty, as a buttress for that faith, is of moral interest to us. The cogency of this
view depends not only on Kant's notoriously weak 'moral proofs' for the
existence of God,17 but also on a strained analogy between the characteristics of
beauty, on the one hand, and those of morality, on the other.18 Neither of these
doctrines has much to recommend it, in my view. Thus, I conclude that Kant's
attempt to connect beauty and morality has to be regarded as ultimately
unpersuasive.
In light of this conclusion, some may find it troubling that Kant quite clearly
seeks to base what I am calling the 'attention-imperative', or the demand to
attend to (as opposed to take pleasure in) the object, on this attempt to connect
pleasure in the beautiful with morality. While I shall argue that the deduction of
taste is a success as far as it goes, it only goes so far as to justify the pleasure-
imperative; it does not explain or justify why we ought to devote our attention
to, or, in a word, value objects that can afford us this pleasure. Kant thought that
the answer to this additional question resided in the realm of morality, but in my
view, he was wrong. This leaves the attention-imperative ungrounded. Some
dyed-in-the-wool Kantians may lament this result, but to my mind, it merely
shows that Kant does not, after all, possess all the answers to every question. For
the answer to this one, I believe we simply need to look elsewhere.
Finally, I conclude this introduction with a guide to the five chapters that
follow. In the first chapter, I investigate the question of what is actually implied
in a judgement of taste, according to Kant. In order to clarify what is distinctive
about Kant's conception of this type of judgement, I examine in some detail the
contrasting conception of David Hume. Hume has a view of taste that, in a
superficial respect, is similar to Kant's. As a consequence, commentators have
frequently assumed that Kant and Hume are in agreement over the nature of
taste — specifically, that they agree about what the universality of taste consists
in. Against this, I argue that Hume and Kant actually view this universality
very differently. Whereas Hume views it as a matter of empirical fact about how
human beings are actually caused to respond under certain specific circum-
stances, Kant views it as a thoroughly normative requirement to respond in an
appropriate way. I argue that Hume's approach leads the effort to vindicate the
universality claim in the judgement of taste down a dead end — a conclusion that
is further supported by an examination of Paul Guyer's Humean reading of
Kant. Fortunately, the textual evidence favours a normative reading, which
suggests the possibility of a more favourable assessment of Kant's project than
Guyer allows. Finally, in this opening chapter, I analyse the content of the
normative claim in a judgement of taste according to Kant. In this section, I
spell out in detail why I conclude that the 'ought' implied in the Kantian
judgement of taste is actually complex, involving two separate demands or
'imperatives'.
In the second and third chapters, I investigate the subjective and objective
poles of Kant's theory of the beautiful, respectively. In Chapter II, I examine
Kant's introduction of the crucial conception of the harmony of the faculties in
free play into the argument of the Third Critique, and lay out the theoretical
background to this notion in Kant's cognitive psychology. I then consider Henry
Allison's attempt to make sense of free play, and conclude by considering a series
of questions that arise from that attempt. In Chapter III, I follow a similar
course, only this time in relation to the objective side of the beautiful, the form of
purposiveness. Here again I point out several questions that appear to arise in
connection with this conception. The common conclusion that I arrive at in
both of these chapters is that our understanding of the ground of the beautiful
for Kant needs to be enriched if we are to fill in the gaps in the account that
inevitably arise on the more standard readings.
This conclusion leads me, in the fourth chapter, to argue for a more central
role for the aesthetic ideas in Kant's conception of the beautiful. Here I analyse
Kant's conception of an aesthetic idea, and apply that analysis to show how
aesthetic ideas are involved in both the form of purposiveness and free play. All
beauty, according to Kant, involves the expression of aesthetic ideas, which, I
argue, has certain implications for what he takes our experience of the beautiful
to involve. Objects that 'express aesthetic ideas' involve two constitutive
elements that are in tension with one another; I call these elements the
conditions of 'standardness' and 'originality'. These, on my reading, are for
Kant the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of beauty. This
enriched conception of the beautiful allows us to answer the questions raised
previously about free play and the form of purposiveness, as well as give a
plausible account of Kant's vindication of the universal validity of taste.
I undertake the latter task in Chapter V, which deals with the transcendental
deduction of taste. My reading of the universal validity of the judgement of taste
as involving a complex imperative, with the pleasure-imperative as primary, has
crucial implications for how I view the task of the deduction. The argument of
the deduction does not have to be a vindication of an expectation of universal
agreement in particular judgements, as Guyer and others have alleged. Rather,
it only needs to validate the 'subjective principle' of the harmony of the faculties
in free play — i.e, show that a judgement that conforms to this principle is an
appropriate response, and therefore can appropriately demand a similar
response from everyone else. The 'demand' here, of course, has to be understood
as an instance of the uniquely aesthetic sense of normativity outlined above. If its
actual aim is properly understood, however, then the deduction of taste can be
seen to be a success.
Chapter I
What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?
1. Overview of the Chapter
Kant is frequently given the credit for founding modern aesthetics. But to the
extent that that founding depends upon the uncovering of a distinctive
problematic, a strong case can be made that Kant must share the credit with
David Hume. There is, of course, a venerable tradition in Kant interpretation,
especially in the English-speaking world, that attempts to understand Kant's
problems and theories in relation to those of the great Scottish philosopher. This
is no less true in aesthetics than it is in epistemology or moral philosophy. To
many interpreters of Kant's aesthetics, he shares with Hume a common
conception of the central philosophical problem in the field. This problem is one
that arises from some peculiar implications that aesthetic judgements of the
beautiful allegedly have.
Following the conventions of the eighteenth century, both Kant and Hume
describe aesthetic judgements of the beautiful as judgements of taste. Both,
furthermore, draw on this metaphor in their understanding of the nature of
judgements regarding beauty. Aesthetic appreciation, on their view, shares
something important with the taste of the tongue and palate: it is rooted in the
feeling of pleasure (or pain, in the case of negative judgements). This feature of
aesthetic appreciation implies, for both authors, that beauty is not an objective
property, but rather, in some sense, a projection onto the object of the subject's
inner state. This purported subjectivity of the beautiful then gives rise to the
problem of the objectivity of judgements of (aesthetic) taste: if pronouncements
about beauty are not really about objects at all, what becomes of their pretensions
of being true or false, correct or incorrect?
Both Kant and Hume recognize some version of this question as a genuine
problem, and attempt to solve (or at least defuse) it. It is tempting, therefore, for
commentators to infer that they construe the problem in the same way. This
tendency is encouraged by Kant's presentation of an 'antinomy of taste' that
seems strikingly similar to Hume's way of presenting the problem of taste as a
conflict between two 'species of common sense'. Commentators have quite
naturally assumed that Kant must be simply picking up where Hume left off —
attempting to give a more adequate solution to the same problem. 1 This

assumption seems to be further supported by the fact that both philosophers
appear to argue for a conception of pleasure in the beautiful as possessing the
property of'universality'. The further assumption is thus made that Kant and
Hume have the same idea in mind when they attribute this property. Call this
the 'Humean reading'.
Although it probably remains the dominant interpretation, the Humean
reading has not gone uncontested. One prominent indication that Kant thinks of
the universality of the judgement of taste differently from Hume is to be found in
the highly visible connection that Kant makes between judgements of taste and
morality. Kant speaks in some passages as if the universality implied in a
judgement of taste were morally grounded. This connection has led some
commentators to the conclusion that the universality of taste for Kant is actually
a moral universality. 2 Call this the 'moralistic reading'. If the moralistic reading
is correct, it would tend to suggest that Kant's radical differences with Hume
over the nature of morality must be replicated in the domain of aesthetics. In
particular, it suggests that judgements of taste may have the irreducibly normative
character that separates moral judgements from mere expressions of feeling or
sentiment.
In this chapter, I argue that the Humean reading of Kant's theory of taste is
mistaken, but also that the moralistic reading, while correct about the
irreducibly normative character of the judgement of taste, is one-sided and
hence misleading. My aim here is thus twofold. First, I shall defend a normative
reading against the Humean interpretation. This defence has both a negative
and a positive phase. The negative component of my defence, which occupies
most of this chapter, will highlight the philosophical disadvantages of reading
Kant as a Humean. The positive component will focus attention on the
overwhelming textual evidence in favour of the normative reading. Lastly, I
shall defend the normative reading against an objection to it that has been raised
by Paul Guyer.
The second aim of this chapter is to provide an account of the normative
content of the judgement of taste, as Kant sees it. Here I confront an apparent
ambiguity in Kant's characterizations of this content, and argue that the
judgement of taste should actually be understood as containing two distinct
demands. These are the demands that a particular object (1) ought to be found
pleasing, and (2) ought to be granted one's attention. I call these the pleasure-imperative
and the attention-imperative, respectively. The position that what, on a superficial
reading, appears to be a single, unitary demand should actually be construed as
two distinct demands is forced upon us, I argue, by the divergent and apparently
inconsistent ways in which Kant describes this imperative. As indicated above,
Kant speaks in some passages as if the normativity of taste were moral in nature.
This fact is what gives impetus to the moralistic reading. In other places,
however, he appears to deny unequivocally that the normativity of taste is
moral. The best resolution of this ambiguity, I suggest, is to read Kant as
actually describing two different imperatives, the pleasure-imperative and the
What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste? 11
attention-imperative. In my view, the attention-imperative pertains to the use

the moral frame of mind makes of aesthetic experience and consequently, is
properly the domain of Kant's moral philosophy rather than aesthetics proper.
Since only the pleasure-imperative has a specifically aesthetic basis, it alone will
be the focus of this study.
2. Hume's Problems with Taste
Modern aesthetics arguably begins in 1757 with the publication of Hume's

seminal essay 'Of the Standard of Taste'. In this short work, Hume defines for
the first time a distinctive philosophical problem that arises in the sphere of art
and criticism. The problem arises from an apparent inconsistency to be found
within our modern common-sense assumptions about art-critical judgements.
Hume opens the essay with the familiar observation that there is a great variety
of taste and critical opinion in the world:
Men of the most confined knowledge are able to remark a difference of taste
in the narrow circle of their acquaintance . . . But those, who can enlarge their
view to contemplate distant nations and remote ages, are still more surprised
at the great inconsistence and contrariety. (ST 226—227)
Critics may appear to agree in general propositions, with qualities such as

'elegance, propriety, simplicity, and spirit in writing' being praised on all sides,
and 'fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false brilliancy' being blamed; but when
it comes time to apply these generalities to particular cases, 'this seeming
unanimity vanishes', and it turns out that individual critics had each meant
different things by these terms (ibid.). Our natural response to 'whatever departs
widely from our own taste and apprehension' is to condemn it as 'barbarous'
(ibid.). However, once we discover that the other side has the same opinion of
our taste, we become more hesitant about pronouncing positively in our own
favour (ibid.). An attitude of tolerance (perhaps originally stemming from
prudence, rather than conviction) leads to what Hume calls 'the principle of the
natural equality of tastes' — roughly, the view that all tastes are of equal worth,
that no one person's taste is better than another's (ST 231).
This principle is buttressed by a 'species of philosophy' whose influence has
percolated down and become a part of common sense (ST 229). According to this
view, taste is not actually a matter of 'judgement', but rather of 'sentiment' (ST
229—230). This claim can be confusing, because of course there are 'judgements' of
taste. The point is that these 'judgements' are not like other judgements in respect
of having a capacity for truth or falsity, correctness or incorrectness. This is
because judgements of taste are really just expressions of sentiment, and 'all
sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and
is always real, whenever a man is conscious of it' (ST 230). The claim here can be
parsed as follows. Feeling or sentiment is a non-representational mental state —
unlike the mental image that underlies a perceptual judgement, it is not 'about'
anything. Because a feeling or sentiment does not even purport to represent 'what is
really in the object', there is no possibility of it accurately or inaccurately,
correctly or incorrectly representing it (ibid.). Hume is therefore obviously
speaking loosely when he says that 'all sentiment is right'; what he really means to
say is that the criteria of right and wrong do not properly apply to sentiments —
they are not the type of thing that can be right or wrong. Beauty 'is no quality in
the things themselves', but rather exists 'merely in the mind which contemplates
them; and each mind perceives a different beauty' (ibid.). The notion that beauty
exists outside of the mind and is an independent property of objects is an illusion;
it is actually a projection of an inner state onto external objects. It would thus
seem that there can be no fact of the matter regarding whether something is
'really' beautiful or not, any more than there is a fact of the matter about whether
something is 'really' sweet or bitter; it may be sweet to you, but bitter to me,
without either of us being incorrect. From this premise, Hume concludes (speaking
for the 'species of philosophy' under consideration) that 'every individual ought to
acquiesce in his own sentiment [of beauty], without pretending to regulate those
of others' (ibid.).
So says one type of common sense, according to Hume. But there is, he affirms,
another 'species' of common sense that opposes it (ibid.). While we may, in
certain circumstances, be untroubled by a judgement (sentiment) that deviates
from our own, there are other cases in which 'the principle of the natural
equality of tastes is totally forgot', and the deviant sentiment is pronounced
'absurd and ridiculous' (ST 231). These are cases in which a comparison of two
greatly disproportionate objects is made:
Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and
Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less an
extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as
Teneriffe, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. (ST 230—231)
The doctrine of the natural equality of tastes implies that we cannot rank any
work above any other. But this is absurd; some works are just obviously superior.
If one does not like Hume's examples of Ogilby and Milton (and certainly the
Bunyan—Addison pair might appear questionable to us), one can choose a
disproportionate pair more to one's own liking. But surely such pairs exist —
critical common sense tells us that. Anyone who cares about literature in any
serious way at all would find the claim that Ogilby is a better poet than Milton
to be simply wrong. Mary Mothersill has called this the 'Ogilby—Milton
Phenomenon'. 3 If the intuitions underlying this phenomenon are correct, then
judgements of literary merit or beauty must be the types of things that can be
right or wrong after all.
This is the philosophical problem that Hume discovered: the two 'species of
common sense' — the principle of the natural equality of tastes and the Ogilby—
Milton Phenomenon — cannot both be right; at a minimum, one or the other
needs to be modified. Assuming that one wants, as far as possible, to preserve the
basic intuitions contained in each, the problem becomes one of accounting for
the possibility of the correctness or incorrectness of a judgement that is based on
a sentiment. This account will simultaneously lead to the establishment of a
'standard of taste', which Hume describes as 'a rule, by which the various
sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision afforded, confirming
one sentiment and condemning another' (ST 229). That is, Hume suggests that
the successful resolution of the conflict between the two species of common sense
will also provide us with the practical means of arbitrating between conflicting
judgements of taste. Indeed, the resolution of the conflict for Hume seems to go
hand in hand with the discovery of a standard of taste. If we can establish a
standard of taste, then we can show that a judgement based on a sentiment can
be correct (if it accords with the standard) or incorrect (if it does not).
Conversely, unless we are able to establish a standard of taste, it is hard to see,
given the great variety of taste, what positive reason we would have to believe
that judgements of taste have the capacity for correctness or incorrectness.
Hume's strategy for solving the problem depends upon an analogy between
judgements of taste and colour-judgements. Accepting the Lockean view that
colour, like beauty, is merely a 'phantasm of the senses', not a property of objects
themselves, Hume observes that it is nevertheless possible to speak of the 'true' or
'real' colour of a thing (ST 234). The basis for this possibly is the existence of a
universal human colour-sensibility. If there were likewise a universal human
sensibility of beauty, we would have grounds for speaking of the 'true' or 'real'
beauty of a thing, even though beauty is not actually an objective property. Are
there grounds for supposing that there is such a sensibility? Hume thinks that
there are. To begin with, we have the 'rules of composition' which have been
handed down by critics throughout the ages as standards governing art and taste
(ST 231).* Where do these rules come from, and how are they established? As a
good empiricist, Hume naturally claims that they must be established through
experience, or not at all:
It is evident that none of the rules of composition are fixed by reasonings a

priori, or can be esteemed abstract conclusions of the understanding, from
comparing those habitudes and relations of ideas, which are eternal and
immutable, (ibid.)
The principles of taste are rather derived from 'general observations concerning
what has been universally found to please in all countries and all ages' (ibid.).
Any purported rule of criticism must thus be subject to falsification by
experience; if it turned out to be the case that 'our pleasure really [did] arise
from those parts of [an author's] poem which we denominate faults, this would
be ... an objection to those particular rules of criticism, which would establish
such circumstances to be faults, and would represent them as universally
blameable'; for if 'they are found to please, they cannot be faults' (ST 232).
Hume concludes with a universalizing pronouncement:
amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles
of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all
operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities . . . are calculated
to please, and others to displease. (ST 233)
So, according to Hume, universally valid principles of taste exist, and are well
founded to the extent that they accord with our common experience of what has
been found universally pleasing and displeasing in art. But if such universalities
do in fact exist, if'some particular forms or qualities are [naturally] calculated to
please, and others to displease', whence the great variety of taste? Hume has an
answer: 'if [the particular forms or qualities] fail of their effect in any particular
instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in the organ' (ibid.).
That is, if the particular forms or qualities that are naturally calculated to be
universally pleasing fail to please in a given instance, the explanation must be
that there is some external hindrance or internal disorder that is interfering with
the normal operation of the subject's sensibility. This account makes the
perception of beauty exactly parallel to the perception of colour. Just as 'the
appearance of objects in day-light, to the eye of a man in health' is considered to
be the 'true and real' colour of these objects, the sentiments that arise 'in the
sound state of the organ' ought likewise to be regarded as the hallmark of 'the
perfect' (or true) beauty (ST 234). Just as the universal human colour-sensibility
will result in a uniform perception of grass as green, unless there is a specific and
identifiable obstacle in the subject (such as colour-blindness or a disease such as
jaundice), so too will the (supposed) universal beauty-sensibility result in a
uniform perception of Milton as superior in beauty to Ogilby, unless there is a
specific and identifiable obstacle to appreciation.
Hume identifies a number of possible obstacles to the correct perception of
beauty. The most important of these is a lack of 'delicacy of taste', which is
defined as a degree of sensitivity in which 'the organs are so fine, as to allow
nothing to escape them; and at the same time so exact as to perceive every
ingredient in the composition' (ST 235). Other obstacles to appreciation
include: an improper time or place for appreciating the object, and lack of 'a
perfect serenity of mind', or 'due attention to the object' (ST 232—233). To these
Hume adds lack of practice in viewing a given type of object, prejudice against a
given author, and a weak reasoning capacity (ST 241). The individuals, rare as
they may be, who are free of such defects are the 'true judges' or critics (ibid.). It
is from the collective judgement of these true critics that the rules of composition
and principles of taste are derived; their judgement is 'the true standard of taste
and beauty' (ibid.).
To sum up: Hume seeks an explanation of the Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon
that preserves his view that taste is based on a sentiment. He is therefore tasked
with explaining how a sentiment can be wrong, as when a subject prefers Ogilby to
Milton. Hume's view is that the reaction in such a case is wrong in the sense that it
deviates from the response that would, as a matter of fact, be caused to occur in
the subject according to the universal laws of human nature, if certain artificial
obstacles had not interfered with that response. The correct response may, in fact,
be in the minority. The popular taste may actually prefer Ogilby to Milton; this is
still consistent with Milton being more beautiful than Ogilby, if it turns out to be the
case that the greater popularity of Ogilby is due to abnormal defects and
imperfections in sensibilities of the subjects who possess the popular taste.
Hume's strategy thus seems to be fairly straightforward. To make this line of
argument convincing, however, he must, of course, give us some reason to
believe that disagreements over beauty really are fully explained by the
imperfections of some of the judges' sensibilities. Hume makes his task easier late
in the essay by admitting that in fact not all instances of disagreement can be
explained in this way. He concedes that there are 'two sources of variation'
which often serve to produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or
blame', yet which cannot be regarded as defects or true abnormalities (ST 243).
These sources are 'the different humours of particular men' and 'the particular
manners and opinions of our age and country' (ibid.). These two qualifications
serve principally to introduce a certain relativity into judgements of taste. You
are correct in judging Ovid to be superior to Horace and Tacitus, if this
judgement is relativized to youthful readers (ST 244). Similarly, you are correct
in estimating Terence's Andria to be an excellent play, if you restrict the scope of
your judgement to Greek and Italian audiences (ST 245). In these cases, there is
no fact of the matter as to whether Ovid is better than Horace or Tacitus, or
Andria beautiful, simpliciter.
These concessions aside, Hume clearly believes that, in the bulk of cases,
disagreement is fully explained in terms of defects or abnormalities in individual
subjects. This belief is rational only to the extent that he has grounds for
assuming that there is a universal beauty-sensibility. There appear to be two
separate sets of grounds for this belief. The first is based on an appeal to what has
come to be known as the 'test of time'. Hume observes that certain works have
been 'universally found to please in all countries and places' — that the 'same
Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two thousand years ago is still
admired at Paris and at London' (ST 232—233). There must be some
explanation for this remarkable fact, and Hume's favoured account is that
Homer appeals to a universal human sense of beauty. He reasons that the
passage of time strips away the local opinions and prejudices that distort taste,
and leaves behind only the unvarnished, genuine judgement: 'authority or
prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator, but his
reputation will never be durable or general' (ST 233). On the other hand, the
longer the works of a 'real genius' endure, 'the more sincere is the admiration
which he meets with' (ibid.). Some works endure, hence there must be a
universal beauty-sensibility to account for this fact: 'when [the] obstructions are
removed, the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiments,
immediately display their energy; and while the world endures, they maintain
their authority over the minds of men' (ibid.).
The second set of grounds to which Hume appeals is based upon a
consideration of the subtlety and complexity of the mental qualities and
operations which are the preconditions of appreciating the beautiful. The great
variety of taste would seem to provide an empirical refutation of the claim that
there exists a universal beauty-sensibility. It may, however, still be rational to
believe in the existence of such a sensibility in the face of the contrary empirical
evidence, if it is also plausible to assume that the sensibility of beauty, if it
existed, would be very easily interfered with. In that case, even if there were a
universal sense of beauty, a great variety of actual aesthetic responses might
occur due to interference. Interference might frequently occur if the mental
qualities and operations involved in the sensibility of beauty were very subtle
and complex. This, of course, is what Hume in fact claims. The true judge
requires a whole host of specific qualities and talents, including 'strong sense,
united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison,
and cleared of all prejudice' (ST 241). Because the acquisition and maintenance
of these qualities are intellectually and emotionally demanding, Hume seems to
reason, it is plausible to assume that they are easily disrupted. Using the
metaphor of a fine-tuned machine, he observes that
those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tender and delicate nature, and
require the concurrence of many favorable circumstances to make them play
with facility and exactness . . . The least exterior hindrance to such small
springs, or the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion, and confounds
the operation of the whole machine. (ST 232)
These observations lead Hume to his desired conclusion, which is that
though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if not entirely the same
in all men, yet few are qualified to give judgment on any work of art, or
establish their own sentiment as the standard of beauty . . . [for] they either
labor under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means,
excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced erroneous. (ST 241)
It is not implausible to assume that the perception of beauty — especially in art —

is a 'delicate' capacity, one that can be easily disturbed. The qualities necessary
to the 'true judge' are not controversial, and one can readily see how the absence
of even one of them could throw off a judgement. Hume's position that the
sensibility of beauty, if it existed, would be very easily interfered with seems
reasonable, and it does provide him with a means of accounting for the empirical
evidence that undermines his theory. It is another matter, however, whether it
provides any positive evidence for his belief in a universal beauty-sensibility.
We have seen that Hume gives two sets of considerations in support of his
thesis that our disagreements over beauty are fully explained by the
imperfections and defects in some of the judges' sensibilities: (1) considerations
relating to the fact that stable general agreement does tend to emerge in the long
run, when defects and disorders supposedly have less of a general influence; and
(2) considerations relating to the fact that taste is a delicate operation, requiring
a rare mental facility, and hence is not widely possessed. It is far from clear,
however, whether either of these sets of considerations are sufficient to establish a
standard of taste, which, as noted above, is the indispensable means for ensuring
the legitimacy of'confirming one sentiment and condemning another' (ST 229).
Any attempt to address this issue is complicated by a hitherto unnoted
ambiguity in Hume's notion of a standard of taste. In some places, the reference
to a 'standard' appears to be simply a generic way of describing those 'rules of
art' or 'general principles of approbation and blame' discussed above. In other
words, the standard is a, proposition (or set of propositions). This conception of the
standard of taste appears to be reflected in Hume's initial definition of it as 'a
rule by which the various sentiments of men can be reconciled' (ibid.). But in
other places, rather than a proposition, the standard appears to be a particular
type of person: the 'true judge' whose sensibility is in the sound state. For
instance, Hume says that in each person, 'there is a sound and a defective state;
and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and
sentiment' (ST 233—234). Here the standard of taste is the ideal critic, whose
sentiments are considered to be the touchstone of artistic quality. These two
conceptions of the standard imply alternative conceptions of how we might go
about adjudicating disagreements about beauty. On the first conception, we
discover who the privileged critics are by reference to previously established
rules of art: the true critics are those whose judgements (sentiments) conform to
the rules. On the second conception, we proceed in the reverse direction: we
uncover the rules of art by identifying the true critics independently of those
rules, and seeing how they judge. The rules are then validated by (or derived
from) their judgements.
Unfortunately for Hume's view, whichever way we conceive of the standard,
we run into a serious problem, for, in either case, its application seems deeply
uncertain. First, suppose that we take the established rules as the standard for
determining who are the true critics. Hume seems to endorse this method when
he maintains that even if'the beauties of writing had never been methodized, or
reduced to general principles, or no excellent models had ever been acknowl-
edged', some judgements would still have been preferable to others; it just would
not have been as easy to 'silence the bad critic' (ST 236). But fortunately for us,
because such general principles exist, 'when we illustrate [a] principle by
examples, whose operation, from his own particular taste, [the bad critic]
acknowledges to be conformable to the principle; when we prove, that the same
principle may be applied to the present case, where he did not perceive or feel its
influence', this critic must conclude that 'the fault lies in himself, and that he
wants that delicacy, which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and
every blemish, in any composition or discourse' (ibid.). In other words, we use
the rules to prove that our judgement is right and consequently to force our
opponent to acknowledge that we are the true critics in this case. This passage
thus seems to make antecedently established rules the standard for the true
critic. Recall that Hume had said that if our pleasure really did arise from a
feature that certain purported rules of taste denominated a deficiency, this
would be an objection, not to our judgement, but to the rules (ST 232). Now,
given Hume's subsequent story about the possibility of the pleasure arising from
a defect in the judge, the possibility exists that it really would not be an objection
to the rule after all. But there is still a problem, which is that there seems to be no
certain way to tell which one of these possibilities describes the actual situation
in any given case. In other words, there seems to be nothing to prevent the
imagined antagonist in the example above from sticking to his guns and simply
adopting the position that the rule in question does not apply in the present case.
Contrary to what Hume asserts, it really is not clear that his antagonist must
conclude that 'the fault lie in himself. He could just as reasonably say that the
rule does not apply in the present case, or needs to be modified. After all, the
grounds of the rule are still held by Hume to be ultimately empirical. This tends
to suggest that the second option, that of basing the rules on the judgement of
the true critic, must be Hume's ultimate stance.
Indeed, there are places where Hume seems to be saying that it is rather the
'true judge' who should be the standard for the rules. He says, for instance, that
wherever this rare character is found, his verdict is 'the true standard of taste
and beauty' (ST 241). Hume does not, however, describe how we would go
about deriving the rules or principles of beauty from the judgements of
authoritative critics. A plausible account might be that we abstract rules from a
canon of works that are in turn circumscribed by the consensus approval of the
true critics. Of course, this leaves open the question of how we discover who the
true critics are. Hume eventually is forced to concede that whether 'any
particular person be endowed with good sense and delicate imagination, free
from prejudice, may often be the subject of dispute, and be liable to great
discussion and enquiry' (ST 242). We simply have to 'produce the best
arguments that [our] invention suggests' to us, and 'acknowledge a true and
decisive standard to exist somewhere, to wit, true existence and matter of fact'
(ibid.). But why do we have to acknowledge this? Hume seems to have forgotten
the role that the concept of the true critic is supposed to play in his theory, which
is to give us reason to think that there is, the preponderance of the evidence to
the contrary, a universal human sensibility of beauty. Now, if the identification,
hence the existence, of the true critic is itself uncertain, the concept obviously is
unsuited to play this role. In fact, it seems abundantly clear that the arguments
over the identity of the true critics will be no less contentious than the arguments
over judgements of taste themselves — in fact, it seems likely that they will be
exactly the same arguments. Consequently, it is empty to claim that the true critic
provides the standard of taste. In order for this to mean anything, we have to
have an independent means of locating the true critics, and this is lacking. The
conclusion we must draw is that Hume has given us little or no positive reason to
believe either that there exists a universal standard of taste, or that there is a
universal sensibility of beauty that would enable judgements of taste to be
correct or incorrect.
In sum, the content of a judgement of taste for Hume is a factual claim about
what sentiment would occur in an idealized set of circumstances, namely, those
embodied in the actual judgements of the true judges. This interpretation of the
content creates the possibility of the judgement reflecting or not reflecting a 'real
existence and matter of fact', and hence being correct or incorrect. The problem
is that the judgement of taste, understood in this way, is a factual claim that does
not appear to admit of confirmation. Hume is committed to the claim that
judgements of taste correspond to certain natural facts, but there is no way to
verify this claim. Hence, in the end, he does not give us any sufficient reason to
accept that the supposed facts exist in the first place.
3. The Humean Reading of Kant's

Judgement of Taste: Guyer
At present, a very influential reading of Kant's theory of taste understands it as

similar in important respects to Hume's theory. Kant, it is said, is responding to
'Hume's challenge', and conceives of the judgement of the beautiful in a way
precisely parallel to Hume. The judgement of taste, that is, involves for both
thinkers an ascription of pleasure to all other subjects universally. Kant attempts
to ground this ascription in a manner different from Hume, but he meets with no
more success than his predecessor. Or at least so says the 'Humean' reading of
Kant's judgement of taste, as represented by its principal exponent, Paul Guyer.
In this section, after some preliminary observations regarding the prima facie
plausibility of the Humean reading, I shall consider Guyer's particular
interpretation of Kant in some detail. We will see in Guyer a perfect illustration
of how the Humean reading of Kant's theory of taste leads to a negative
assessment of the outcome of that theory, providing us with reason to pause before
accepting the Humean view. In the next section, I shall adduce some textual
evidence that belies Guyer's interpretation, and suggests an alternative reading.
Kant's presentation of what he describes as an 'antinomy of taste' gives a
major impetus to the Humean reading, for there is a striking similarity between
Hume's conflict between two species of common sense and Kant's antinomy.
The antinomy is a conflict between what Kant calls two 'commonplaces'
(Gemeinort) — a term that practically spells out Hume's 'common sense' (CJ 338/
210). On the one hand, there is the old saw, 'there is no disputing about
[judgements of] taste' (ibid.). As Kant sees it, this means that 'even proofs do not
allow us to decide anything about such a judgment' (ibid.). One cannot, in other
words, 'hope to produce [an] agreement according to determinate concepts, by
basing a proof on them'; I cannot force you to agree with my taste by proving that
mine is correct (ibid.). This would seem to lead to the situation that Hume
describes as the natural equality of tastes: if I cannot prove that one taste is
better than another, they must all be equal. This conclusion is opposed,
however, by another 'commonplace': 'one can quarrel about taste' (CJ 338/211).
Kant says very little about what this 'quarrelling' amounts to, or why he is so
confident that one canquarrel about taste. But we might easily imagine that he is
thinking about the sorts of disproportionate comparisons of artists and their
products that Hume was thinking of when he pointed out the Ogilby—Milton
Phenomenon. In sum, Kant's claim that there is no disputing about tastes bears
comparison to Hume's doctrine of the natural equality of tastes; and, likewise,
his claim that we can still quarrel about taste naturally reminds one of the
Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon. Kant's antinomy, then, seems to duplicate
Hume's problem of two conflicting species of common sense.
There is undoubtedly an affinity between Hume's conflict between two
species of common sense and Kant's antinomy of taste. This similarity may lead
one to believe that the bases of the conflict or antinomy are also similar for each
philosopher. In fact, a cursory glance at Kant's text supports this impression. To
begin with, both philosophers hold that judgements of taste are based on a
subjective feeling of pleasure (or displeasure). For Kant, this seems to be the
most basic feature of the judgement of taste. The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment
begins with the 'Analytic of the Beautiful', which is divided into four 'moments'.
Each of these four moments develops one important feature of the judgement of
taste. The 'First Moment' concerns the claim that the judgement of taste is
'aesthetic', which means that its 'determining basis cannot be other than subjective'
(CJ 203/44). Kant goes on to observe that the only type of mental representation
that is always subjective is the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and that this
type of representation is the basis of a judgement of taste (CJ 204/44). He seems
to agree with Hume regarding the non-representational and (hence) non-cognitive
character of the feeling of pleasure, claiming that it is the only type of
representation that 'designates nothing whatsoever in the object'; rather it
always has reference only to the subject and his internal state. Hence pleasure
does not contribute anything to cognition (ibid.). On these points, Kant once
again seems to be in perfect alignment with Hume.
Hume and Kant also both agree that the feeling of pleasure at the basis of the
beautiful is in some sense universal. The 'Second Moment' contains Kant's initial
exposition of what he calls the 'demand for universal validity (Anspruch auf
Allgemeingu'ltigkeit]' belonging to the judgement of taste (CJ 214/57). 5 According
to Kant, the object of a judgement of taste contains 'a basis for being liked that
holds for everyone' (CJ 211/54). He claims that it would be
ridiculous if someone who prided himself on his taste tried to justify it by

saying: This object (the building we are looking at, the garment that man is
wearing, the concert we are listening to, the poem put up to be judged) is
beautifuiyor me. For he must not call it beautiful if only he likes it. (CJ 212/55)
In this respect, Kant maintains, the beautiful must be carefully distinguished from
what is merely 'pleasant' or 'agreeable' (das Angenehm). As regards the latter, he
says, everyone acknowledges that his judgement is based merely on a private
feeling without universal pertinence; hence, 'if [someone] says that canary wine is
agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and reminds him to
say instead: It is agreeable to me' (ibid.). By contrast, 'if he proclaims something to
be beautiful, he requires the same liking from others' (CJ 212/55).
Since both Kant and Hume claim that the pleasure in the beautiful is
universal, it is natural to construe this claim as meaning the same thing for each.
This conclusion seems to be further supported by the fact that Kant appears also
to share Hume's view that there is a universal beauty-sensibility. The belief in
the existence of such a sensibility might seem to be embodied in Kant's idea of a
'common sense' or 'sensus communis'. This notion is first introduced in the 'Fourth
Moment', where it is contrasted with 'the common understanding that is
sometimes also called a common sense' (CJ 237/87). As he makes clear later on
(in §40), Kant is not speaking here of'common sense' in the ordinary meaning,
where it refers to 'the very least that we are entitled to expect from anyone who
lays claim to the name of human being' — that is, the most minimal capacity for
intellectual comprehension and prudential judgement (CJ 293/160). In fact, he
is not referring to an intellectual capacity at all. Rather, Kant is referring to a
shared sensibility, 'something that makes . . . our feeling in a given representation
universally communicable (allgemein mitteilbarY (CJ 295/162). 6 It must be admitted
that this notion sounds awfully similar to Hume's conception of a universal
human nature that gives rise to a shared set of responses to the beautiful.
Kant, like Hume, recognizes that the claim to universal validity implied by a
judgement of taste requires justification. His attempt to justify the universality of
the pleasure in the beautiful takes the form of a transcendental deduction of
taste. According to the Humean reading, Kant offers in this deduction an a priori
argument in place of Hume's attempt at an empirical argument; but basically, the
goals of the two philosophers are the same. The Humean way of construing
Kant's deduction of taste is as an argument designed to warrant the prediction
of a uniform response to certain objects, at least in ideal circumstances. The most
influential version of the Humean reading is that of Paul Guyer, who explicitly
maintains that Kant's theory of taste should be understood as a response to
Hume's problem. 7 According to Guyer, Kant is primarily concerned, like Hume,
with the possibility of a judgement of taste reflecting or not reflecting a 'real
existence and matter of fact': namely, the fact of universal agreement in response
under certain specified conditions. The rigour with which Guyer builds his case
has made his reading justly influential; however, by his own admission, on his
interpretation, Kant's project has to be regarded as a failure. This conclusion
will provide us with motivation to reconsider whether, in fact, Kant is actually
dealing with the same problem as Hume.
Let us, then, consider the main points of Guyer's reading of Kant. Kant's
theory of taste is divided into two main parts: the 'analytic' and the 'deduction'
of the judgement of taste. Guyer regards the main task of the analytic as that of
providing two sets of criteria: (1) a set of'defining criteria' for the judgement of
taste, and (2) a set of'justificatory criteria' for such judgements. 8 The defining
criteria are the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste; the justificatory
criteria are the disinterestedness and form of 'finality'of the judgement. It is the
former criteria that concern us presently. 9 Universality and necessity are
'defining criteria' in the sense that they specify what makes a particular
judgement a judgement of taste, and function as the aesthetic 'criteria by which
this form of judgment may be distinguished from a mere report of one's response
to any object'.10
Guyer observes that the universality and necessity of the beautiful appear to
be essentially the same thing in Kant's aesthetics.11 But what does Guyer think
Kant means when he attributes universality and necessity to the judgement of
taste? He quite explicitly takes Kant to be following the lead of Hume in
comparing the beautiful to colour. 'When I call something red,' Guyer notes, 'I
am not just describing how it appears to me, . . . but rather describing how I
expect it will appear to anyone in certain circumstances.' 12 The beautiful is to be
understood in analogous terms. According to Guyer, the claim to universality
implicit in a judgement of taste is to be understood in terms of a, factual prediction
about the mental states of other human beings. To claim that one's aesthetic
judgement of an object is universally valid is to claim that 'under ideal
circumstances, any human observer of the object would necessarily take the
same pleasure in it that the person making the judgment of taste does'. 13 Later,
Guyer reiterates this point, calling the judgement of taste 'a prediction, but an
ideal prediction'. 14 The only reason that the 'imputation of taste to others is
indeterminate or ideal' is because of'the uncertainty of its evidence' — i.e., 'one
may in fact have been wrong about the source of one's own pleasure'.15 So the
judgement of taste is a prediction, albeit an ideal or conditional one. It says that
if one was correct in ascribing the source of one's own pleasure, and everyone else
who judged also had their pleasure caused by this source, then (we can expect
that) everyone would agree. The necessity of taste, then, is a rational necessity
that is based upon a causal necessity. The pleasure at the basis of a judgement of
taste is, Guyer avers, 'in a sense necessary', because (Kant claims) it is
occasioned under circumstances in which any human observer would feel
pleasure.16 This causal necessity is what underwrites the rationality of the
prediction of universal agreement that is, according to Guyer, the distinguishing
feature of the judgement of taste. In this respect, the judgement of beauty is
analogous to the judgement of colour. Its universality is to be understood in
terms of a hypothetical factual prediction: under such-and-such circumstances,
we can expect such-and-such responses to result from universal causal laws.
This interpretation of the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste,
as Guyer acknowledges, goes against the grain of Kant's text. Guyer admits that
the terms in which Kant expresses the criteria of universality and necessity
suggest 'not so much expecting the occurrence of a mental state in another person,
or attributing a state to another, but rather demanding or requiring something from
someone, even imposing some kind of obligation on another'. 17 He acknowledges
that Kant speaks in the majority of relevant passages of an 'Anspruch' — a
'demand' for (or an 'entitlement' to) agreement levelled against others in
making a judgement of taste.18 Guyer reconciles Kant's language with the
interpretation of universal validity as a factual prediction by maintaining that
the demand in question is an epistemological requirement, or a requirement of
rationality.19 It is equivalent to saying something like the following: if you want to
have true or rational beliefs about what things are really green, you 'ought' to
judge as green what appears green to an average observer in average

circumstances. Likewise, if you want to have true or rational beliefs about
what things are really beautiful, you 'ought' to judge as beautiful what a
disinterested observer attending to the mere form of the object takes pleasure in.
In neither case is the 'ought' a true demand', it rather expresses a hypothetical
condition on true beliefs —predictions regarding the sorts of responses that would
occur in a certain set of circumstances. The full meaning of the 'ought' is
exhausted in the expression: 'unless you judge in this way, you will have false
beliefs'. The 'ought' claim itself can thus be reduced to an entirely non-
normative factual claim.
According to Guyer, then, the claim in a judgement of taste that requires a
transcendental deduction is the factual prediction that, in certain 'ideal'
circumstances, everyone will (necessarily) experience the same pleasure. He
argues that Kant makes at least three separate attempts to provide the needed
argument, all of which fail — and thus fail to 'answer the challenge laid down in
Hume's famous essay "Of the Standard of Taste", to which [Kant] was clearly
responding'. 20
In order to evaluate Guyer's critique of Kant's deduction of taste, we need
first to understand how the former interprets the latter's theory of aesthetic
response. The theory of aesthetic response is Kant's account of the ultimate
source, in the human psychological apparatus, of the pleasure in the beautiful.
Kant argues that, in order for this pleasure to be universal, it must ultimately be
based upon a universally valid mental state. I shall take up this theory in greater
detail in the following chapters, but for now, the barest sketch — one closely
following Guyer's reconstruction — will serve our purpose.
On any account, Kant's theory of aesthetic response involves the notion of a
pleasure caused by what he terms the 'harmony of the faculties' in their 'free play'.
This notion, unfortunately, is notoriously obscure. The 'faculties' in question are
the imagination and the understanding, and their 'harmony' evidently has something
to do with the relation in which these two faculties stand in the act of cognition or
empirical perception. As Guyer notes, according to Kant, this 'harmony' is 'the
subjective and merely sensible condition of the objective employment of
judgment'. 21 For Guyer, the cognitive relation of the two faculties can be specified
as follows. The imagination 'runs through' and 'holds together' a manifold of
sensible intuition for the sake of the understanding, and the understanding in turn
gives 'unity' to this manifold through a concept. The result of the harmony of the
faculties, then, is the unification of a manifold of intuition under a concept.^ The end-
product is an object of perceptual knowledge. The main problem for any
interpretation of Kant's theory is to figure out what this cognitive relation of the
faculties has to do with the relation of the faculties involved in aesthetic response.
How are the two relations similar, and how are they different? One obviously
important difference is that the aesthetic harmony of the faculties must inevitably
produce a pleasure. Now, Guyer attributes to Kant the view that any unintended
or unexpected accomplishment of a goal is necessarily a source of pleasure.23
Building on this reading of Kant, Guyer reasons that an aesthetic harmony of the
faculties must be one in which the 'goal of knowledge' — i.e., the unification of the
manifold — is achieved in an unexpected or surprising fashion. He also notes that
Kant characteristically describes the aesthetic response as a pleasure that occurs
'without a concept'. Applying this formula to his understanding of what is
involved in the cognitive harmony of the faculties, Guyer concludes that the
specifically aesthetic relation of the faculties, in which they are in both 'harmony'
and 'free play', must refer to 'a state in which, somehow, a manifold of intuition is
run through and held together as a unity by the imagination without the use of a
concept'.24 This is an achievement of the goal of knowledge in an unexpected and
surprising fashion, since it omits what is normally a necessary condition of unity:
viz., the use of a concept. The fact that the faculties in this state are not restricted
to a particular 'rule of cognition' (i.e., a particular concept) is the reason, Guyer
quite naturally presumes, that Kant calls this harmony a state of'free play'.25
It is with this conception of Kant's theory of aesthetic response in mind that
Guyer takes up the deduction. Based on his construal of the content of the
judgement of taste, Guyer thinks that the deduction must show that we are
justified in attributing specific feelings to particular individuals in particular
circumstances. It must, that is, warrant the prediction that everyone will have
identical pleasurable (or displeasurable) responses under ideal conditions. As
Guyer sees it, Kant attempts to argue from the presupposition of the
commonality of the capacity for cognition to the presupposition of the
commonality of particular aesthetic responses on particular occasions. The
connection between these two assumptions hinges on the further assumption
that aesthetic response is based on the capacity for unifying a manifold of
intuition. On Guyer's reading, Kant tries to argue that, since both the general
capacity for cognition and the capacity for aesthetic response involve the
ability to unify a manifold of intuition, one cannot possess the former without
possessing the latter as well. In short, if the cognitive capacity is universally
shared, so is the capacity for aesthetic response. Since we cannot but assume
that ordinary cognitive capacity is universally shared, we must assume the
same about aesthetic capacity. Moreover, if there is a universally shared
general capacity for aesthetic response, then we can expect that the same
objects will cause the same or similar responses in everyone, at least under ideal
circumstances. Guyer summarizes Kant's alleged line of argument for this
supposed conclusion as follows:
first, since the proportion between imagination and understanding is identical

in both ordinary cognition and aesthetic response, anyone capable of
ordinary cognition is also capable of aesthetic response; and second, since this
proportion is produced in everyone by the same objects in ordinary cases of
cognition, it must also be so produced in the case of aesthetic response.26
Guyer then immediately attacks this line of argument, pointing out a number of
fairly serious problems with it. Two of these seem to be the most important.
First, Guyer notes that the argument of the deduction, as he presents it,
hinges on the notion that both cognition and aesthetic response involve the same
capacity to unify a manifold of intuition. But is this really the same capacity in
the two instances? As we have seen, there is a crucial difference between them:
the cognitive unification takes place by means of a concept, whereas the
aesthetic unification does not. But then it would appear that we have not one, but
two distinct sorts of capacities: the capacity to unify a manifold of intuition under
a concept, and the capacity to unify a manifold without using concepts. Suppose it
is true that we must presuppose in everyone a capacity to unify manifolds under
a concept. Can we not still consistently deny that everyone likewise has the
capacity to unify manifolds without a concept? The argument for keeping the two
cases separate seems even stronger when we recall that the latter case, but not
the former, also involves the additional capacity to connect a pleasure with an
object. How can we suppose that everyone has this additional capacity? So
Guyer observes, 'the general ability to unify a manifold under some empirical
concept or other will not imply the ability to feel this unity without concepts or
detect it in given manifolds with a unique degree of facility'. 27
Second, Guyer objects that even if we grant that the argument warrants the
universal ascription of a general capacity for aesthetic response, it doesn't follow
that we are justified in attributing specific feelings to particular individuals in
particular circumstances.28 In the cognitive case, there is more than one way to
unify a given manifold. It is possible to achieve qualitatively different
perceptions, based on the different concepts that one uses to organize the data
of the senses. For example, different empirical concepts might be used by
competing scientific theories to describe the same data. Another type of case
more germane to aesthetic perception is the ambiguous figure, like the duck-
rabbit: here I may unify the same manifold into two separate pictures,
depending on how I conceptualize it. There is more than one way to unify a
manifold under a concept. There is no reason to suppose that this could not be
true of the aesthetic case as well. But if we grant this possibility, we cannot assume,
Guyer argues, that the responses of everyone will be the same. For it is
conceivable that, while both unifying the manifold without a concept, one
person could unify it in one way, and another person could unify it in a quite
different way. The two cases might, accordingly, produce quite different
'proportions' of the faculties, or different types or degrees of'harmony'. Why
should we suppose that the resultant feelings of pleasure would be the same or
even similar in quantity? Hence, it seems theoretically possible that we could all
share a general capacity for aesthetic response, yet diverge markedly in our
particular judgements of taste.
In sum, Guyer concludes that Kant's theory of taste fails to achieve its central
aim, which is to answer 'Hume's challenge'. The deduction of taste aims to
vindicate the claims of universality and necessity implied in a judgement of taste,
but it is unable to do so. This conclusion, however, is clearly a consequence of
Guyer's assumption that the aim of the deduction is to ground an a priori factual
prediction. But is this actually how Kant thought of the universality and
necessity implied in a judgement of taste? Was Kant really attempting to solve
the same problem as Hume? Or did he perhaps understand the problem of taste
in a markedly different fashion?
4. The Normative Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste
Hume's project in aesthetics looks like a failure. If we view Kant as attempting

basically the same sort of answer — albeit at a transcendental level — to the same
problem as Hume, then he also looks like a failure. Is the result of this first
conception of modern aesthetics therefore a miscarriage? I would like to claim
that the answer to this question is 'no', because the nonsuccess of Kant's project
on the above analysis depends entirely upon the construal of his problem as an
attempted solution in a Humean vein. If the universality of pleasure in the
beautiful is understood as analogous to the universality of colour-perception,
Kant's attempt at a deduction of taste does indeed look hopeless. But is this the
only way to construe Kant's attempt to justify the legitimacy of 'quarrelling'
about taste? The Ogilby—Milton Phenomenon that Hume discovered seems real
enough. But did Hume perhaps misunderstand its significance? Could Kant
perhaps have had a better grasp of what is really going on in cases such as this, in
which we want to insist upon our judgement?
The sense that some aesthetic reactions are just wrong can be construed in
either of two ways. There is Hume's way: the reaction is wrong because it
deviates from the response that would, as a matter of fact, be caused to occur in
the subject according to a universal law of human nature, if certain artificial
hindrances had not interfered with that response. This approach construes the
'wrongness' in essentially factualterms, in relation to an empirically based
conception of human nature. It implicitly relies on the notion of'normal' human
responses, but there is essentially no value-content to this notion of'normality'.
The content of 'normal' here simply reduces to a prediction of what would
uniformly occur — at least in circumstances favourable to the unhindered operation
of the human aesthetic capacity. This notion of a reaction that is wrong or
abnormal is familiar to us from Hume's favoured example of colour judgements.
But there is potentially another, equally familiar way to view an aesthetic
reaction as wrong or abnormal, one with an irreducible normative or evaluative
content. We can, and often do, ask if a feeling of pleasure or displeasure is
warranted or justified — that is, if it is appropriate(to the situation). It seems
plausible to think that our aesthetic reactions to the beautiful in nature and art
might be evaluated in this way as well. We can ask whether certain objects are
theappropriateobjects of aesthetic pleasure or not:oughtthey to be enjoyed (inthis
way)? The normative approach to the universality and necessity of the beautiful
construes these features as based, not on empirical generalizations, but on an a
priori (hence universal and necessary) norm or ground of some sort. Of course, this
approach carries with it new problems of its own. For now we need to explain
how we discover this norm/ground, and how its claim to normative authority is
justified. At the end of the day, these may well be insuperable barriers to
accepting such an account. But we cannot rule it out in advance of testing it —

which is what the Humean reading essentially does. If Kant's text strongly
suggests — as it does in fact — that the normative approach is the one he preferred,
then the interpreter of Kant should see whether or not, or to what extent, Kant
is able to make sense of and justify the (alleged) normative dimension of taste.
The alternative to the Humean interpretation, then, is a thoroughly
normative reading of Kant. According to this reading, when Kant speaks of
the 'universality' and 'necessity' contained in a judgement of taste, he is not
referring to an implicit prediction of universal agreement, as Guyer would have it,
but rather to an implicit demand that everyone agree. In other words, the
normative reading presupposes that judgements of taste are more analogous to
moral judgements than they are to colour judgements. In a moral judgement,
according to Kant, we neither summarize how things actually are, nor predict
how we expect them to be; rather, we issue a demand or imperative regarding
how they ought to be. In no way can this 'ought' be reduced to a non-normative
factual statement. Moral judgements, according to Kant, are said to contain an
imperative (GW 413/24). According to the normative reading, judgements of taste
are similar or analogous to moral judgements in this respect. We might,
therefore, say that judgements of taste contain an 'aesthetic imperative'. 29 The
normative reading asserts the existence of one or more such imperatives.
The preponderance of the evidence in the Critique of Judgment supports the
normative reading. We have already seen that Guyer himself is forced
reluctantly to acknowledge the ubiquity of Kant's normative characterizations
of taste. Such characterizations can be found scattered throughout the Critique of
Judgment, but they are concentrated in three main places: (1) the discussion of
the universality of the judgement of taste in the Second Moment (§§6—8); (2) the
discussion of the necessity of taste in the Fourth Moment (§§18—19); and (3) the
build-up to and aftermath of the deduction of taste in §§31—40. Let us consider
each of these in turn.
We have already noted Kant's contrast, in the Second Moment, between the
beautiful and the merely agreeable. We have seen that, for Kant, someone may
well rest content in reducing his liking for the agreeable to a mere private
preference; by contrast, 'if he proclaims something to be beautiful, he requires
(mutet . . . zu) the same liking from others' (CJ 212/55). In the present context, it
bears emphasis that Kant uses the explicitly normative language of requiring in this
passage.30 This is not an isolated incidence. Later in this same passage, Kant
continues the point by stressing that the individual proclaiming something to be
beautiful 'does not count on other people to agree with his judgment on the
ground that he has repeatedly found them agreeing with him; rather he demands
(fordert)they agree' (CJ 213/56). The universality of taste, in other words, is not
based on empirical facts, as Hume would have it. Rather, its basis is an a priori
normative demand. A little further down, Kant adds that 'in making a
judgment of taste (about the beautiful), we require (ansinnen) everyone to like the
object', and 'in a judgment of taste about beauty we always require (zumutet)
others to agree' (CJ 214/57). Finally, he proclaims that 'the judgment of taste
does not postulate (postulieren) everyone's agreement . . ., it merely requires (sinnt . . .

an) this agreement from everyone' (CJ 216/60). All of the terms Kant uses here —
Ziimuten,fordern, ansinnen — contain a normative connotation in ordinary German.
Moreover, Kant explicitly contrasts this normative content with the factual
claim that we can 'count on' or 'postulate' everyone's agreement. It would seem,
then, that Kant couldn't have made himself clearer: the universal validity of the
judgement of taste is normative, as opposed to being factual or theoretical in
nature.
The normative reading also gets support from the opening sections of the
Fourth Moment, which introduce the notion of the necessity of the judgement of
taste. Kant claims here that the beautiful is 'the object of a necessary liking' (CJ
240/90). He explicitly says, however, that the notion of necessity in question 'is
not a theoretical objective necessity, allowing us to cognize a priori that everyone
will feel this liking for the object I call beautiful' (CJ 236-7/85). Kant thereby
unequivocally reaffirms his rejection of the Humean view of the beautiful. The
judgement of taste for Kant evidently does not rest on the presupposition that
everyone will necessarily like a certain object. Instead, Kant says, 'a judgment of
taste requires (sinnt . . . an] everyone to assent; and whoever declares something
to be beautiful holds that everyone ought (solle] to give his approval to the object
at hand and that he too should (solle] declare it beautiful' (CJ 237/86). Finally,
Kant ends this passage with an explicit mention of the idea that the judgement
of taste contains or implies something like an aesthetic imperative. He refers
explicitly here to 'the ought (Das Sollen) in an aesthetic judgment', which he says
we utter in the act of making such a judgement (ibid.).
Lastly, we also find a predominance of normative language in the build-up to,
and aftermath of the deduction of taste in §§31^fO. In these sections, Kant
restates (after the intervening 'Analytic of the Sublime') many of the main
features of his analysis of the judgement of taste in preparation for the deduction.
Kant once again says that the judgement of taste 'demands (fordert] everyone's
assent', and that, in making these judgements, we make a 'demand (Anspruch)
that everyone assent' (CJ 280/143; 289/153). In several places in these sections,
he repeats his contention that we 'require' (ansinnt, angesonnen) a pleasure or
liking from everyone in the judgment of taste (CJ 288/152; 290/155). Finally, in
§40, he makes perhaps his strongest claim yet on behalf of the normative
character of taste, maintaining that 'we require (zugemutet) from everyone as a
duty, as it were (gleichsam als Pflicht), the feeling contained in the judgment of
taste' (CJ 296/162). Here Kant goes as far as he ever does in assimilating the
moral and the aesthetic imperatives.
The evidence of these passages strongly supports the view that a normative
demand, as opposed to a factual prediction, is, for Kant, the content that he
refers to as the universality and necessity of the judgement of taste. Because he
construes the universality of the judgement of taste differently, Kant is not
dealing with quite the same problem as Hume. Consequently, the sorts of
objections that undermine the Humean theory of taste have no obvious
pertinence to Kant. We have seen that, on Guyer's reading, the ultimate aim of
Kant's theory of taste is to justify the assumption that the same objects will cause
the same or similar responses in everyone, at least under ideal circumstances.
Guyer then raises objections to the arguments supposedly intended by Kant to
support this conclusion. But, according to the normative reading, Kant is
committed to no such assumption. Consequently, the objections Guyer raises are
not obviously relevant to Kant.
Or so it would seem. Guyer, however, has raised the question whether the
normative reading is really immune from the objections he makes against the
deduction of taste. In the introduction to his Kant and the Experience of Freedom, in
which he responds to critics of Kant and the Claims of Taste, Guyer acknowledges
that 'we must distinguish between grounds for defending the rational
expectation that others will agree with our own aesthetic responses, and
grounds for demanding . . . that they ought to agree.'31 He argues, however, that
the latter actually depends upon the former — that the defence of the demand that
everyone ought to agree hinges on the rational expectation that they will agree.
He is concerned to respond specifically to one version of the normative reading in
particular: what I have called the 'moralistic reading'. On this version of the
normative reading, the aesthetic imperative (the 'ought' implied by a judgement
of taste) is a (sort of) moral imperative; the demand of taste is simply a moral
demand. 32 Advocates of the moralistic reading had responded to Guyer's
objections to the deduction of taste by claiming that any deficiencies in the
deduction could be overcome by an appeal to a moral obligation to take
pleasure in beautiful objects.33 But there is one fatal flaw in this response,
according to Guyer:
any moral ground for the desirability of agreement in taste would not itself
supply additional reasons for expecting such agreement, but would rather
seem to presuppose that we already have adequate grounds for such an
expectation, on the general principle that 'ought' implies 'can,' that is,
morality can only demand of us what is indeed in our power, [my emphasis]34
In other words, it is a fatal objection to any putative moral demand that the
demand is, in fact, impossible to fulfil. Consequently, the moralistic reading
must already be presupposing that universal agreement is possible; otherwise, the
moral demand to realize this agreement would be illegitimate. But what is the
ground for this presupposition? Isn't the moralistic reading just begging the (i.e.,
Guyer's) question? This is Guyer's challenge.
One response to this challenge might be simply to reject the moralistic version
of the normative reading. Since I believe that there is a kernel of truth in the
moralistic reading, I want to avoid doing that. Instead, I believe the proper
solution is to restrict the moralistic reading to cover only part of the normative
demand contained in a judgement of taste. In the next section, I shall give a
text-based argument for doing this. Before beginning that task, however, I want
to address two questions. First, does an advocate of the moralistic reading in fact
have to possess an independentproof of the viability of universal agreement, as
Guyer alleges? Second, assuming that it applies to the moralistic reading, to

what extent is Guyer's objection more generally applicable? Does Guyer's
objection hold for any version of the normative reading, or only for the moralistic
version?
In addressing the question whether an advocate of the moralistic reading has
to possess an independent proof of the viability of universal agreement in matters
of taste, the devil is clearly in the details. There is a standard version of the
moralistic reading that does indeed seem vulnerable to Guyer's attack. This
version argues that we have a moral obligation to take pleasure in the beautiful
because, according to Kant, 'beauty is a symbol of morality'. Advocates of this
reading usually claim that, because beauty is a symbol of morality, attention to
it prepares us in some way for carrying out our moral duties. 35 This is why the
beautiful is the object of a universal moral demand. There are two major
questions (at least) that arise in connection with this view: (1) Why should we
think that beauty is a symbol of morality? (2) Supposing that it is, how does this
fact imply that the beautiful prepares us to be morally good? For present
purposes, we can afford to ignore the second question. The moralistic reading
runs into trouble with Guyer's challenge because of the answer it seems to be
required to give to the first. Kant's claim that 'beauty is a symbol of morality'
can be given a variety of interpretations. It seems to be a reasonable propositon,
however, that a central part of the symbolic relation between beauty and
morality rests upon an analogy between the two.36 Beauty and morality, that is,
share certain central features or properties, and this grounds a relation of
analogy between them. One of the most important among these properties is the
universality of both beauty and morality.37 Here we can see the problem. Beauty
symbolizes morality only if it is analogous to morality, but it is analogous to
morality only if it is universally valid. Consequently, one cannot, on pain of
circularity, base beauty's claim to universal validity on the fact that it symbolizes
morality. What is needed is some independentsense in which the beautiful can be
said to be universal. For Guyer, this is naturally the Humean sense of
universality: an empirical matter of fact regarding universal agreement. I will
argue, on the other hand, that there is another independent sense in which the
beautiful can be said to be universal — one which is thoroughly normative. This
possibility is all that is needed in order to avoid this particular problem, which
arises only for this specific version of the moralistic reading.
Guyer, however, poses a challenge that claims to be more extensive than the
particular problem just discussed. He makes a general point that purports to
cover any and all versions of the moralistic reading (and even, it seams, all other
versions of the formative reading as well). Guyer's claim is that, in order for a
putative moral obligation to appreciate the beautiful to be really and truly
universally valid — that is to say, for it to be really morally valid, in Kant's sense —
we must be able to show antecedently that what it demands — in this case, universal
agreement — is possible. How big a problem is this for the moralistic reading?
The answer to this question turns on whether Guyer can give us supporting
grounds for his claim, which, as far as I can see, he does not. It is true that Kant
clearly assumes that "ought" implies "can"; however, this is a distinct claim from
Guyer's thesis, which is that the 'can' must be demonstrated independently of the
'ought'. As far as I can see, Guyer's assumption goes beyond anything to which
Kant is committed. Why, then, should the advocate of the moralistic reading
accept it? It seems perfectly acceptable for one to hold the contrary assumption:
' 'ought' implies 'can'' does not in any way entail that the 'can' must be justified
independently of the 'ought'. Moreover, the converse might even be true: an
'ought' claim might even be able to justify, on its own, a 'can' claim. As Guyer is
surely aware, Kant himself seems not only to have made the latter assumption,
but even to have relied heavily upon it for the crucial arguments linking morality
to religion. In the moral proofs for God and immortality, Kant employs the
'ought'-implies-can' claim in such a way as to establish real metaphysical
possibilities on the basis of the presumption that certain moral obligations exist.38
His procedure, in other words, is just the opposite of what Guyer claims. There is,
consequently, no reason to consider Guyer's challenge to be a general problem
even for all versions of the moralistic reading.
I have just given reasons for doubting that Guyer's challenge is a general
worry for all versions of the moralistic reading; it is, at most, a problem only for
one specific version of that reading. But suppose that the moralistic reading was,
in fact, susceptible to the difficulty that Guyer suggests. This still would not
imply that the normative reading as such was suspect. Guyer concentrates his
attention, with good reason, on the moralistic version of the normative reading.
While it is true that this version traditionally has been the most widely accepted,
moral normativity is certainly not the only possible form of normativity.
Beginning in the next section and continuing in the following chapters, I shall
demonstrate that there is, for Kant, a purely cognitive or epistemic normativity.
The universal demand in a judgement of taste to take pleasure in an object, I shall
argue, is ultimately derived from this source. Does the legitimacy of a cognitive
or epistemic demand to fulfil a certain cognitive or epistemic goal require an
independent demonstration of the viability of that goal? It is no more clear in the
cognitive case that this is so than it was in the moral case. In order to distinguish
itself from the Humean reading, the 'cognitive' version of the normative reading
must presuppose a cognitive or epistemic demand that is normative 'all the way
down'; in other words, this demand can at no point be reduced to a disguised
statement of empirical fact. The 'ought' in the judgement of taste, as it is in a
moral judgement, is always an 'ought' — but in this case, it is a (quasi) cognitive
or epistemic ought. 39 This 'ought' no doubt requires legitimation; but it is far
from obvious that the legitimating argument needs to take the form of a defence
of a prediction of universal concurrence in actual judgements of taste. The exact
nature of the required argument will depend, of course, on how one understands
the (admittedly obscure) notion of 'cognitive or epistemic' normativity. The
sense that will emerge in the succeeding chapters is one in which cognitive
normativity, like moral normativity for Kant, is rooted in an a priori notion of the
proper or ideal functioning of our faculties. The legitimating argument for the
demands of taste, therefore, will depend upon linking judgements of taste to a
cognitive or epistemic notion of proper function. This notion of'proper function'

is not developed in order to defend a Humean prediction of universal agreement
— no more than Kant's notion of the proper functioning of the will is developed
in order to defend a prediction about how people actually behave. Rather, as
with the moral notion, this notion of proper cognitive function is used as an
abstract and a priori standard for assessing actual judgements. Despite some
superficial similiarities, the problem of legitimating such a standard will turn out
to be an entirely separate and independent problem from Hume's problem of
justifying the presupposition of agreement among all 'true judges'. Or so I hope
to show in the succeeding chapters.
5. The Two Demands in the Judgement of Taste
In this final section, I take the normative reading of Kant's judgement of taste
for granted, and take up a new issue, that of the specific nature of the normative
content of the judgement of taste. The evidence of the passages discussed above
suggests that Kant is committed to the existence of an aesthetic imperative
contained in the judgement of taste. But whether there is only a single unitary
imperative, as these passages might initially suggest, or whether there is in fact
more than one such imperative, is a separate issue. I shall argue that, in fact, the
appearance of a single unitary imperative is misleading, and that there is
actually a fundamental ambiguity in Kant's discussion of the aesthetic
imperative. In some passages, he speaks as if it is a moral imperative, or at
least in some way dependent upon morality. In other passages, however, he
appears to distinguish clearly between an aesthetic and a moral imperative, and
to deny that the former has anything to do with the latter. I shall suggest that, in
order to resolve this ambiguity, we must distinguish between two distinct
imperatives contained within the judgement of taste.40 The first of these is the
pleasure-imperative, or the demand that a particular object ought to be found pleasing.
The second is the attention-imperative, or the additional demand that one's attention
ought to be given to the object. On the account that I shall propose, the first
imperative is entirely independent of morality, whereas the second is not. Only
the first involves a distinctively aesthetic normativity; the second properly pertains
to the use that morality makes of aesthetic experience. Consequently, it is beyond
the narrow focus of this study.
In defining the 'necessity' contained in a judgement of taste, Kant clearly
indicates that it is not to be understood as a moral or practical necessity. In the
Fourth Moment (§18) he calls the necessity involved in taste 'exemplary'
necessity, which he says refers to 'a necessity of the assent of everyoneto a
judgment that is regarded as an example of a universal rule that we are unable
to state' (CJ 237/85). We have already seen how Kant denies that this sort of
necessity has anything to do with the theoretical necessity on which one might
base a factual prediction. However, according to Kant, exemplary necessity is
also not 'a practical objective necessity, where, through concepts of a pure
rational will that serves freely acting beings as a rule, this liking is the necessary
consequence of an objective law and means nothing other than that one
absolutely . . . ought to act in a certain way' (ibid.). In other words, the necessity
of taste is not based on any kind of principle of practical reason, specifically
including the moral law. Kant repeats the same point later on in §31, where he
denies that the judgement of taste is one 'which says that I ought to carry
something out so as to produce a [certain] thing' (CJ 143/280). Once again, any
connection between aesthetic and practical normativity is evidently ruled out.
In the above passages, Kant seems unambiguously to deny that the aesthetic
imperative contained in a judgement of taste is a moral imperative. In other
passages, however, he appears just as clearly to endorse the opposite position. In
these passages, Kant implies that the normativity of the judgement of taste rests
upon a moral basis. First, at the end of the Fourth Moment (§22), Kant
considers whether taste might be 'an ability yet to be acquired and [therefore]
artificial, so that a judgment of taste with its requirement for universal assent is
in fact only a demand of reason to produce such agreement in the way we sense' (my
emphasis) (CJ 240/90). This passage seems to directly contradict the last one,
where Kant denied that the aesthetic 'ought' involved a rational requirement to
produce anything. Admittedly, here Kant is only considering this possibility
(that the aesthetic imperative is based in practical reason) as a hypothesis; but
his tone indicates that it is a hypothesis that he intends to confirm later on. And
in fact, there is a clear attempt to make just such a connection between beauty
and morality in §§41^4-2, which discuss our 'interest' in the beautiful. In setting
up the problem of these sections in §40, Kant writes:
If we could assume that the mere universal communicability as such of our

feeling must already carry an interest for us ... then we could explain how it
is that we require from everyone as a duty, as it were, the feeling [contained]
in a judgment of taste. (CJ 296/162)
The 'duty' mentioned here unquestionably refers to the aesthetic imperative that
makes up the normative content of the judgement of taste. Kant is saying that in
order to legitimate this imperative or demand, we have to show how taste carries
an interest for us. Since, in §42, Kant will go on to conclude that this interest is
one that is grounded in morality, it would seem that he is committed to the
proposition that the aesthetic imperative in the judgement of taste has a moral
basis. This conclusion is confirmed in one last place in the Critique of Aesthetic
Judgment, Kant's discussion of'beauty as a symbol of morality' in §59. Here Kant
says that 'only because we refer (Riicksicht) the beautiful to the morally good . . .
does our liking for it include a claim to everyone else's assent' (CJ 353/228).
Once again, he seems to be indicating that the normativity of taste depends
upon morality.
If we take the aesthetic imperative in the judgement of taste to be a single,
unitary demand — say, a demand for 'agreement' in our 'judgements' — then it is
difficult to reconcile Kant's conflicting characterizations of this demand. Put
simply, a demand cannot be at once moral and at the same time independent of
morality. There is, however, the possibility that the normative content of the
judgement of taste is actually complex — that it contains more than one distinct
imperative. On this proposal, the demand for 'agreement' in our 'judgements' is
actually ambiguous. I see two possibilities here, which I shall consider in turn.
On the more basic level, any such demand must pertain to the pleasure we take
in such judgements. As we have seen, Kant, like Hume, is committed to the view
that the judgement of taste is based upon a feeling of pleasure (or displeasure, in
the case of negative judgements). This is, in fact, what Kant means by his claim
that 'a judgment of taste is aesthetic'; the term 'aesthetic' pertains to sensation,
and by extension to pleasure (CJ 203—204/44). So having a basis in pleasure is an
essential feature of a judgement of taste, insofar as it is aesthetic. Agreement in
these judgements can thus only be demanded if the pleasure on which they must
be based can be demanded. Consequently, the judgement of taste must contain a
'pleasure-imperative': the demand that a particular object ought to be found
pleasing, or that pleasure ought to be taken in it. This imperative captures our
ordinary intuition that there is something appropriate about taking pleasure in a
beautiful object, or that a pleasure is owed to the object. Kant himself appears to
endorse this idea when he says that 'to say, This flower is beautiful, is
tantamount to a mere repetition of the flower's own claim to everyone's liking'
(my emphasis) (CJ 281-282/145). The idea that pleasure is 'owed' to a
particular object is the counterpart of the idea that it can be legitimately
demanded.
The normative dimension of the judgement of taste must include the
pleasure-imperative. But this does not necessarily exhaust its possible content.
Ordinary aesthetic discourse allows for, perhaps even requires, a second 'layer'
of normativity in the judgement of taste. When we say that something is
beautiful, we do not merely imply that the object is an appropriate occasion for
pleasure; we also imply that it is somehow important or significant, such that we
owe it our attention. We might summarize this point by making the blatantly
obvious observation that beauty, in addition to being a property (of the object or
viewing subject), is a value. Beauty is something that we treat as if it has a certain
inherent dignity and respectability; we expect deference to beauty. Beauty is
something in which civilized and humane individuals are expected to take an
interest. Someone with no interest in beautiful objects is usually considered to be
mildly contemptible, or even somewhat morally suspect. (We might consider, in
this connection, the connotations of the word 'philistine'.) Kant himself notes
this fact, observing that, when a person demands agreement in taste from
someone else, he 'reproaches (tadelt] them if they judge differently, and denies
that they have taste, which he nevertheless demands of them as something that
they ought to have' (CJ 213/56). Here Kant uses the term tadeln — reproach or
rebuke — which is only appropriate within the context of a negative evaluation of
someone's conduct. This evaluative dimension of taste is not obviously accounted
for by the fact that beauty is a source of pleasure (even a necessary pleasure);
many sources of pleasure are held in low esteem. Rather, what seems to be at
issue is the legitimacy of a distinct 'attention-imperative'. The demand that we

give our attention to an object is separable from the demand that we take
pleasure in it. They constitute two distinct imperatives.
Let me now sum up my position. On the interpretation being proposed here,
the aesthetic imperative to 'agree' in our 'judgements' is ambiguous between two
different demands. It could mean either (1) we ought to agree in the pleasure we
take in the object (a feeling that forms the basis for the aesthetic judgement), or
else that (2) we ought to agree in the attention we give to it (an act which makes
taking pleasure in the object possible in the first place). Keeping this distinction
between the pleasure-imperative and the attention-imperative in mind, we can
resolve the tension between Kant's various characterizations of the normativity
of taste. When Kant denies that 'exemplary necessity' is a moral necessity, he
means to deny only that the pleasure-imperative is grounded in morality. When
he says that it is only because we refer the beautiful to the morally good that it
commands everyone's assent (and similar things), he is referring merely to the
demand on our attention, the attention-imperative. A full defence of this reading
would require a detailed working-out of Kant's attempts to ground each of these
two distinct imperatives. I shall not attempt to complete that entire task in the
present study. Instead, I shall restrict myself to the first and more basic of the
two demands, the pleasure-imperative. There are two main reasons for this. The
primary reason for so limiting myself is that it is only in the case of the pleasure-
imperative that Kant uncovers a uniquely aesthetic form of normativity. While it
is true that this normativity is rooted in the norms of proper cognitive
functioning, it cannot be reduced to merely the norm of successful cognition.
The justification of the attention-imperative, on the other hand, is based purely
on the instrumental use that morality makes of aesthetic experience.
Consequently, it properly belongs, in my view, to moral philosophy rather
than aesthetics. Second, I must confess that I do not find Kant's justification of
the attention-imperative very convincing. This justification appeals to Kant's
particular conception of morality, and even more controversially, to his linking
of morality with religion. Since I do not regard these doctrines as a promising
basis for an account of the value of the beautiful, I see little besides historical
interest in this aspect of Kant's philosophy of taste. For these reasons, the present
study deals with the pleasure-imperative alone, and abstracts from the question
of the value of the experience of the beautiful.
6. Conclusions
In this chapter, I have argued that Kant and Hume, despite superficial
similarities, are actually engaged with importantly different projects. Both
philosophers recognize a tension between two of our ordinary convictions about
taste. On the one hand, taste is connected to the personal liking for an object,
while, on the other hand, a judgement of taste claims more than merely personal
validity. But while they both see the judgement of taste as being based on a
universally valid pleasure, they have different conceptions of what that universal
validity is. For Hume, the universal validity of taste is reducible to an empirical
prediction of universal agreement in response under ideal conditions. It flows
from a supposed universal human sensibility of beauty, which, it is hypothesized,
would cause universal, empirically verifiable agreement among all subjects in
their judgements of taste, were it not for the existence of certain mental defects in
particular judges. Hume's theory depends upon an empirical claim — the claim
that all 'true judges' would agree in matters of taste; it is on this claim that his
hypothesis of a universal beauty-sensibility rests. The problem is that this
empirical claim does not seem to admit of confirmation. Hume's positing of a
'true judge' whom we can never certainly identify gives us no reason to presume
that there is a universal human sensibility of beauty.
Kant, on the other hand, ought not to be read as if he understood the
universal validity of the judgement of taste as involving a prediction of universal
agreement in human responses under ideal conditions. If we understand him in
this way, as Paul Guyer does, we are likely to share Guyer's conclusion: the
project of Kant's theory of taste, which is to ground this empirical prediction a
priori, is ultimately a failure. Instead, we should take seriously Kant's language
that clearly suggests a purely normative reading of the universal validity of taste:
when Kant speaks of the 'universality' and 'necessity' contained in a judgement
of taste, he is not referring to an implicit prediction of universal agreement, as
Guyer would have it, but rather to an implicit demand that everyone agree. This
demand should not, however, be construed as a simple moral demand. Rather,
it is a complex demand with both moral and non-moral components. The non-
moral component is of particular interest, for it is here that Kant discovers a
uniquely aesthetic mode of normativity. Kant's attempt to ground the demand
for aesthetic pleasure, we should expect, will look very different from Hume's
attempt to ground a universally valid prediction. It is to this attempt that I now
turn.
Chapter II
The Problem of Free Play

In this chapter, I begin to lay the theoretical groundwork for an account of
Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative. Preliminary to this account is an
explication of Kant's theory of the sources of pleasure in the beautiful, which is,
on my view, composed of two intimately interwoven parts. The first part is
Kant's theory of the psychological process involved in the pleasurable response
to the beautiful, which one might call its 'subjective pole'. The second part is his
theory of what we might call the 'phenomenology' of the beautiful object, or the
'objective pole' of the beautiful. These two components of Kant's theory of taste
are often treated separately, but it is my conviction that to do so is a mistake.
One cannot, on my view, arrive at an adequate understanding of Kant's views
about the psychology of the beautiful without considering his account of its
phenomenology. To illustrate this, in this chapter I lay out the basic interpretive
problems that arise in considering Kant's psychology of the beautiful, and show
how even the best attempt at solving them contains troubling lacunae. In the
next chapter, I shall consider additional interpretive problems that obscure our
understanding of Kant's phenomenology of the object of beauty. This will set the
stage for an enriched account of that phenomenology in Chapter IV, leading to
a resolution of the problems.
The key concept in Kant's psychology of the beautiful is his notion of the
harmony of the faculties in free play. This notion is central to his attempt to
explain and justify our aesthetic response to the beautiful, yet it has also long
been recognized as problematic. The basic problem can be summarized in this
way. Kant wants to justify the claim to universal validity of the pleasure in the
beautiful by explaining this pleasure as the result of the mental state of the
harmony of the faculties of imagination and understanding. Some such
harmony, according to Kant, is also at the basis of empirical perception. 1 Since
empirical perception is universally valid, it is arguable that the pleasure in the
beautiful, which is (allegedly) based on a similar mental state, must be
universally valid as well. This, at any rate, is the argumentative strategy that
Kant will employ in the transcendental deduction of taste. On the other hand,
the pleasurable perception of the beautiful is also obviously different from a mere
empirical perception. Consequently, Kant needs a way to differentiate the
harmony of the faculties underlying the pleasure in the beautiful from the
harmony of the faculties underlying ordinary perception. His way of doing this is
to claim that, in the aesthetic case of harmony, the imagination is in 'free play',
whereas in the ordinary case it is not. This move gives rise, however, to a major
problem in the interpretation of Kant's aesthetics: how are we to understand this
metaphor of 'free play'? What does it mean for the imagination to be both free,
and yet 'in harmony' with the understanding? How exactly is aesthetic
perception of the beautiful like, and how is it unlike regular empirical perception?
Is it sufficiently similar to empirical perception to allow the deduction of the
universal validity of taste to go through, yet sufficiently dissimilar to preserve the
distinction between ordinary perception and perception of the beautiful? These
are the main questions that an account of the free harmony of the faculties must
strive to answer. In what follows, I examine in some detail the most frequently
discussed passages in which Kant lays out his conception of this free harmony,
and their background sources in his earlier theoretical writings. Drawing upon
the work of Henry Allison and others, I shall outline the sort of explanation of
Kant's conception of the harmony of the faculties in free play that seems to
follow most directly from these sources, and raise a number of questions about
the adequacy of such an explanation. The deficiencies of the preliminary
interpretation of free play that I lay out here will then be addressed in the
enriched account of free play provided in the succeeding chapters.
2. Introduction to the Harmony of the

Faculties in Free Play
The notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play is first introduced into the
Critique of Aesthetic Judgmentat the end of the Second Moment of the Analytic of
the Beautiful, in Section Nine. 2 This section is billed as an 'Investigation of the
Question Whether in a Judgment of Taste the Feeling of Pleasure Precedes the
Judging of the Object or the Judging Precedes the Pleasure' (CJ 216/61). Kant
says that the 'solution of this problem is the key to the critique of taste and hence
deserves full attention' (ibid.). In the dense argument that follows, he argues
that there must be a 'judging (Beurteilung) of the object' which is the source of the
pleasure in the beautiful (ibid.). This 'judging' is evidently distinct from the
verdict that we express when we say that an object is beautiful; for Kant has
already committed himself to the view that, as an aesthetic judgement, this verdict
must be based on a feeling of pleasure, which therefore precedes it.3 In fact, the
context makes it quite clear that the 'judging' that is the source of pleasure in the
beautiful is nothing of the order of a proposition or statement. Rather, Kant is
using the term 'judging' here to refer to a mental state that precedes aesthetic
pleasure and is capable of accounting for the universal validity of that pleasure. 4
Kant's initial claim, then, is that there must be a universally valid mental
state 'which underlies the judgment of taste as its subjective condition, and the
pleasure in the object must be its consequence' (CJ 217/61). He bases this claim
The Problem of Free Play 39
on the presumption that, without such a basis, a pleasure 'by its very nature could
only have private validity' (ibid.). The thought here is presumably the same as
the point made in the First Moment (cited in the Introduction and the last
chapter) that pleasure is unique among mental states in having a reference only
to the subject, and not to the object. Kant's next step is to argue that the basis in
question 'can be nothing other than the mental state that we find in the relation
between the representational powers insofar as they refer a given representation
to cognition in general' (CJ 217/61—62). Since Kant is referring to a 'given
representation', the mental state in question must be the relation between the
mental powers found in empirical perception. His argument for this conclusion
employs a new term, 'universal communicability', that he does not explain.5 The
argument proceeds as follows. (1) The pleasure that is expressed in the
judgement of taste must be 'universally communicable'. (2) This pleasure must
therefore be the consequence of a universally communicable mental state. (3)
'Nothing, however, can be communicated universally expect cognition, as well
as representation insofar as it pertains to cognition' (CJ 217/61). (4) The
judgement of taste has a 'merely subjective determining basis, i.e., one that does
not involve a concept of the object' (ibid.). (5) Therefore, its basis can be
nothing other than the mental state in which the cognitive faculties 'are in free
play, because no determinate concept restricts them to a particular rule of
cognition' (CJ 217/62).
This argument concludes that the state underlying pleasure in the beautiful
must be the harmony of the faculties in free play, and does so from the
combination of two supposed facts. First, because this pleasure is universal, Kant
supposes that it can only be based on a state related to cognition.^ Second, because
the state on which the judgement of taste is based is revealed through a feeling,
rather than through a rule or concept, it cannot actually be a cognition, nor can its
universality be derived from the universality of a concept. What the
combination of these two facts requires is a mental state that is akin to cognition,
without actually being cognition. Free play, as Kant describes it, fits the bill. It
involves the interaction of the imagination and the understanding, which are the
two faculties whose cooperation is required for cognition. In cognition, the
imagination is required to 'combine the manifold of intuition', while the
understanding provides 'the unity of the concept uniting the representations'
(ibid.). However, in free play, Kant says, these two faculties do not involve the
unification of representations under a concept, but rather a 'reciprocal harmony'
which 'can reveal itself only through sensation' (CJ 219/63). He equates this
'sensation' with the 'quickening (Belebung] of the two powers . . . to an activity
that is indeterminate but . . . yet nonetheless accordant: the activity required for
cognition in general' (ibid.). Kant summarizes all of this in the idea of the
'facilitated play of the two mental powers (imagination and understanding)
quickened (belebten) by their reciprocal harmony' (ibid.).
The notion of free play is thus evidently intended to provide a link between
cognition, on the one side, and aesthetic pleasure, on the other. This is the link
that will supply the basis for the universal validity of pleasure in the beautiful.
Unfortunately, the description of free play in §9 can hardly be said to provide us

with a clear view of this link. The obscurity that we find in these passages is due
to a significant extent to their evident presupposition of a theory of cognition
that they do not elaborate. For a fuller account of this theory, we must turn to
other sources.
In §9, Kant describes the harmony of the faculties as an activity that is
'required for cognition in general' (CJ 219/63). This description alludes to the
fact that the notion of the harmony between the faculties is central to the
transcendental psychological theory of empirical perception put forth in the
Critique of Pure Reason.1 This psychological theory is referred to explicitly in an
important passage in the 'First Introduction' to the Critique of Judgment, Section
VII. 8 There Kant informs his readers that:
Every empirical concept requires three acts of the spontaneous cognitive

power: (1) apprehension (apprehensio) of the manifold of intuition; (2)
comprehension (^usammenfassung) of this manifold, i.e., synthetic unity of the
consciousness of this manifold, in the concept of an object (apperceptio
comprehensiva]', (3) exhibition (exhibitio], in intuition, of the object correspond-
ing to this concept. For the first of these acts we need imagination; for the
second understanding; for the third, judgment . . . (FI 220/408)
Kant is here obscurely referring to the necessary requirements for the

simultaneously conceptual and perceptual grasp of an empirical object. This
grasp requires the apprehension of a manifold of sensible intuition, the
comprehension of this manifold in a single consciousness, and, corresponding
to this unified consciousness, the exhibiting (or presenting) of a unified object to
the mind. These, according to Kant's theory, are the cognitive processes
involved in every act of empirical perception. They require the cooperation — the
harmony, in other words — of the imagination and understanding (and
judgement). 9 These processes, however, are also involved in what Kant here calls
'an aesthetic judgment of reflection' — that is, a judgement of taste (FI 221/409).
According to him, this aesthetic type of judgement has its own harmony of the
faculties, which he describes as follows:
if the form of an object given in empirical intuition is of such a character that

the apprehension, in the imagination, of the object's manifold agrees with the
exhibition of a concept of the understanding (which concept this is being
indeterminate), then the imagination and understanding are — in mere
reflection — in mutual harmony, a harmony that furthers the task of these
powers. (FI 221/408-409)
This is a rich and evocative passage that holds out the promise of clarifying the
notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play — z/~we can first achieve clarity
regarding the details of the psychological processes of 'apprehension' and
'exhibition', so that we can see how they might be in agreement or not. For this,
we must turn to the First Critique. But evidently the notion of'mere reflection' is
also crucial here. For an account of this notion, we must turn to Kant's Logic. In
the next section, I undertake the task of examining these essential texts.
3. Background to Free Play

The mention of 'three acts of the spontaneous cognitive power' in the First
Introduction to the Critique of Judgment calls to mind the 'threefold synthesis that
is necessarily found in all cognition' that Kant describes in the 'A' Edition
version of the transcendental deduction of the categories in the Critique of Pure
Reason (A 97; 228). The account of this threefold synthesis is intended to advance
the general task of the deduction, which is to show that the a priori or 'pure'
concepts of the understanding are 'a priori conditions on which the possibility of
experience depends' (A 96; 227). The deduction proceeds by first investigating
what Kant calls 'the subjective sources that comprise the a priori foundations for
the possibility of experience' (A 97; 227). These 'subjective sources' are the
psychological processes by which the mind cognizes empirical objects. The
ultimate goal of the A-Deduction is to show that these 'subjective sources' make
cognition itself possible. For our present purposes, it is Kant's initial treatment of
the threefold synthesis that is most relevant, for he begins the A-Deduction with
an account of how these sources of cognition function at the empirical level, that
is, how they relate to empirically given representations. The transcendental
treatment of the threefold synthesis examines the relation between our cognitive
faculties and objects of experience in general.10
The key notion in Kant's account of these processes is synthesis. According
to his general definition of this notion, 'synthesis' refers to 'the action of
putting different representations together with each other and comprehending
their manifoldness in one cognition' (A 77/B 103; 210). On Kant's view, every
object of experience involves a synthesis or combination of a manifold of
representations to form a 'unity' (A 99; 229). Kant justifies this view about the
necessity of synthesis on the grounds that, if'every individual representation
were entirely foreign to the other, as it were isolated and separated from it,
then there would never arise anything like cognition, which is a whole of
compared and connected representations' (A 97; 227—228). In other words,
actual knowledge or 'objective' cognition, as opposed to the mere 'subjective
play' of discrete representations, depends upon connecting various represen-
tations to one another, or putting them together so that they form an
integrated unit. 'Synthesis' is Kant's term for this mental process of putting-
together. He views synthesis as an active process, requiring 'spontaneous'
mental faculties of understanding and imagination in addition to the passive,
receptive faculty of sensibility, through which we first receive representations.
The process of empirical cognition has, according to Kant, three distinct
layers or 'moments', and is, consequently, termed a 'threefold synthesis'. In
expositing these three moments, Kant proceeds regressively, with each
successive layer of synthesis considered as a condition of the possibility of the

previous one. In reverse order of logical priority, these three syntheses are
those of 'apprehension in intuition', 'reproduction in imagination' and
'recognition in concept' (A 98-102; 228-230). u
First Kant considers the synthesis of apprehension in intuition. 'Intuition' is
his term for that through which cognition relates immediately to objects' (A 19/
B 33; 155). In human beings, this immediate relation 'takes place only insofar as
the object is given to us'; and objects are given to us only 'by means of sensibility'
(ibid.). An intuition, in sum, is the mind's immediate and receptive relating to
an object through a sensible impression (sensation). Kant also notes that every
intuition 'contains a manifold [of representations] in itself (A 99; 228). In other
words, every sensible intuition contains an inner complexity and articulation of
parts, and can be analysed into component elements. A further basic feature of
Kant's understanding of human sensible intuitions is their occurrence in time, c as
that in which they must all be ordered, connected, and brought into relations'
(ibid.). We always perceive sensations in time, or successively. To distinguish the
elements in a manifold of intuition, therefore, the mind must 'distinguish the
time in the succession of impressions on one another' (ibid.). In other words, I
must be aware that and how each representation occurred prior or subsequent to
another preceding representation. However, in order for unity to come from the
manifold of successive impressions, they must be 'run through' and 'taken
together' as 'in one representation' (A 99; 229). The mind, that is, must be
capable of comprehending at once the entire series of successively occurring
impressions. This 'running through' and 'taking together' is what Kant calls the
'synthesis of apprehension'.
Apprehension, however, presupposes a synthesis of reproduction. That is, it
presupposes that the preceding impressions are reproducedwhen the mind
proceeds to succeeding ones. Kant observes that in order to cognize the drawing
of a line, or the time from one noon to the next, T must necessarily first grasp
these manifold representations one after the other' (A 102; 230). However,
if I were always to lose the preceding representations (the first parts of the
line, the preceding parts of time, or the successively represented units) from
my thoughts and not reproduce them when I proceed to the following ones,
then no whole representation and none of the previously mentioned thoughts
[i.e., of the parts of a line, of the time between noons] . . . could ever arise.
(ibid.)
The 'reproduction' involved here is the representation of impressions that were

once, but are no longer, directly sensed or intuited. This function is assigned to
the imagination (Einbildungskrqft), which is, according to Kant, 'the faculty for
representing an object even without its presence in intuition' (B 151; 256). The
imagination, in his view, is essential to our ability to represent to ourselves
objects that can be directly intuited only as a succession of discrete parts as unities
or wholes. Such objects include not only lines and times of day (the two examples
Kant mentions in the passage above), but also, presumably, three-dimensional

objects, of which I can only get a complete idea by successively observing their
different sides, one at a time. In order, that is, to get a complete representation of
a three-dimensional object at any given time, I must rely on my imagination to
'fill in' the sides that I am not presently intuiting. This is apparently what Kant
means when he speaks of a manifold of intuition necessarily being 'run through'
and 'taken together' in our apprehension of it. Apprehension thus essentially
presupposes reproduction.
This synthesis of reproduction is conditioned in turn by a further synthesis,
that of 'recognition in a concept' (A 103; 230). According to Kant, merely
reproducing the various parts of an object in the imagination is not enough to
grant me a complete, unified representation of it. In addition to this, I must also
recognize that these elements belong together. He writes that 'without consciousness
that that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before,
all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain' (ibid.). That is,
I must recognize that my representations all belong to the same thing, otherwise
I will not cognize a whole object by means of them; my various representations
will instead remain disconnected, discrete elements in my stream of conscious-
ness. What is needed is something to unify these various representations. On
Kant's view, what performs this unifying function is a concept.
Kant appears to conceive of the notion of a concept in two interrelated ways:
(1) as a unified or self-identical consciousness, and (2) as a rule. A concept is first
described as 'the one consciousness that unifies the manifold that has been
successively intuited, and then also reproduced, into one representation' (A 103;
231). In other words, I recognize the various representations involved in a
synthesis of reproduction as belonging to a single, unitary object by relating
them all to a single, unitary act or instance of consciousness. This does not
explain, however, what constitutes this single consciousness (or, perhaps more
precisely, what unifies it); nor does it explain the act by which I relate the various
representations in the manifold to it. Here is where the second aspect of Kant's
notion of a concept comes in. The concept — the unity of consciousness — is
achieved through the rule-governed (or law-like) synthetic act of constituting an
object of representation (A 105; 231). This is what Kant seems to be saying, at
any rate, in the following passage:
Thus the original and necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself is at

the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of
all appearances in accordance with concepts, i.e., in accordance with rules
that not only make them necessarily reproducible, but also thereby determine
an object for their intuition. (A 108; 233)
As I read this passage, Kant is asserting that a concept, which is a unified

consciousness, is actualized or brought into being through a mental act that,
when considered abstractly and formally, rather than as a concrete act, can be
viewed as a rule that guides and structures the process of reproduction. This rule
is the static and 'reified' expression of a dynamic unifying activity of

consciousness. By this activity, consciousness brings about a 'synthesis of
appearances' — i.e., an object of perception. At the same time, however, it also
brings about its own unity (as a single, unified consciousness). As an example,
Kant considers the mathematical concept of a triangle. This concept, on his
view, can be regarded abstractly as a particular rule for 'drawing' (in thought)
three straight lines, one in accordance with which an object 'can always be
exhibited' (A 105; 231—232). In other words, the concept 'triangle', as Kant
conceives of it, can be considered as a rule that says something like this: 'Draw
three straight lines that intersect at exactly three points.' When this rule is
followed by the imagination, a particular structure of successive sensible
impressions will always result. The concept, viewed concretely and dynamically,
rather than abstractly and statically, is the law-like mental act that unifies these
impressions into one integral figure, which it does by governing the synthesis of
the imagination in a regular fashion. A concept can thus be characterized as 'a
function of synthesis according to a rule' (A 105; 231). But in this act of drawing
the triangle, consciousness also actualizes itself as a unified consciousness — i n this
case, as the unified consciousness of a triangle. In sum, Kant's position is that,
when the imagination acts in accordance with this 'rule', it — the 'rule', which,
considered dynamically, is an act of consciousness — not only produces a unified
object, but also, and simultaneously, a unified consciousness of the object. The
process of conceptualization, on Kant's theory, is thus a 'spontaneous' process
whereby consciousness unifies both itself and a manifold of intuition — in the
selfsame mental act. The synthesis of recognition in a concept in this way serves
as the condition of the reproductive synthesis of the imagination.
The regressive account in 'A' of a 'threefold synthesis' necessary for all
empirical cognition shows the imagination to be in harmony with the
understanding in that it engages in a process of reproduction that is conditioned
by and serves the understanding's objective of conceptualizing objects. This
account, however, does not exhaust the view of the harmony of the faculties
presented in the transcendental deduction. In both the 'A' and 'B' versions,
Kant outlines a, further synthesis, which in 'B' he describes as the 'figurative'
synthesis (B 151; 256). 12 The positing of this synthesis is evidently intended to
explain how an a priori or 'pure' concept of the understanding can serve as a rule
guiding the empirical synthesis described above. For this guidance to occur,
Kant claims, a figurative synthesis is necessary. The figurative synthesis is a
'synthesis of the manifold of sensible intuition', and is distinguished from 'that
[synthesis] which would be thought in the mere category in regard to the
manifold of intuition in general, and which is called combination of the
understanding' (B 151; 256). Both of these syntheses are claimed by Kant to be
'transcendental', meaning that they are a priori and necessary conditions of the
possibility of empirical objects (ibid.). The difference between the two types of
synthesis is that the one, but not the other, takes into account the unique features
of our human form of sensible intuition. Kant writes that, although the pure
concepts of the understanding are related to 'objects of intuition in general', they
do not determine 'whether this intuition is our own or some other but still
sensible one' (B 150; 256). That is, they do not appear to pertain specifically to a
power of intuition that has the forms of space and time (a spatiotemporal sensibility),
which, as Kant has argued in the Transcendental Aesthetic, is what
distinguishes our human form of intuition. This raises the problem (to Kant's
mind at least) of how the purely intellectual synthesis which is thought in the pure
concepts can relate to, or provide the rules for, the sensible synthesis of an
empirical object.13 Kant's answer is to say that there must be an intermediate
synthesis, which is the figurative synthesis.
The figurative synthesis is also called 'the transcendental synthesis of the
imagination' (B 151, 256). The responsibility for this synthesis is assigned to the
imagination because of its unique twofold capacity. On the one hand, it 'belongs
to sensibility', and therefore is suited to affecting a sensible synthesis (B 151;
257). The imagination, that is, is distinguished from the understanding in that it
produces concrete sensible representations — images — rather than abstract
intellectual ones. On the other hand, the imagination is also distinguished from
the merely passive capacity of sensation. Imagining is like the understanding in
that it 'is still an exercise of spontaneity' (ibid.). That is, it is an active, self-caused
faculty. This is what makes it suited to affect a transcendental synthesis, which is
something a merely passive faculty like sensation could never do.
Its role in affecting the figurative synthesis thus implies a new power of the
imagination. No longer can the imagination be conceived as merely reproductive.
The figurative synthesis requires a productive imagination. Kant writes that
'insofar as the imagination is spontaneity, I also occasionally call it the
productive imagination, and thereby distinguish it from the reproductive
imagination whose synthesis is subject solely to empirical laws, namely those of
association' (B 152; 257). Kant understands the reproductive function of the
imagination to be a passive process that is determined mechanically as a result of
empirical conditions. The course of our experience, that is, conditions us to have
certain expectations and to imaginatively anticipate certain experiences. For
example, because I have always experienced three-dimensional objects, such as
the chair I am sitting on, to have a bottom side, I am psychologically
predisposed or conditioned to imagine that this chair too has a bottom side —
even though I am now only actually directly sensing its top side. Kant makes the
point that the reproductive synthesis depends upon the association of appearances
(A 121; 239). The mechanical reproduction of appearances occurs because I am
conditioned to associate certain appearances (or representations) with certain
others — for instance, the top side of three-dimensional objects with a bottom
side. This does not mean, however, that the possibility of the synthesis of
reproduction is entirely accounted for in purely empirical terms. Reproduction
ultimately requires a transcendental ground. Kant observes that the association
of appearances occurs only because there is an 'affinity of appearances' (A 122;
240). This term refers to the fact that appearances themselves occur with
sufficient regularity in the course of our experience to make association possible.
Association itself presupposes that appearances are 'associable'. If my experience
did not contain any regularity, but were instead entirely random and chaotic, I
would never form any imaginative associations of certain appearances with
others. For instance, if sometimes three-dimensional objects had bottom sides,
and sometimes they did not, I would not be conditioned to make this particular
reproductive synthesis of representations. Or as Kant writes, 'if cinnabar were
now red, now black, now light, now heavy . . . my empirical imagination would
never even get the opportunity to think of heavy cinnabar on the occasion of the
representation of the color red' (A 101; 229). If experience is based on a synthesis
of reproduction conditioned by the psycho-mechanics of association, then the
possibility of association in turn is based upon the affinity of appearances. This
affinity is, on Kant's account, 'a necessary consequence of a synthesis in the
imagination that is grounded a priori on rules' (A 123; 240). Affinity can only be
accounted for, on his view, by the action of the pure understanding, which
imposes its categories upon appearances. Since the understanding is a merely
intellectual capacity, however, it cannot affect appearances directly. In order to
bring about a figurative synthesis, it must employ the mediating faculty of the
imagination. The imagination, therefore, plays an essential role in accounting
for the affinity of appearances. It cannot, however, be the reproductivefunction of
the imagination that accounts for the affinity, because this function presupposes it.
Consequently, Kant posits an additional function of the imagination, its productive
function.
The figurative synthesis, then, is an effect of the productive imagination. But
what kind of effect is it? What is the productive imagination doing when it affects
a figurative synthesis? While there is considerable obscurity surrounding the
nature of the figurative synthesis, it seems plausible to connect it with what Kant
calls the 'schematism of the pure concepts', which contains the doctrine of the
transcendental schemata (A 137/B 176; 271). This connection seems to be strongly
suggested, at least, by Kant's own characterizations of the transcendental
schemata. First, a transcendental schema, like the figurative synthesis, is
described as 'always only a product of the imagination', and specifically, of the
'pure a priori imagination' (A 140/B 179; 273 and A 142/B 181; 274). Second,
and again like the figurative synthesis, the transcendental schema is described by
Kant as a 'third thing', or 'mediating representation', that links the pure
concepts to objects of empirical intuition (A 138/B 177; 272). Since we lack a
clear, independent account in the Critique of Pure Reason of what the figurative
synthesis is, it seems reasonable to take Kant to be providing this in the
schematism chapter.
How, then, are we to understand the nature and functioning of the
transcendental schemata? While the interpretation of this notion is controversial,
Kant appears to imply that the schema is an image of some sort, hence intuitive
in character.14 At the same time, however, it contains a sort of universality,
which gives it a kinship with concepts. Though a product of the imagination,
and hence in some sense an image, a transcendental schema is nevertheless no
specific image, but rather 'a general procedure of the imagination for providing a
concept with its image' (B 179—180; 273). Because all our empirical intuitions
occur in time, the procedure in question involves 'translating' the pure concepts
into temporal terms. For example, we 'translate' the category of substance into
temporal terms by equating it with 'the persistence of the real in time': i.e., in
order to conceptualize the empirical manifold as 'substance', we imagine an
unchanging, permanent reality that underlies all successively occurring changes
(A 144/B 183; 275). Kant gives similar accounts of the schemata of the other
categories of quantity, reality, negation, causality, and so forth (A 142—145/B
182—184; 274—275). The various transcendental schemata in this way give, a
priori, the intuitive forms that any empirical intuition must have.
Here we can see another instance of the harmony of the faculties. In its
schematizing function, the imagination provides the original templates into
which all of our empirical perceptions must fit. This schematizing function, as
Kant conceives of it, is performed entirely for the sake of the understanding and
its need to think objects in accordance with the categories. Because of this need,
there must be a means of linking the categories with sensible things. As
mediating representations, the schemata provide this link. The imagination
performs an a priori and transcendental role in producing these schemata,
whereby it enacts a 'figurative synthesis'. In enacting this figurative synthesis,
the imagination serves the understanding by enabling the latter's a priori rules
(concepts) to govern our (synthetic) apprehension of intuitive representations as
empirical objects. Although the issue is famously controversial, I believe that
Kant's position on the relation of the imagination and the understanding is
fundamentally consistent in the two versions of the deduction. The under-
standing and the imagination are 'in harmony' in the mental activity of
empirical perception in the sense that the imagination 'works up' the elements of
the sensible manifold in accordance with the rules provided by the under-
standing. This harmony enables the process of synthetic cognition of empirical
objects to occur.
The transcendental deduction of the categories does not, however, provide
the complete picture of the relationship between the faculties in cognition.
According to the view presented in the deduction, the imagination in its
synthetic activity follows a concept, which is a rule that is provided by the
understanding. What this suggests is a picture according to which the concept
must psychologically preexist the synthesis that results in an object of experience.
How else, after all, could the imagination follow this rule in carrying out its
activity, unless the rule existed prior to the activity? But this picture seems to lead
to a problematic result, for it suggests that, in their cognitive role at least,
concepts must inevitably preexist experience. What, then, about empirical concepts —
concepts which, by definition, do not precede experience? Kant of course
acknowledges that, in addition to pure or a priori concepts of the understanding,
we possess concepts that are a posteriori, or acquired from experience.15 The
cognitive psychology of the deduction makes it deeply puzzling, however, not
only what role there can be in cognition for empirical concepts, but even how
they can arise in the first place.16 The puzzle can be put in the form of a
dilemma. Either empirical concepts govern the synthesis of reproduction, or they
do not. If they do, then it would seem that they must precede that synthesis, and
hence be a priori. In that case, however, they would obviously not be empirical
concepts. On the other hand, if empirical concepts do not govern the synthesis of
reproduction, then it seems that all reproduction must be guided directly by the
categories alone. But this conclusion is problematic in its own right. The
problem is that the categories — such as the concepts 'substance' and 'cause' —
appear to be too general and abstract to serve as an immediate rule for the
synthesis of the empirical manifold. Hannah Ginsborg makes the point that 'we
cannot perceive or imagine something as, say, a substance tout court'.11 Every
substance that we can perceive or imagine, in other words, is a particular kind of
substance: a dog, or kangaroo, or tomato, for instance. But this implies that an
empirical concept must also be involved in every application of the concept of
substance to the empirical manifold; when I apply the concept 'substance' to an
intuition, I must always also be applying the concept 'dog', or whatever
particular substance-concept is appropriate, to it as well. Without the empirical
concept, it is impossible for me to apply the category, or, alternatively, for the
imagination to use the category as a rule of synthesis. So it would seem that
reproduction cannot be guided by the categories alone. In short, the cognitive
theory presented in the deduction seems to leave us with a deeply unsatisfying
account of the role of empirical concepts in cognitive experience. Transforming
this incomplete account into a richer and more adequate one turns out,
unsurprisingly, also to reveal a more complex picture of the harmony of the
faculties.
A principal source for this enriched account is Kant's logic lecture course
transcribed and edited by G. B. Jasche. In his lectures, Kant presents an
independent account of the origin of empirical concepts, or, in his words, of'the
generation of a concept out of given representations' (JL 93/591). This account
suggests that the imagination is capable of a synthetic activity that does not
presuppose a preexisting rule of the understanding, even though it is still, in
some sense, 'in accord' with it. The imagination possesses a capacity to
schematize without a concept', i.e., to effect a synthesis of the manifold of intuition
which can be subsumed under a rule of the understanding prior to any such rule
being given. This capacity of the imagination is a necessary condition for the
acquisition of empirical concepts, and hence it is necessary for empirical
cognition itself.
In §6 of the Jasche Logik, Kant considers 'the logical actus of the understanding
through which concepts are generated as to their form' (JL 94/592). The 'form'
of concepts he equates with their universality, i.e. their characteristic of being 'a
representation of what is common to several objects' (ibid.). In other words, it is
essential to every concept that it possesses generality or commonality — that it
represents or 'covers' many individual representations. It is for this reason that
Kant claims that 'it is a mere tautology to speak of universal or common
concepts'; a concept, by definition, is a 'universal' or a 'common' representation
(ibid.). The key question, however, is how this distinctive feature of
'universality' or 'commonality' first arises in the case of empirical concepts.
Kant maintains that this 'form' arises through the three 'logical acts' of
comparison, reflectionandabstraction(JL 94/592). He illustrates the process through
the following example:
I see, e.g., a spruce, a willow, and a linden. By first comparing these objects
with one another I note that they are different from one another in regard to
the trunk, the branches, the leaves, etc.; but next I reflect on that which they
have in common among themselves, trunk, branches, and leaves themselves,
and I abstract from the quantity, the figure, etc., of these; thus I acquire a
concept of a tree. (JL 94-5/592)
As it stands, this account seems vulnerable to the charge of circularity. It

presupposes that I have the capacity to 'notice' differences among the various
types of trees and separate these differences out from the commonalities among
them. Furthermore, in the present context, it must be presupposing that I have
the capacity to do this without possessing the concept of a tree. But how can this be? In
the absence of the concept of'tree', how do I know to direct my attention to the
trunk, branches and leaves, rather then other features of the spruce, the willow
and the linden that are not distinctive of trees (e.g., the height or colour)? What is
the psychological mechanism by means of which I recognize the relevant elements
of commonality, if it is not by means of a concept (that I already possess)?18
To answer this question, one might appeal to Kant's account of the schematic
function of the imagination.19 We have seen that, according to Kant, the
imagination has the capacity, not just to reproduce past sense impressions, but
also to produce transcendental schemata — to produce, that is, abstract yet
intuitive 'patterns' which represent the necessary form of empirical objects.
Given that the imagination has this capacity, one could reasonably suppose that
it is also capable of generating empirical schemata: these would be abstract yet
intuitive patterns which represent what is common among several individual
empirical intuitions. An empirical schema could perhaps be formed through a
process of imaginatively comparing various representations. Since it would be
imaginative and intuitive, rather than intellectual, such a comparison would not
necessarily have to presuppose conceptual knowledge of which features were
relevant to a concept. It could proceed by some purely intuitive process, such as
the imaginative superimposition of reproduced impressions.20 For example, the
empirical schema of a tree could be formed by a process of superimposing
reproductions of a spruce, a willow and a linden (along with whatever else) onto
one another in the imagination. The schema would result simply from the mind
noticing the 'darkest' area of overlap that resulted from this superimposition. By
abstracting from everything in the reproduced impressions except this area of
overlap, the mind would be left with a schematic image of a tree. The problem of
circularity is avoided in this case, since one would not need to know beforehand
which features would produce the resulting overlap. The possession of something
like an empirical schema of a tree might therefore explain, in a non-question-
begging way, how the mind acquires empirical concepts. It could potentially
explain, in other words, how one could recognize commonality among a spruce,
a willow and a linden without actually possessing the concept of a tree. Once this
recognition occurs through the assistance of a schema, an empirical concept may
be formed on that basis.
Admittedly, this account of how, for Kant, the mind acquires empirical
concepts is somewhat speculative. If, however, it (or something like it) is right,
then the imagination must evidently possess a capacity to schematize without
being governed directly by a preexisting concept. It must possess the capacity to
be 'free', in this sense, of the immediate dictates of the understanding. At the
same time, however, the imagination must possess a certain inherent tendency to
be in harmony with the needs of the understanding, insofar as, in producing
empirical schemata, it spontaneously adheres to the understanding's need to bring
an intuitive manifold under a conceptual rule. Thus, we may tentatively
conclude from this account of the requirements of empirical concept formation
that there is a third way in which the faculties are in harmony.
We can now summarize the results of this section. There are at least three
ways, according to Kant, that the imagination harmonizes with the under-
standing in the cognitive process. First, there is the synthesis of reproduction.
Next there is the transcendental figurative synthesis, whereby transcendental
schemata are provided for the pure concepts of the understanding. Finally, there
are the empirical schemata provided by the imagination in the process of
empirical concept formation. We can now turn to the question of how this
background allows us to interpret the notion of the harmony of the faculties in
free play.
4. A Preliminary Interpretation of Free Play: Allison

The foregoing account of Kant's theory of empirical perception provides us with
materials for further explaining his notion of'free play'. The crucial aspect of
this theory is the imagination's capacity to schematize without the guidance of a
concept. We have seen a respect in which, in Kant's view, this occurs in
everyday perception, where the imagination, in order to assist the understanding
in deriving empirical concepts, must perform just such a function. We might
imagine that, in the aesthetic perception of the beautiful, something similar
occurs. That is, we might conclude that, in free play, where once again the
imagination spontaneously conforms to the needs of the understanding, the
product of the imagination is once again a schema — in this case, the schema of the
beautiful.
Kant appears to confirm this conclusion in two important passages in the
Third Critique. Explicit confirmation is found in §35, in which he states that 'the
imagination's freedom consists precisely in its schematizing without a concept'
(CJ 287/151). More illustrative, however, is a passage in the 'General Comment
on the First Division of the Analytic'. Early in this 'comment', Kant declares
that 'in a judgment of taste, the imagination must be taken in its freedom' (CJ
240/91). This is by now a familiar claim. The significance of the passage,

however, stems from the fact that Kant goes on to enlarge on this claim in a
highly suggestive fashion:
This implies, first of all, that this power is here not taken as reproductive,
where it is subject to the laws of association, but as productive and
spontaneous (as the originator of chosen forms of possible intuitions).
Moreover, although in apprehending a given object of sense the imagination
is tied to a determinate form of this object and to that extent does not have
free play (as it does in poetry), it is still conceivable that the object may offer
it just the sort of form in the combination of its manifold as the imagination, if
it were left to itself [and] free, would design in harmony with the
understanding's lawfulness in general. (CJ 240—241/91)
As I propose to read him, Kant is here alluding to the process whereby the
imagination forms the schema of the beautiful. That it is the imagination's
schematising function that is signalled by Kant's stipulation that, in a judgement
of taste, it is the productive, rather than the reproductive imagination that is acting.
The productive imagination is, as we have seen, the power that has schematizing
capacity. Moreover, it is precisely this power's cognitive (or 'quasi-cognitive') role
that is at issue, for, Kant says, it is 'tied to a determinate form of [the] object'. In
other words, the imagination has to work with a given manifold of intuition (this
is unlike its situation with respect to poetry — or any creative art — in which the
imagination can choose its materials). Its function, therefore, can only be to
synthesize this given manifold. Nevertheless, the manifold 'may offer it just the
sort of form' as the imagination, if'left to itself, would prefer to design. How are
we to understand this claim?
The process of schema-formation for Kant is, as we have seen, a process of
imaginative synthesis. A crucial question here must be the relation of the synthesis
that results in the schema of the beautiful to the synthesis that originally enables
the mind to perceive the object itself. According to the account in the Critique of
Pure Reason, it would seem that for Kant, every object that we can perceive must
be 'recognized in a concept' — i.e., undergo all three steps in the 'threefold
synthesis' described above. 21 This implies that the empirical perception of a
manifold of intuition as an object requires bringing that manifold under a concept.
In the last section, we saw that there is reason to think that this act of
conceptualization involves recognizing the unified manifold as a particular kind
of substance, e.g., a rose. 22 To be recognized as a rose, a manifold of intuition
must, of course, be unified and reproduced in a way that conforms to the general
empirical schema of a rose. Yet the present suggestion is that it must also be the
occasion for another schema, the schema of beauty. Both of these schemata, so
the suggestion goes, must be part of our perception or apprehension of a
beautiful rose. What is the relationship of the beauty-schema to the rose-schema?
A provisional answer to this question, might be the suggestion that the former
schema must 'supervene' on the latter. That is, beauty is perceived as an
'emergent' quality, or one that, rather than being simply one empirical feature
or property among others, instead 'emerges' from the complex 'interaction' of
the ordinary empirical features. 23 Insofar as synthesis is primarily perceived as a
process of bringing unity to complexity, we can say that the schema of the
beautiful adds an extra 'layer' of unified complexity to the manifold. It will take
as its 'matter' many of the same sensible representations as the empirical schema
for the concept 'rose', but it will unify these in its own unique way.24 We can
thus understand Kant's claim that the object 'may offer it just the sort of form in
the combination of its manifold' as the imagination, if'left to itself, would prefer
to design as follows. The imagination has to deal with a 'determinate form' in
that its object has already been subject to a synthesis according to a concept; it
has been 'recognized' as, for example, a rose. Yet the imagination is not done
with this manifold, for the manifold in this rose contains materials for a. further
synthesis.25 This further synthesis, adding an extra layer of 'unity-in-complex-
ity', results in the schema of the beautiful. It is presumably by means of this
schema, then, that the mind indeterminately senses the object as beautiful. 26
This conception of what the imagination's freedom in the judgement of taste
involves provides us with a way of explaining what Kant meant in the key
passage from the First Introduction cited above, in which he describes the
harmony of the faculties in free play as a state in which the 'apprehension' of an
object's manifold by the imagination agrees with the 'exhibition' of a concept of
the understanding. A plausible elucidation of this passage, influenced by the
sorts of considerations just adduced, has been given by Henry Allison. Allison
glosses the passage in question as follows:
the imagination, under the general direction of the understanding, provides

an apprehended content that presents itself as containing 'something
universal in itself,' that is, something that appears as if it were the schema
or exhibition of an 'as yet undetermined concept,' albeit no concept in
particular. In such a state, which corresponds with the norm required for
cognition without itself amounting to cognition, we might think of the
understanding as 'energized' to grasp the rule that seems to underlie this
apprehended content, which, in turn, 'inspires' the imagination to exhibit it
as fully as possible.27
On this reading, the act of 'apprehension' is the imagination's presentation to

the mind of a schema, which, as we have seen, is a schematic image or abstract
pattern of features. Because this pattern contains elements that are (at least
potentially) common to many objects, Allison characterizes it as containing
'something universal in itself. This apprehension constitutes, in some sense, the
'exhibition (Darstellung) of a concept'. It is, in other words, the presentation of an
object to the mind that is an instance or exemplification of a concept.28 This is not,
however, the exhibition of any particular, determinate concept, but rather only an
'as yet undetermined concept'. What are we to take this to mean? Allison
explains:
the imagination does not exhibit the schema of a specific concept under which
the object can be subsumed in a determinate cognitive judgment. Instead, it
exhibits a pattern or order (form), which suggests an indeterminate number
of possible schematizations (or conceptualizations), none of which are fully
adequate, thereby occasioning further reflection or engagement with the
object.29
The schema of the beautiful for Allison is thus something that is essentially
conceptually indeterminate; it is not the schema of any specific, individual
concept, but rather something that merely suggests an indeterminate number of
specific schematizations.30 The imagination that produces such a schema is
consequently in 'free play', because it is not restricted in its productive activity
by any particular concept. Yet, the imagination still produces a presentation that
at least appears as if it were the exhibition of a concept. For this reason, one may
say that the imagination in the apprehension of the beautiful is 'in harmony'
with the understanding.
Allison claims in addition that the 'harmony' in question admits of degrees,
such that we can speak of a 'maximal' or 'ideal' sense, and a 'minimal' sense of
'harmony'. As he explains,
Harmony, minimally construed, occurs whenever there is any cognitive fit

between concept and intuitive representation, that is, whenever the intuition is
subsumable under the concept. . . . By contrast, harmony, maximally or ideally
construed, occurs when the fit between universal and particular is extremely
close, that is, when the understanding's concept is not too indeterminate for the
imagination and, conversely, the latter's image exhibits all the essential features
thought in the concept. In that case, we can think of the two faculties working
together smoothly, like two well-meshed gears with little friction, and the
subsumption accordingly proceeds without difficulty.31
Allison is here attempting to address an issue that is basic to any adequate

account of free play. Such an account, as noted earlier, must be able to explain
how the harmony of the faculties involved in the perception of the beautiful is
like, and how it is unlike, the harmony of the faculties in ordinary perception.
Allison wants to claim that, in ordinary perception, what we have is merely the
minimal degree of harmony; in the perception of the beautiful, by contrast, we
have maximal or ideal harmony. His explanation rests upon two metaphors. In
the above passage, he uses the metaphor of two gears in a machine. Two gears
may be functional in allowing the machine to work, yet still 'grind' together, or
be in tension with one another. The other metaphor is derived from a passage
contained in a student's notes from Kant's logic lectures, in which Kant
reportedly said the following:
Imagination and understanding are two friends who cannot do without one
another but cannot stand one another either, for one always harms the other.
The more universal the understanding is in its rules, the more perfect it is, but
if it wants to consider things in concrete then [it] absolutely cannot do without
the imagination.32
Just as two gears may be functional in allowing a machine to work, yet still
'grind' against one another, so two friends (e.g., a married couple) may need
each other's company, yet often generate mutual pain and distress through their
interaction. This is the situation with the imagination and the understanding,
insofar as, in Allison's words, they 'pull in opposite directions: the understanding
toward universality and the imagination toward specificity'.33 As Allison
understands Kant's point in the 'two friends' passage, the tension between the
faculties is created by the fact that an image — even a schema — is by nature a
particular mental representation, whereas a concept is by nature a general one.
This creates the constant possibility that
the understanding in its endemic quest for universality produces a concept

that is too general and indeterminate to be represented adequately in concrete
by any particular instance, for example, the concept of a living thing, or [the
possibility that] the particular imaginatively apprehended is too idiosyncratic
or atypical to represent adequately what is thought in the concept, for
example, the image of a three-legged dog.34
This illustration clarifies what Allison means by a 'minimal' and a 'maximal' or

'ideal' sense of harmony. The minimal sense is the bare minimum of'meshing' of
the faculties that is required to allow an act of conceptualization of a particular
manifold of intuition, hence a cognition, to take place at all. Since we can
recognize a three-legged dog as a dog, there is a minimal harmony of the
faculties in this case. However, Allison wants to say that the case is not ideal,
because a three-legged dog is idiosyncratic or atypical. This suggests that an
ideal case of harmony would be one in which the imagination presented the
understanding with an example that was a 'perfect' instance of a dog, or a
perfect illustration of the concept 'dog'. While it is not clear exactly what Allison
thinks this would be, his example suggests something like the pictures, common
in dictionaries, which are intended to provide a visual illustration of a term. In
contrast to Allison's three-legged dog, my copy of Webster's, for example,
contains a picture of a dog next to the entry for that word, and it does indeed
have four legs, as well as all of the other 'essential features' of a dog (it even
labels them). The dog in the picture is sort of a generic or cartoonish mutt — it is
not, for example, a poodle or a Saint Bernard or a Chihuahua. I recognize that
this fact about the dog in the picture does make the process of subsumption go
more smoothly — I instantly recognize that the picture is a picture of a dog. It is
less clear to me, however, that the dog in the picture is a beautiful one, hence
whether this sense of 'ideal' harmony corresponds to the perception of the
beautiful. Whether or not it does, at least Allison's contrast between a minimal
and a maximal/ideal sense of'harmony' is a clear one, and allows him to explain
how the harmony of the faculties in free play is similar to, yet different from the
harmony that is a condition of ordinary cognition.
Although Allison's interpretation of the harmony of the faculties in free play
seems promising, I shall nevertheless raise several questions about it in the next
section. In doing so, I shall treat Allison's view as a representative or stand-in for
the approach to free play that links the freedom of the imagination to its
productive schematizing function. I regard this approach as basically sound, but
nevertheless also see it as raising a number of new questions. I want to use
Allison's reading as a starting point for raising those questions. Thus, I shall not
necessarily be concerned to critique all of the particular details of his
interpretation. Immediately, however, I would like to take note of the fact
that there is something rather puzzling or obscure about this account. The
obscurity I have in mind concerns the relation of Allison's initial characteriza-
tion of the harmony of the faculties in free play as the imagination's exhibition of
a schema that suggests an indeterminate number of possible conceptualizations,
none of which is fully adequate, and his later description of it as involving
something like an ideal conceptual subsumption. The first characterization
seems to suggest that the subsumption of the schema of the beautiful under a
concept (or the 'fit' of particular and universal) is anything but 'smooth' and
'without friction'. Allison suggests, that is, that a succession of conceptualizations
may be possible, but that none of them will be fully adequate. On the other
hand, Allison's account of maximal or ideal harmony most readily suggests
something like the dictionary-illustration case in which the particular presented
by the imagination is as amenable to being subsumed under a concept of the
understanding as anything could be. How are we to extend this 'ideal
subsumption' idea so that it covers a case in which there is no adequate subsumption?
On the face of it, Allison's two accounts seem inconsistent. This is a problem,
however, that is peculiar to Allison's view. More significant, to my mind, are
those difficulties that seem to be endemic to all views of this type. To these I shall
now turn.
5. Problems with the Preliminary Interpretation

Allison's explanation of what the harmony of the faculties in free play consists in
clearly advances our understanding of it. Several questions can still be raised,
however, about its adequacy and completeness.
An initial problem concerns the explanation of how the schema of the
beautiful is produced. According to the model provided by Kant in the Logic, a
schema is produced for an empirical concept through a mental act of
comparison. If we use the production of a schema for an empirical concept as
our model for the production of the schema of the beautiful, it would seem that
we are committed to the view that the schema of the beautiful is also formed
through an act of comparison. But how are we to envision the relevant
comparison in the case of the beautiful? What is being compared when we are
attending to an object to which we attribute beauty? In attempting to answer

this question, it is necessary to examine Kant's definition of 'reflective
judgement' in the First Introduction. Aesthetic judgement, according to Kant,
is a particular exercise of our faculty of reflective judgement (or 'reflection'),
which is a faculty of comparison. The comparison involved in reflection,
according to Kant, is always of one of two sorts:
To reflect (or consider [uberlegen]]is to hold given representations up to, and

compare them with, either other representations or one's cognitive power
[itself], in reference to a concept that this [comparison] makes possible. (CJ
212/400)
The comparison that results in the schema of the beautiful must be either one or
the other, or perhaps both, of these types. It is far from clear, however, (1) what
would be involved in either type, and (2) in what sense the pertinent type of
comparison is undertaken 'in reference to a concept' that it 'makes possible'.
With regard to the first issue, the problem is simply that it is far from obvious
how either of the sorts of comparisons mentioned by Kant could be involved in the
perception of the beautiful. Let us initially consider the first possibility. Do we
compare our representation of a beautiful object with other representations of
objects in order to produce a schematic image of beauty? On the most
straightforward analogy with the case of concept formation, we would have to
be comparing beautiful objects with other beautiful objects (as we compare trees with
trees). But, in that case, what feature or features of the representations are we
comparing? Evidently something here must be analogous to the similar shapes of
objects that make possible a schematic image in the case of empirical concept
formation. Individual trees, for example, have similar shapes or features that allow
us to form the schema of a tree. Are we to believe that beautiful things all have
some similar shape or features as well? This hardly seems plausible. In addition,
the textual evidence speaks against this first suggestion. In Section VIII of the
First Introduction, Kant says that an aesthetic reflective judgement takes place
'before we attend to a comparison of the object with others' (FI 223/412). On the
face of it, this seems to be saying that the comparison leading to the perception of
the beautiful is not one that results from a comparison of objects. Both
philosophical and textual factors, therefore, seem to tell against the first option.
Perhaps then the relevant type of comparison is between the representation of
the beautiful object and 'one's cognitive power itself. It is equally unclear in this
case, however, how the principal model in Kant's writings for this kind of
comparison could be extended to the case of aesthetic reflection. The sole
obvious precedent in Kant's writings for this second type of comparison is found
in the First Critique discussion of'transcendental reflection' in the section entitled
'On the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection' (A 260-292/B 316-349; 366-
383).35 'Transcendental reflection' is, according to Kant, 'the action through
which I make the comparison of representations in general with the cognitive
power in which they are situated, and through which I distinguish whether they
are to be compared to one another as belonging to pure understanding or to

pure intuition' (A 261/B317; 367). Transcendental reflection, in other words,
'compares representations with one's cognitive power' in the sense that it
examines them to see if they are intellectual representations, and hence belong to
the faculty of understanding, or rather intuitive representations, and hence belong
to the faculty of intuition. This activity is thus concerned with the examination
of the two fundamental a priori conditions or 'roots' of all our cognitions:
concepts and intuitions. 36 The significance of transcendental reflection for Kant
is to be located in the fact that it aims at avoiding the illusions that may result
from taking intellectual representations (i.e., concepts) to be a species of
sensation, or, vice versa, from taking sensitive/intuitive representations (i.e.,
sensuous appearances) to be a species of concepts. Transcendental reflection is
critical for Kant because it is the means for avoiding the fundamental errors
perpetrated, according to him, by the Lockean empiricist and Leibnizian
rationalist schools of philosophy. 37 As Kant explains it, this mode of reflection
proceeds through the use of four pairs of 'concepts of reflection': identity and
difference, agreement and opposition, inner and outer, and matter and form (A 263—266/
B 319—322; 368—9). Kant explains how, through the employment of these
concepts, one is able to distinguish between intellectual and intuitive
representations. 38
While it may have a useful role to play in advancing the program of the First
Critique, it is difficult to see how transcendental reflection can be understood as
the model for the comparison involved in the production of the schema of the
beautiful. The distance between these two mental functions seems, on the face of
it, to be just about as great as it is possible to imagine. Transcendental reflection
is, essentially, a specialized, 'meta-leveP, critical-philosophical endeavour, while
aesthetic reflection is a general, 'object-level', more-or-less everyday process.
Moreover, in transcendental reflection, we seem to be very far from the
employment of reflection in the production of schemata, which has little or
nothing to do with the activity of distinguishing between concepts and
intuitions. The notion of transcendental reflection, therefore, does not seem to
give us much more of a clue as to how aesthetic reflection might involve a
comparison of a given representation with one's cognitive faculties than the
notion of reflection leading to empirical concept production gave us a clue as to
how aesthetic reflection might involve a comparison of representations with one
another.
A more promising but also more speculative suggestion is made by Allison,
who proposes that what is being compared in free play is 'the actual relationship
of the faculties in question with their maximal or ideal relationship'. 39 This is
how Allison reads Kant in an obscure remark in the paragraph following the
'three acts' passage of the First Introduction, which reads: 'in a merely reflective
judgment imagination and understanding are considered as they must relate in
general in the power of judgment, as compared with how they actually relate in
the case of a given perception' (FI 220/408). While Kant does not reference an
'ideal' or 'maximal' relationship here (or, indeed, aesthetic judgement at all), the
passage is certainly compatible with this reading. The notion of a comparison of

an actual perception with an ideal perception is, I believe, by far the most
promising suggestion yet, but it seems to me that it remains seriously
underdeveloped in Allison's account. Several problems arise here. First, this
seems to be yet a third characterization of free play in addition to the other two
described above. It is obviously related to the second, but is also distinct from it
in that it complicates the earlier picture with the suggestion that the harmony of
the faculties in free play is not itself the maximal harmony, but rather the effect of
the comparison of this ideal with the minimal harmony. If this is so, then Allison
owes us more of an account of what it involves than the one he gives. Second,
Allison's suggestion would seem to imply that we carry around in our heads
something like a representation of the ideal harmony of the faculties with which
we are prepared to compare objects. As we have seen, the ideal harmony, on
Allison's account, is the perfect balance of ideality and specificity, understood as
'smooth' and 'frictionless' subsumption. Do we carry with us such an ideal? If so,
whence do we derive it? More importantly, is this suggestion intelligible as an
ideal of the beautiful? At the end of the last section, I suggested some grounds for
doubting that it is. Third and finally, in proposing the ideal of maximally
frictionless subsumption as, in essence, the inner model and 'archetype' of taste,
Allison overlooks Kant's own suggestion, in §17 of the published work, that the
ideal of the beautiful is the 'standard idea' of the human figure, regarded as the
moral symbol of the vocation of humankind. 40 Kant says that this ideal is 'the
highest model, the archetype of taste . . . which everyone must generate within
himself and by which he must judge any object of taste' (CJ 232/79). Nothing
like Allison's ideal of subsumption is mentioned in this passage. For several
reasons, then, we cannot take Allison's suggestion as a sufficient answer to the
question of what the reflective comparison involves.
There is another question so far left unanswered by the preliminary account
of free play laid out above. The process of reflective judgement, as we have seen,
always involves a comparison 'in reference to a concept that this comparison
makes possible'. But what exactly does the schema of the beautiful have to do
with the possibility of a concept? How does it relate to concepts? Allison's
position represents the first of the two main possibilities for understanding the
relationship of the schema of the beautiful and concepts: one holds that this
schema is of such a nature that it can never, in principle, be brought under a
concept. Allison, in his account of free play, suggests that this is a schema to
which no possible conceptualization is ever 'fully adequate'. 41 One might,
however, also understand this relationship somewhat differently. A second
option would be the view that we merely abstract from the concept that would
capture the schema, for the purposes of aesthetic reflection. The schema, on this
second view, is subsumable under a concept, but aesthetic judgement does not
consist in this subsumption. While the significance of this choice may not be
readily apparent, it ultimately has, as I hope to show, serious consequences for
the intelligibility of Kant's notion of free play.
In favour of Allison's 'never-in-principle' view, one might cite Kant's
proscription against objective principles of taste. This proscription is displayed

most prominently in the title to §34 of the Third Critique, which declares that 'An
Objective Principle of Taste is Impossible' (CJ 285/149). This proscription has
come to be one of the most emblematic features of Kant's aesthetics, and is
naturally linked with the view that the beautiful can never, in principle, be
brought under a concept.42 An objective principle of taste, as Kant understands
it, would be 'a principle under which, as condition, we could subsume the
concept of an object and then infer that the object is beautiful' (ibid.). An
objective principle of taste would, in other words, be a determinate discursive
rule that could function as the major premise in a syllogism which led to a
judgement of taste as its conclusion, or, alternatively, that could serve as a norm
for the correct subsumption of given objects determined to fall under it.43 An
objective principle of taste would therefore state a sufficient condition of beauty,
proposing that all objects possessing a certain feature were necessarily beautiful
(at least to some extent). For example, such a principle might state that all
painterly compositions that evince a certain mathematical proportion, such as
the Golden Section, are ipso facto (orpro tanto] beautiful. 44 In denying that there
are objective principles of taste, Kant is making one of his most significant
departures from the neoclassical tradition to which he is generally sympathetic.
A commonplace of this tradition was faith in 'valid rules of composition' of the
sort endorsed (albeit vaguely) by Hume. Neoclassicists differed over which
purported rules were in fact valid, and whether these rules had their basis in
reason or experience; but all agreed in the proposition that there were such rules.
This proposition, however, Kant expressly denies.
On what basis does Kant reject the possibility of objective principles of taste?
The most important discussion of this view is found in §§32—34 of the Critique of
Judgment, which emphasize that the existence of objective principles of taste is
incompatible with the autonomy of taste. In Kant's words, 'to make other people's
judgments the basis of determining one's own' — as we do when we rely for our
judgement upon principles of taste handed down by the tradition — 'would be
heteronomy', but 'taste lays claim merely to autonomy' (CJ 282/146). In using
the term 'autonomy', Kant means to be emphasizing that the judgement of taste
is based upon a law or principle that one gives oneself, rather than takes on from
without. It seems to be a basic feature of Kant's phenomenology of the subjective
experience of pleasure in the beautiful that this pleasure is engaged in freely. He
observes that 'if someone does not find a building, a view, or a poem beautiful,
then, first, he will refuse to let even a hundred voices, all praising it highly, prod
him into approving of it inwardly' (CJ 284/147). This refusal is not wilful, but
rather based upon the others' lack of the means of authoritative compulsion. The
most relevant contrast here is with the pleasure in the good — especially the
pleasure that we take in the morally good. Kant remarks that the good, like the
beautiful, is often presented as the object of a universal (hence necessary) liking;
but, unlike the beautiful, this is done 'by means of a concept' (CJ 213/ 56). When
we witness or hear of a morally praiseworthy act — an act of charity or noble self-
sacrifice, for example — we are, at least if we have a sufficiently well-formed
character, naturally pleased. For Kant, this pleasure is conditioned by our

recognition that the act is in conformity with a rational principle, and is, in a
normative sense, compelled by that principle. That is, even if we are not actually
pleased (perhaps because we are morally depraved, or simply depressed), there
is still a respect in which it seems right to say that we ought to be pleased — that it
is right and appropriate to be pleased in this case. The same is true, as I argued
in Chapter I, of the pleasure in the beautiful: even if we are not actually pleased
by a beautiful object, it may still be true that we ought to be pleased — that
pleasure in this case is right and appropriate. Unlike the pleasure in the good,
however, we cannot be 'ordered' to enjoy the beautiful by a rational principle.
Principles of the kind adduced by 'Batteux or Lessing' to prove that a poem is
beautiful can never compel a favourable response; if one happens actually to
dislike the poem, one 'shall sooner assume that those rules of the critics are false,
or at least do not apply in the present case, then allow [one's] judgment to be
determined by a priori bases of proof (CJ 284—285/148). The pleasure in the
beautiful is one we are under no rational obligation to engage in; it is, to that
extent, a free or gratuitous liking. Consequently, it cannot be rationally
compelled by bases of proof that precede our experience of the object. Kant does
not, as far as I can tell, give any additional grounds for this claim about pleasure
in the beautiful beyond our ordinary experience of what the basis for this
pleasure is. The implications of this view for Kant's theory of taste, however, are
profound. As I shall argue presently, it at least seems to lead to the conclusion
that the schema of the beautiful cannot be captured by a concept.
The rejection of principles of taste naturally leads one to the conclusion that
the schema of the beautiful is such that it can never, in principle, be brought
under a concept. For, if bringing the beautiful under a concept were possible,
would that not also imply that there was a norm of correct subsumption? And
would not such a norm constitute a principle of taste? If, for example, the
schema of the beautiful could be captured by the concept of a certain
mathematical proportion (e.g., the Golden Section), then this would seem to
entail that, in order to correctly judge something to be beautiful, one ought to see if
it conforms to that mathematical proportion. This, however, would make it a
principle that, in order to be beautiful, an object must conform to the proper
mathematical formula. Supposing that the schema of the beautiful can be
brought under a concept therefore seems equivalent to positing a sufficient
condition for the existence of a principle of taste. In order to avoid positing such
a principle, then, it would seem that one must eschew the conceptualizability of
the beautiful as well.
Kant's proscription on principles of taste thus strongly suggests that Allison's
view is correct. On the other hand, there are at least two serious problems with
the 'never-in-principle' view. The first problem emerges from Kant's claim that
the activity of free play furthers the tasks of each of the two faculties (FI 221/409).
Alternatively, Kant says that free play is 'purposive' or 'subjectively purposive'
(ibid.). We can infer from this that Kant believes that free play is purposive for
the understanding as well as the imagination, or that it furthers the task of the
understanding. The objective of the understanding, as we have seen, is to bring a

manifold of intuition under a conceptual rule. How are we to understand the
notion of a not-yet-conceptualized schema furthering this goal? Perhaps the
most obvious response to this question would be to say that the schema, though
in fact unconceptualized, is at least Jit or suited for being conceptualized. In the
case of empirical concept formation, we can understand this 'fitness for being
conceptualized' of a schema in reference to its having features that can eventually
be brought under a determinate concept (for example, the concept 'tree'). But
this sort of explanation of the subjective purposiveness of a schema for the
understanding is obviously barred if we stipulate that no concept in principle could
capture our schema. How, then, are we to make sense of the subjective
purposiveness for the understanding in this case? It seems that if there can never
be an act of conceptualization — not even eventually — the understanding's
essential purpose is in fact being thwarted. But if that is so, how can we say that
the schema is 'purposive' for the understanding? It seems, for all intents and
purposes, to be hindering, rather than furtheringthe objective of this faculty. 45
We can pose the same problem in terms of \hepleasurability of this experience,
which Kant closely associates with its 'subjective purposiveness'. For example,
Kant writes that the relation between the faculties brings about a sensation
(Empfindung) that 'amounts to subjective purposiveness (without a concept), and
hence is connected with the feeling of pleasure (als subjective ^jjueckmdssigkeit (ohne
Begriff) mil dem Gefiihle der Lust verbunden 1st)' (FI 224/413).46 Why connect
subjective purposiveness with pleasure in this way? The suggestion here seems to
be that the pleasure in the beautiful is principally due to the way in which the
activity of free play furthers the objectives of our two higher cognitive faculties.
The furthering of the faculties' distinctive activities is both 'purposive' for the
subject, and felt to be so via the sensation of this furthering, which is experienced
(subjectively) as a pleasure. 47 But this view of the result of free play is hard to
make sense of if free play involves the production of a schema that can never, in
principle, be conceptualized. Why should the contemplation of such a schema be
pleasurable for the understanding, rather than disagreeably frustrating? We saw
that, in §9, Kant equates the sensation of pleasure with a 'quickening' (or
enlivening) of the faculties. Attempting to give an account of what the
'quickening' of the understanding could be caused or motivated by in the
situation of free play, Allison suggests that it is the challenge of conceptualizing
the schema presented to it by the imagination. As he describes the 'mechanism'
involved, 'the imagination in its free play stimulates the understanding by
occasioning it to entertain fresh conceptual possibilities, while, conversely, the
imagination, under the general direction of the understanding, strives to
conceive new patterns of order'.48 The situation Allison describes does indeed
seem to be one that might conceivably energize the understanding. But if he is
right that no concept is ever adequate to the understanding's needs, this energy
all seems wasted, going for naught. Expending energy for a purpose only to fail
in fulfilling that purpose does not seem to be a description of a pleasurable
activity. Even if, in the short term, the understanding would be pleasantly
energized by the challenge of finding a concept for an unconceptualizable

schema, this pleasure is bound to dissipate under the strain of continual
frustration. 49 On Allison's account, it would seem hard to claim that beauty is a
pleasure that lasts, let alone one that reinforces and reproduces itself. This, however,
is precisely what Kant does claim, that 'we linger in our contemplation of the
beautiful, because this pleasure reinforces and reproduces itself (CJ 222/68).
Why should we want to linger in a situation that just gets more and more
frustrating? 50 In short, the 'never-in-principle' view has a serious problem in
giving a convincing account of how free play could be pleasurable. Thus,
whether we put it in terms of subjective purposiveness or in terms of
pleasurability, a troubling difficulty results for this interpretation of free play.
There is a second and perhaps even more basic problem with opting for the
view that the schema of the beautiful is such that it can never, even in principle,
be brought under a concept. The problem is that it is far from obvious that there
could even be such a thing — that this description corresponds to anything we can
actually imagine. What, really, are we being asked to imagine here? Perhaps the
most likely candidate is something analogous to an original work of an avant-
garde artist that launches a brand-new style. It may have seemed that when
Pollock completed his first drip painting, for instance, that he had produced
something that was 'fit for a concept', yet not subsumable under any preexisting
concept. This fact about the first Pollock drip painting, however, does not
distinguish it from a new tool or kitchen utensil, or any other empirical object
that is the first of its kind. There was never any reason to suppose that it would
never be brought under a concept — eventually. And, in fact, along came a second
Pollock, and a third, and before long there was a concept for that kind of thing,
with rules for its application not fundamentally different from those of any other
empirical concept.51 So the Pollock case is not a true example of something that
cannot, in principle, be brought under a concept. But if it isn't, what would be?
Would anything be?
Suppose that, under the pressure of these objections, we are prepared to
entertain the idea that the schema of the beautiful, rather than being something
that can never be brought under a concept, is merely something that is not
brought under a concept in the act of judging the beautiful. In other words, we take
the second option described above: this schema such that it is not brought under
a conceptfor the purposes of aesthetic perception (i.e., that we merely abstract from the
concept that would capture the schema). Taking this option, unfortunately, only
leads us into new difficulties. First, as already indicated, any such conclusion
would have to be reconciled with Kant's statement that there are no principles
of taste. The basis of this problem has already been sufficiently outlined above:
there is reason to think that the proscription on principles of taste implies that
the schema of the beautiful can never, in principle, be brought under a concept.
Second, if we go this route, we threaten to reduce the notion of free play to little
more than the freedom that the imagination enjoys in schematizing for any
empirical concept. This is far from an insignificant result, for it limits the ability
of free play to serve as the feature that distinguishes the beautiful from other
empirical properties. Although there is always a sort of freedom when the

imagination, in reflection, schematizes for the sake of bringing objects under a
concept, the freedom of the imagination in contemplating the beautiful must
involve something more than just this. If it does not, then we lack any account of
what beauty is, apart from this everyday freedom of the imagination in
empirical concept formation. But this would imply that beauty is simply a
product of that harmony of the imagination and understanding that occurs
whenever we form empirical concepts. The problem with this is that it leads to far
too broad a conception of beauty. In fact, since the aforementioned mode of
harmony between the faculties is a precondition of any act of empirical
perception whatsoever, it would seem to imply that beauty is present in every
empirical perception. Our second option therefore seems to lead to the highly
counter-intuitive conclusion that everything is beautiful. 52 Not only does this
conclusion contradict everyday experience and practice, it also runs counter to
Kant's own characterization of the taste for beauty as a 'very special power of
discriminating' (CJ 204/44). Any account of free play that would lead to the
conclusion that we have no basis for discriminating the beautiful from the non-
beautiful is therefore problematic.
This problem has some claim to being the central one for any account of free
play. We have seen that Kant wants to justify the claim to universal validity of the
pleasure in the beautiful by explaining this pleasure as the result of the mental
state of the harmony of the faculties. This state — in the threefold way we have seen
— is also at the basis of empirical perception. Since empirical perception is
universally valid, it is arguable that the pleasure in the beautiful, which is
supposed to be based on a similar mental state, must be universally valid as well.
On the other hand, the pleasurable perception of the beautiful is also obviously
different from a mere empirical perception. Consequently, Kant needs a way to
differentiate the harmony of the faculties underlying the pleasure in the beautiful
from the harmony of the faculties underlying ordinary perception. His way of
doing this is to claim that, in the aesthetic case of harmony, the imagination is in
free play, whereas in the ordinary case it is not. Aesthetic perception must be
sufficiently similar to empirical perception to allow for its universal validity, yet
sufficiently dissimilar to preserve the distinction between ordinary perception and
perception of the beautiful. Evidently, a successful account of free play needs to
balance both of these needs of Kant's theory. It is far from clear, however, how
this can be done. This is still the main question that our account of the harmony of
the faculties in free play has yet to answer.
In sum, while Allison's schema-based explanation of free play undoubtedly
advances our understanding of Kant's explanatory psychology of our response to
the beautiful, significant questions can still be raised about its adequacy and
completeness. There is an initial question about how we are to envision the
activity of reflective judgement in the case of the beautiful. This activity must,
according to Kant's stated account of it, involve a comparison; but it is unclear
what is being compared when we are attending to an object to which we
attribute beauty. This comparison must be either with other objects, or with the
cognitive faculties themselves. It is difficult to see how it can be the former, since
this would seem to suppose a similarity among beautiful objects that does not
exist. But it is equally obscure how it could be the latter, since it is far from
obvious what a comparison of a representation 'with one's cognitive faculties'
could be, and Kant's sole model for this seems to have little in common with
aesthetic judgement. Allison's suggestion that what is being compared is the
'minimal' and 'maximal' sense of harmony seems promising, but is vulnerable,
as it stands, to its own difficulties.
The second major question not adequately answered by the account in the
previous section concerns the relation of the schema of the beautiful to the
possibility of a concept. The primary issue is whether the schema of the beautiful
is subsumable under a concept. There seem to be two options here, neither of
which is without serious problems. Either the schema of the beautiful is such that
it can never, in principle, be subsumed under a concept, or else it can be, only
not in the act of aesthetic perception (so we abstract from its concept in this act).
If we take the former option, however, we face two troubling questions. First,
how is it possible to understand the activity of free play to be purposive or
pleasurable for the faculty of understanding, since it seems, on the above
account, not to advance, and even to frustrate its goal? And second, how is it
even possible to conceive of a schema that can never, in principle, be brought
under a concept? On the other hand, if we take the latter option, we must
confront two new problems. First, how do we reconcile this idea with Kant's
proscription against principles of taste? And second, how do we, on this account,
differentiate the beautiful object from the non-beautiful? Either way, then, our
account of free play seems, at a minimum, to be incomplete.
6. Conclusions
In this chapter, I have begun to lay the theoretical groundwork for an account
of Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative. I have recounted some of the
major issues that confront the interpreter of the first part of Kant's theory of the
sources of pleasure in the beautiful, his account of the psychological process
involved in the pleasurable response to the beautiful (the 'subjective pole'). It is
my conviction, however, that we cannot arrive at a completely adequate
understanding of Kant's views about the psychology of the beautiful without also
considering his account of its phenomenology (the 'objective pole'). This conviction
is reinforced by the results of this chapter. What we have found is that there are
serious gaps in even the most philosophically sophisticated and textually
sensitive account of free play, as long as that account is constructed
independently of Kant's phenomenology of the object. In the next two chapters,
I will show how a certain reading of that phenomenology provides the key to
addressing these lacunae. This will enable me to take on the task of explicating
Kant's justification of the pleasure-imperative in Chapter V.
Chapter III
The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness
The objective pole of Kant's theory of the beautiful is his phenomenology of the
beautiful object. The fundamental concept in this phenomenology is his notion
of the 'mere form of purposiveness' or, alternatively, 'purposiveness without a
purpose'. At the end of the Third Moment, Kant declares that 'Beauty is an
object's form of purposiveness insofar as it is perceived in the object without the
representation of a purpose' (CJ 236/84). In this chapter, I shall be concerned to
investigate a pair of central questions regarding this notion. First, what exactly
does Kant understand by the term 'form of purposiveness'? And second, does he
have a successful argument, parallel to the argument in §9 showing that pleasure
in the beautiful must be subjectively based on the harmony of the faculties in free
play, to show that this pleasure must beobjectivelybased on the form of
purposiveness? I shall formulate a preliminary answer to the first question based
on §§10—15 of the Third Critique, where it is usually assumed to lie. The best
answer that we can derive from these sections alone is that the form of
purposiveness is the phenomenologically spatiotemporal arrangement of a
phenomenal object, which is considered as if designed, yet in abstraction from
any specific intentions that the object may fulfil. I then conclude that the answer
to the second question above clearly must be negative, if we presume to base it
solely on §§10—15. That is, Kant does not have a successful argument to base
pleasure in the beautiful on the form of purposiveness, if we construe it in this
way. This conclusion, however, provides us with some reason to doubt that the
conception of the form of the beautiful derived from §§10—15 is really complete.
We might be led by this apparent failure to question whether the form of
purposiveness is limited to the features just mentioned, and whether the initial
characterization of the form of purposiveness represents theentiretyof Kant's
view. This impasse will set up an examination of §§16—17, in which Kant's view
of the form of purposiveness is significantly complicated by new considerations. I
shall examine the problems that have often been noticed in conjunction with
these sections. On my view, however, we should take the existence of these
complications as an opportunity to rethink Kant's conception of the form of the
beautiful itself. This is what I shall go on to do in the next chapter.
While the main effort of the present chapter is critical and preparative, this is
also the most appropriate place to tackle another important issue in Kant's
theory of taste: the subjectivity of the beautiful. The very existence of an
'objective pole' of Kant's account of beauty of course calls into question Kant's
professed subjectivism. In the course of exploring the two fundamental questions
about the form of purposiveness mentioned above, I shall additionally take on
the problematic of the subjectivity of taste. There are two principal issues here. I
shall first argue that subjectivism is central to Kant's theory of taste. Then I shall
attempt to show how Kant's view that beauty is the mere form of purposiveness
is consistent with his subjectivism about beauty. These issues will be dealt with in
the context of a consideration of one of Kant's possible arguments to show that
the form of purposiveness must be the basis of beauty.
An implicit assumption of this discussion is that the 'mere form of
purposiveness' or, alternatively, 'purposiveness without a purpose' refers to
what, in the previous chapter, we were calling 'the schema of the beautiful'. It is,
in other words, the apprehended content that is the product of the imagination's
activity in free play. This fact describes, in general terms, the basic link between
Kant's psychology of the basis of pleasure in the beautiful and its
phenomenology. It should be clear that by 'phenomenology', I mean simply
the way in which the phenomenon of beauty appears to the subject — appears,
that is, 'from the inside'. A basic presumption of Kant's theory is that the
beautiful at least appears 'objective' — i.e., as an object distinct from the subject
and its states. But this may, of course, be merely an appearance — a kind of illusory
projection outward of what is really inside us. In proposing that Kant has an
objectivist phenomenology of the beautiful, I am not, therefore, contradicting his
assertion of the subjectivityof taste. Since by 'phenomenology', I am referring only
to the way the beautiful phenomenon appears to us as an 'intentional object' of
consciousness, this does not commit me to the ontological view that beauty is an
objective empirical property. In my view, Kant was clearly a consistent
subjectivist about the beautiful, and, moreover, his central thesis of the
normativity of taste is tied up with his being one. This reading is not, however,
completely uncontroversial. Karl Ameriks has raised the question whether
Kant's subjectivism was not basically a mistake on his part, and whether it was
really in keeping with his most fundamental goals and insights. It is necessary,
therefore, to answer Ameriks' challenge by defending that subjectivism and
showing how the view of beauty as the mere form of purposiveness is consistent
with it.
2. The Form of Purposiveness: A Preliminary Account

(Critique Of Judgment§§10-15)
Kant introduces the notion of 'purposiveness without a purpose', or 'purposive-
ness as to form' in §10 of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, which begins the Third
Moment. 1 This section begins with a general discussion of the concepts of a
purpose and of purposiveness. A 'purpose (£weck)', Kant says, 'is the object of a
The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness 67
concept insofar as we regard this concept as the object's cause' (CJ 220/64). In
other words, a purpose is the object that an intelligent being (i.e., one who
operates according to concepts) aims to produce, or the end or goal at which he
or she aims. In this sense, any work of art or human manufacture is a 'purpose',
as are the works of God, if there are any. 'Purposiveness (zweckmassigkeit)' is
initially defined, rather unexpectedly, as 'the causality that a concept has with
regard to its object' (CJ 220/65). This is a somewhat surprising move because,
given his ultimate intention to characterize the form of the beautiful, we would
have expected Kant to introduce 'purposiveness' as a notion that pertains to a
property of an object, rather than of a concept. One can see, however, the
appropriateness of defining purposiveness as the causal power to produce an end
or purpose. In this case, it refers specifically to the power to be an Aristotelian
'formal' cause: the concept is the necessary precondition of the particular form that
an object (the purpose or end) has. The concept of a shoe in the mind of a
shoemaker, for instance, is the formal cause or condition of his shoes having a
certain size heel, laces, and so forth. This concept of purposiveness, however, is
clearly inappropriate for describing a property of the form of beauty, which must
be, of course, a sensuous, rather than a conceptual form. Fortunately, Kant
quickly broadens his definition to cover other things besides concepts:
. . . we do call objects, states of mind, or acts purposive even if their possibility

does not necessarily presuppose the representation of a purpose; we do this
merely because we can explain and grasp them only if we assume that they
are based on a causality [that operates] according to purposes, i.e., on a will
that would have so arranged them in accordance with the representation of a
certain rule, (ibid.)
There are two ways mentioned in this passage in which an object (as well as a
'state of mind' and an act) could be called 'purposive'. First, it may be that the
object is in fact a purpose, in the sense described above: the product of an
intelligent being who formed it in accordance with a concept. More interesting,
however, is the second way: even though the object is technically not a purpose
(i.e., it was not the product of an intelligent being), we nevertheless necessarily
treat it as such. We do so because this is the only way we can 'explain and grasp'
it. Kant does not elaborate on what he means by this phrase, but the more
important point in the present context is that 'we can at least observe a
purposiveness as to form and take note of it in objects . . . without basing it on a
purpose' (ibid.). In short, there is, according to Kant, such a thing as the
observable 'look' of being a purpose, which is distinguishable from actually being
a purpose. 'Purposiveness' in this second sense could accordingly be described as
the appearance of being a purpose.
In order to further specify Kant's conception of the form of purposiveness, we
need to examine what he contrasts it with: viz., the 'matter', or that content
which is excluded as a source of pleasure in the beautiful. It is a well-known fact
that Kant's aesthetic theory is often considered to be a forerunner of aesthetic
formalism', the critical doctrine which favours the formal arrangement of an object
over its subject matter, or the design over the representational content. The form-
matter contrast in Kant's aesthetics, however, is not easily reducible to this
familiar doctrine. There are, rather, three distinct elements with which Kant
contrasts the form of the beautiful, none of which can be easily equated with
subject matter or representational content. In sections ten and fifteen, Kant
contrasts the form of purposiveness with the purpose', in sections thirteen and
fourteen, however, Kant emphasizes a contrast with 'charms' and emotions. To get
a complete picture of Kant's version of formalism, therefore, we will have to
consider all three types of excluded 'matter', and the grounds on which he makes
these exclusions.
In sections ten and fifteen, Kant emphasizes a contrast between the formal
purposiveness of an object and its material purpose. He first makes this contrast at
the end of §10, where the notion of a 'purposiveness as to form' is opposed to the
notion of a purpose, which Kant equates with 'the matter of the nexus finalis [or
purposive connection]' (ibid.). This rather unusual way of contrasting form and
matter can best be understood if we see it as implicitly drawing upon the
Aristotelian idea that 'form follows function'. This Aristotelian dictum says that
the shape or configuration of the parts of an object — i.e., the form — is derived from
or determined by the purpose that the thing is designed to fulfil. For example, the
form (literally, the shape) of a hammer, with its long wooden handle and short
metal head attached at a perpendicular angle, is derived directly from the
function for which the hammer is designed. In contrasting the purposive
arrangement or 'form' with the purpose or 'matter', Kant is attempting to say
something similar about the relation of purpose to form of purposiveness. The
purpose is not the matter of which the object is made (which would be the
Aristotelian 'material cause'), but rather the matter of the nexus finalis, or purposive
connection', i.e., it is the ground or reason for the object having the particular form it
does. 'Purposiveness as to form' could thus be taken to refer to the form that an
object is given in order to serve a determinate end. The peculiar sense in which
Kant wants to use this phrase, however, severs it from its implicit connection to
some specific material purpose. In his sense, it is the notion of a mere form of
purposiveness — of a form that follows, as it were, 'functionality', as opposed to
some specific function.
'Merely formal purposiveness' is thus contrasted with the purposiveness in an
object that is connected with a determinate purpose, which Kant in §15 calls
'objective' purposiveness (CJ 226/73). Objective purposiveness in general is
linked with the liking for the good, which, as we saw in the last chapter, is a form
of liking that stems from the recognition that an object is in conformity with a
rational concept; it is, in the lingo of the Third Moment, the recognition that the
object constitutes a purpose or end. Merely formal purposiveness, on the other
hand, 'is quite independent of the concept of the good' (ibid.). The contrast
between objective and subjective/formal purposiveness, or goodness and beauty,
serves to emphasize that the aesthetic enjoyment of the beautiful is not the sort of
pleasure that arises from the recognition that an actual purpose has been
realized. The emphasis in §15 is on the specific contrast between beauty and
perfection. This emphasis is attributable to Kant's concern to distinguish his
theory of the beautiful from that of his rationalist predecessors Alexander
Baumgarten and G. F. Meier, for whom beauty was 'perfection thought confusedly'
(CJ 227/73). 2 Perfection is 'intrinsic objective purposiveness', or 'the harmony of
the thing's manifold' with the concept of'what sort of thing it is [meant] to be' (CJ
227/74). Perfection, in short, is the property of agreeing with, or fulfilling, a
concept. To think of an object as possessing perfection is to think it 'through' the
concept of a purpose (ibid.). Formal or 'subjective' purposiveness, by contrast,
'does not indicate any perfection of any object whatever, [since] no object is
being thought through any concept of a purpose' (ibid.). Rather, 'here we
abstract from what this [object] is as a purpose (what the thing is [meant] to be),
so that nothing remains but the subjective purposiveness of the representations
in the mind of the beholder' (ibid.). Kant illustrates the point as follows:
Suppose, for example, that in a forest I come upon a lawn encircled by trees
but that I do not connect with it the thought of any purpose, e.g., that it is
[meant] (say) for a country dance. In that case, no concept whatsoever of
perfection is given me through the mere form. (CJ 227—228/74)
Kant seems to be saying here that one can attend to the mere form of
purposiveness of an object even if it does fulfil an actual purpose, and was even
intended for that purpose; all that is necessary is that one abstract from that
purpose in one's contemplation of the object (which may occur because one is
unaware of the purpose). 'Subjective' or 'formal' purposiveness might thus be
better thought of as a feature of the subject's approach to the object, rather than of
the object itself. It describes the way in which the object seems, to the subject, as if
it were designed for something, without the subject connecting that appearance
with the thought of a definite purpose.
If we were to base our account of Kant's formalism entirely on the sections
just considered, we might well take the notion of the form of purposiveness to
refer simply to the appearance of design. Guyer has raised doubts about the
latter notion, questioning 'whether there are in fact any forms characteristic of
designed objects'.3 This challenge threatens to reduce Kant's notion of the form
of purposiveness to vacuity; if it does not rule anything out, then the concept is
empty of content. Guyer argues that the notion of an appearance of design fails
to be informative, because there is no perceptual property to which it could not
apply. The reason for this failure is that 'human purposes — let alone those of
other possible wills — are too various to imply any restriction on the appearance
of objects that may satisfy them' .* Guyer maintains that for any form we can
imagine, it is possible to conceive of some human purpose that it could fulfil,
hence to conceive of it as purposive. It is thus no accident that Kant's example of
a lawn encircled by trees can be construed as formally purposive, because,
according to Guyer, anything can be. Thus, he concludes that 'the appearance of
design is a vacuous criterion for aesthetic judgement, for any appearance might
satisfy some design'.5 If Guyer is correct, then the notion of the form of
purposiveness, considered as the appearance of design, is an empty concept. It is
questionable, however, whether Kant's view of the form of the beautiful can be
limited to this concept, since, in sections thirteen and fourteen, he advances a
further characterization of this form as the spatiotemporal configuration of the
object. This conception of formal purposiveness emphasizes a contrast between
the form of the beautiful and 'charms' and emotions. If valid, then at least this
conception of beautiful form would not be vacuous.
Kant declares in §13 that ' A pure judgment of taste is one that is not influenced
by charm or emotion . . . and whose determining basis is therefore merely the
purposiveness of the form' (CJ 223/69). He elucidates this new form—matter
contrast in §14, in which he explains what he understands by the concepts of
'charm' and 'emotion'. Kant dedicates the majority of his discussion to the
former notion — which, however, he does not define. His primary examples of
charms are sensations of colour and of tones, such as 'the green color of a lawn', or
the distinctive tone of a violin (CJ 224/70). In contrast to the 'matter' of colours
and tones, Kant opposes the form of the beautiful. This form, he says, is always
'either shape or play, if the latter, it is either play of shapes (in space, namely,
mimetic art and dance), or mere play of sensations (in time)' (CJ 225/71—72).
The form of purposiveness is thus now equated with the spatiotemporal configuration
of the object. Kant makes the necessary link with his other conception of
aesthetic form by equating spatiotemporal configuration with spatial 'design'
and/or temporal 'composition' (CJ 225/72). The former applies particularly to
the visual arts, as well, presumably, to natural beauties; the latter presumably
applies especially to music. According to Kant, only the design and the
composition can make an object 'beautiful and worthy of being beheld'; the
charms at best can make the object 'vivid to sense' (CJ 225/71). He accordingly
relegates charms to the role of'supplementing' the form of beauty, and perhaps
attracting to it the attention of those whose taste is 'still crude and unpracticed'
(ibid.).
Kant devotes comparatively little space to the contrast with emotion, which
he defines as 'a sensation where agreeableness is brought about only by means of
a momentary inhibition of the vital force followed by a stronger outpouring of it'
(CJ 226/72). This is a rather narrow definition of'emotion', which seems to be
borrowed from Edmund Burke's account of the sublime.6 While he accordingly
acknowledges that it is in fact connected with sublimity, Kant simply dismisses
emotion as something which 'does not belong to beauty as all' (ibid.). We are
therefore left to infer that any phenomenal properties that were particularly
prone to affecting the emotions — such as the terrible or poignant subject matter
of a painting, or aspects of a natural scene that had a tendency to provoke
Wordsworthian feelings — would be excluded by Kant from being a basis of the
pleasure in the beautiful.
Kant's explication of the form of purposiveness contained in the first six
sections of the Third Moment (§§10—15) is usually regarded as providing a
substantially complete account of his views on the topic. Based upon his remarks
in these sections, we are led to conclude that the form of purposiveness for Kant
is the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered
as if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object may
fulfil. This is clearly a non-vacuous conception of the form of purposiveness,
insofar at it does exclude specific phenomenal properties: namely, those which
Kant classifies under the rubric of 'charms', as well as any properties that may
appeal directly to the emotions. Hence, Kant's notion of the form of
purposiveness is not empty. Whether it is also defensible is, of course, another
question.
3. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure

in the Beautiful: Opening
We may now turn to Kant's arguments to show that the form of purposiveness is,
in fact, the 'objective' basis of beauty. It is, of course, far from obvious from the
account in the last section why we should regard the pleasure in the beautiful as
based on this form. At this stage of the Third Critique, Kant has at his disposal
basically three elements in his conception of pleasure in the beautiful: its
disinterestedness, its universal validity and its basis in free play. He could,
therefore, try to argue to the form of purposiveness as the necessary basis of this
pleasure from any one of these three elements, and there do in fact seem to be
arguments in §§11 — 14 that are based upon each of them. In §11, Kant argues
based on the presumed disinterestedness of pleasure in the beautiful. In §12, he
argues from the basis of this pleasure in free play. In §14, he argues from its
universal validity. None of these three arguments, however, seems to get us all
the way to the conclusion Kant wants. This, I shall suggest, provides us with
some reason to reevaluate whether these sections are truly intended to provide a
complete account of the form of purposiveness.
In §11, Kant appears to make an argument from elimination. This argument
thus has the basic weakness of all arguments from elimination: it is only as strong
as its list of possibilities is exhaustive. The basis of the liking for the beautiful,
Kant argues, must be either objective or subjective purposiveness. It must, that is,
be based upon either the recognition of an object as a purpose, or the object's
mere form of purposiveness. It cannot, however, be based upon the former,
because 'whenever a purpose is regarded as the basis of a liking, it always carries
with it an interest' (CJ 221/66). This statement refers to the Third Critique's well-
known doctrine of the disinterestedness of pleasure in the beautiful, which is laid
out in the First Moment (§§1—5). Although many potential complications arise
in connection with this doctrine, its basic idea can be sketched out relatively
briefly.7 The pleasure in the beautiful is distinguished by Kant both from merely
pathological pleasure, or pleasure in 'agreeableness', and from pleasure in the
good, which we considered briefly in the last chapter. Kant believes that the
pleasure in the beautiful is distinctive, in that it cannot be construed as resulting
from the satisfaction of a bodily desire — which would be a 'subjective purpose' —
nor can it be construed as the result of recognizing that an object fulfils some
rational intention — which would be an 'objective purpose' (ibid.). Both of these
processes make the pleasure conditional on an interest in the existence of the
object in question (CJ 204—205/45—46). The beautiful, however, is a pleasure
taken in the object 'in our mere contemplation of it', in which we are indifferent
to the actual existence of the object (CJ 204/45). Since objective and subjective
purposes are obviously the only type of purposes there are, it follows that
pleasure in the beautiful cannot be based on objective purposiveness. But since,
likewise, objective and subjective purposiveness are obviously the only two types of
purposiveness that there are, if pleasure in the beautiful cannot be based on the
one, it must be based on the other. So Kant concludes that this pleasure must be
based upon the object's 'subjective purposiveness in the representation of an
object, without any purpose' (CJ 221/66). Kant then proceeds to equate this
'subjective purposiveness' with 'the mere form of purposiveness' — thereby
arriving at his desired conclusion (ibid.).
The weakness of this argument stems from the fact that it is far from clear why
the pleasure in the beautiful should have anything to do with purposiveness at
all.8 Kant merely presupposes that it must be; but this is surely not something that
he can simply take for granted. Consequently, the argument in §11 is
inadequate.
Kant takes another tack in §12, seemingly attempting to derive the basis of
aesthetic pleasure in the form of purposiveness from its relation to free play. The
relevant passage in §12 runs as follows:
The very consciousness of a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the

subject's cognitive powers, accompanying a representation by which an
object is given is [the pleasure in an aesthetic judgement]. For this
consciousness in an aesthetic judgment contains a basis for determining the
subject's activity regarding the quickening of his cognitive powers, and hence
an inner causality (which is purposive) concerning cognition in general,
which however is not restricted to a determinate cognition. Hence it contains
a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a representation. (CJ 222/68)
Here Kant first assigns formal purposiveness to the activity of the faculties in free play
itself. This is an important departure from what we have seen so far in the Third
Moment, in which purposiveness was treated only as a property of concepts or of
objects; we will recall, however, that it was foreshadowed in the passage from
§10, which included 'states of mind' among those things that could be considered
purposive. The rationale for assigning purposiveness to the mental state of free
play is not difficult to see, since, as we know, in this state, according to Kant, the
faculties further each other's essential function. This purposiveness of the
faculties' activity, however, has to be considered merely subjective or formal,
because it is not, in fact, destined to result in the actual fulfilment of the purpose
of the faculties, which would be a cognition. The next step in Kant's apparent
argument is the equation of the consciousness of this formal purposiveness of the
faculties in free play with the pleasure in the beautiful itself. In a later chapter, I
shall argue that the possibility of making this link stems from Kant's conception
of pleasure in general as the subjective awareness of any enlivenment of the vital
forces. For now, we can merely postulate that since the formal purposiveness of
the faculties in free play is intimately connected with their being 'quickened', or
enlivened to an increased output of their distinctive activities, it is legitimate to
describe the consciousness of their formal purposiveness as a pleasure. While this
may explain how the formal purposiveness of the faculties in free play could be
connected to a pleasure, it does not, however, explain why the form of
purposiveness of an object must be regarded as the basis of pleasure in the
beautiful. This connection is simply assumed by Kant at the end of the passage, in
which he slides from the notion of 'a merely formal purposiveness in the play of
the subject's cognitive powers' to the notion of 'a mere form of the subjective
purposiveness of a representation', as if this were merely a minor terminological
variation, instead of a major new claim. This, however, clearly will not do; Kant
needs to give an account of why the formal purposiveness of the psychological
state of free play can be equated with the formal purposiveness of the
phenomenal object. In the absence of such an account, the argument of §12 must
be regarded as incomplete.
4. Excursus on the Subjectivity of the Beautiful

In order to see how this argument might be completed, I want to take a brief
detour at this point and consider the issue of the subjectivity of the beautiful.
Kant's argument attempt in §12, while puzzling, does provide some hints as to
how we are to understand the relationship between the 'subjective' and
'objective' poles of the beautiful. Following our guiding interpretive hypothesis
that 'the mere form of purposiveness' refers to what, in the previous chapter, we
were calling 'the schema of the beautiful', we can expand on the argument
presented in §12 and simultaneously address the question of subjectivity. Before
doing this, however, we should backtrack a bit and examine the nature of the
problem.
The issue here, one will recall, is twofold. It is necessary, first, to demonstrate
that subjectivism is central to Kant's theory of taste, and, second, to show how
Kant's view that beauty is the mere form of purposiveness is consistent with his
subjectivism about beauty.
Kant consistently declared the beautiful and the judgement of taste to be
subjective. These declarations, in fact, are among the first significant claims in
the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. The subjectivity of the judgement of taste is
treated by Kant as a necessary consequence of the judgement of taste being an
aesthetic judgement, i.e., one based on a pleasure. So Kant, in §1, declares: 'a
judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment and so is not a logical judgment
but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis
cannot be other than subjective' (CJ 203/44). Kant seems to reason in this section as
follows. A judgement of the beautiful is a judgement of taste. A judgement of

taste is, by its essential nature, based on a pleasure. (That is, if it were not based
on a pleasure, it would not be a judgement 'of taste', but a judgement we would
call by some other name.) Pleasure, however, is a mental representation that
'designates nothing whatsoever in the object', and hence, 'does not contribute
anything to cognition' (CJ 204/44). The sensation of pleasure is entirely
subjective in that 'through [it] no object is represented' (CJ 206/48). Rather,
'here the subject feels himself, [namely] how he is affected by the representation'
(CJ 204/44). Thus, the judgement of taste is not a cognitive, or, in Kant's
terminology, a 'logical' judgement; it does not purport to present an objectively
valid picture of the (empirical) world, i.e., one that could be true or false of
(empirical) reality. Hence beauty, which is predicated of an object by the
judgement of taste, is not a real empirical property. Consequently, the surface
grammar of the judgement of the beautiful must be regarded as misleading. As
Kant writes:
What is strange and different about a judgment of taste is only this: that what
is to be connected with the representation of the object is not an empirical
concept but a feeling of pleasure (hence no concept at all), though, just as if it
were a predicate connected with the cognition of the object, this feeling is
nevertheless to be required of everyone. (CJ 191/31)
A judgement of taste, according to this passage, can be regarded as the universal

'predication of a pleasure': i.e., it asserts merely that I like an object, and that this
liking is universally valid. Such an assertion is quite distinct, however, from the
assertion of the real existence of an objective property. For Kant, beauty is
clearly no such property.
Karl Ameriks, however, has argued that Kant should have regarded beauty as
an objective property. By modifying his view in this respect, Ameriks suggests,
Kant could have given an elegant solution to the central dilemma bedevilling his
theory of taste. As Ameriks frames this problem, Kant is faced with two equally
unpalatable alternatives.9 He seems to be committed to the view that either (a)
the harmony of the faculties in free play is the condition of all cognition, or else
(b) it is a special capacity not shared by all. If (a) is true, then Kant would be
committed to the absurd position that everything is beautiful. 10 If (b) is true, on
the other hand, Ameriks finds it hard to see how Kant can maintain his claim
that the judgement of taste is universally valid. The source of this dilemma, as
Ameriks sees it, is the fact that the object causing the harmony of the faculties is left
out of the picture. Accordingly, Ameriks advocates the view that 'it can be
special objects or features, and not special people or faculties, that are primarily
responsible for the fact that some experiences are harmonious and some are
not'. 11 So what Kant needs to do to rescue his theory from the dilemma is pick
out some feature in phenomenal objects themselves that would provide a basis for
pleasure in the beautiful. 12 Ameriks' suggestion is that Kant could have regarded
beauty as a causal property of objects, analogous to secondary qualities such as
colour on the classical empiricist picture. In the Third Critique at least, Kant
regards colour as a property that can count as objective.13 Ameriks argues that
there is no basis for regarding the sensation of pleasure on which a judgement of
taste is based as any more subjective than the sensation of colour-quality on
which (say) a judgement of the greenness of a meadow is based. Since Kant
regards colour as an objective sensation, there is no reason in principle why he
could not have regarded beauty as objective as well.14
Ameriks believes that Kant could have amended his theory to regard beauty
as an objective property without making any other significant modifications.
Against this view, I believe that subjectivism is, in fact, central to Kant's theory,
and that to excise this feature would, therefore, fundamentally transform it. The
most important reason for drawing this conclusion is the normativity of the
judgement of taste.15 In assimilating judgements of taste to judgements of
secondary qualities, Ameriks is clearly following the Humean reading criticized
in the first chapter. On this reading, the universality of the beautiful is simply a
function of the causal power of objects to produce certain specific effects in
normal subjects in the right circumstances. In this case, there is no question of
the normativity of taste. I could perhaps issue ^prediction that others would share
my pleasure, but I could never demand that they did. But such a demand, as has
been argued previously, is essential to Kant's conception of taste. Consequently,
Ameriks' suggestion cannot be regarded, in my view, as truly 'Kantian' in spirit;
it would better be described as 'Humean', and, hence, as a dramatic alteration
of Kant's theory.
This critique of Ameriks reveals a more general point about how we must
understand Kant's view of pleasure in the beautiful and its causal relation to
objects, or lack thereof. While it is admittedly natural to speak of the beautiful
flower as 'causing' the pleasure the subject takes in it, this cannot be quite
correct for Kant. If the empirical object caused the pleasure, this would extinguish
any possibility of that pleasure having a normative status. If pleasure in the
beautiful has to be regarded as the causal effect of something, it can only be
regarded as the effect of the spontaneous and purposive activity of the subject's
own mental faculties. 16 Only in this case can the normativity of taste be
preserved. Hence, we must regard the beautiful flower not as causing, but rather
as occasioning the pleasure in the beautiful. The flower serves, that is, as the
occasion for the subject to employ his or her faculties in spontaneous free play. It
must still be the case, of course, that not everything is suited for serving as such an
occasion. Not everything is an appropriate object of pleasure in the beautiful.
Nonetheless, in the case of those things which are appropriate objects of beauty,
their status as such is determined by the appropriateness of their being taken up
by the subject, rather than by the causal effect they have on that subject.
Subjectivism, then, is central to Kant's theory of taste. This brings us to the
second issue concerning the subjectivity of taste: to show how Kant's view that
beauty is the form of purposiveness is consistent with his subjectivism. Here is
where the discussion in §12 becomes especially relevant. Kant's remarks there
suggest that the form of purposiveness itself cannot be considered an empirically
objective property, but must instead be regarded as an empirically subjective

'projection' of the subject. This would in part explain Kant's easy slide from the
notion of 'a merely formal purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive
powers' to the notion of 'a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a
representation'. The form is phenomenologically objectival, when considered as
an intentional object of consciousness, but is not ontologically real (not even in
the 'empirical' sense of'reality'). 17 This view of the subjective character of the
form of purposiveness also has the welcome feature of being entirely compatible
with the assimilation of this form to the empirical schema of the beautiful, for
such a schema is best understood as a subjective representation. It is also
compatible with Kant's characterization of the form of purposiveness as the
spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as if
designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object may
fulfil. I will now briefly take up each of these points in turn.
The crucial shift at the end of the argument of §12 can be read as indicating
the basically subjective ontological status of the form of purposiveness. What
underlies Kant's shift from speaking of formal purposiveness in the play of the
cognitive powers to talking of a mere form of the subjective purposiveness of a
representation is the fact that both instances of formal purposiveness are in the mind of
the subject, and owe their existence directly to the subject's activity. The form of
purposiveness, I hypothesize, is merely the principal effect of the empirical
productive imagination in free play, and hence that in which the formal
purposiveness of its activity is exhibited. Because of this, Kant's apparently
unjustified slide from speaking of the purposiveness of the subject's activity to the
purposiveness of the representation is, in fact, not such a major transition after
all. He is not actually sliding, in an unwarranted fashion, from describing a
property of a subject to describing a property of an object, but rather from one to
the other way of looking at the activity of the subject. One may look at this activity
'sideways-on', from the third-person perspective, as it were, and consider this
activity as a psychological process. Alternatively, one may adopt a first-person
perspective, and consider how the activity appears 'from the inside', or in the
experience of the perceiving subject — how it appears to him or her. In the former
case, one would speak of the formal purposiveness in the activity of the cognitive
faculties; in the latter, of the form of purposiveness in the representation
produced by that activity. The important point is that, in both cases, we are
really speaking of the same thing. Thus, if this hypothesis is correct, Kant is not
guilty of making a major leap in the argument of §12. His shift in terminology is
entirely justified.
This view of the ontological status of the form of purposiveness also jibes well
with the identification of it with the empirical schema of the beautiful. This
schema is clearly best regarded as a mere product of the imagination, and, as
such, as lacking an empirically objective status. An empirical schema, one will
recall, is formed through the comparison of given representations (empirical
sensations), or through the comparison of such representations with the faculties.
On my reconstruction of Kant's view, the schema that results from this
comparison is a sort 01 composite image, or a distillation ol the commonalities

that have been noted in the course of the comparison. Yet this resulting image is
not a given representation itself, nor can it really be regarded as a concrete and
specific representation at all. Rather, it is a manufacture of the productive
imagination, and a vague, indeterminate and sketchy or 'schematic' image. At
least prior to its being made into the basis of an empirical concept by an act of
the understanding, such an image clearly has to be regarded as merely an 'inner'
representation, one that is valid only for the subject who created it. Once taken
up and brought under a concept, however, the schema could be regarded as the
representation of an empirical rule — hence, as a representation possessing
objective validity. An empirical schema that remains unconceptualized, on the
other hand, must always be regarded as subjective.
Lastly, we may also conclude that the subjectivity of the form of
purposiveness is compatible with Kant's characterization of it as the
spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, considered as if designed.
Unfortunately, Kant does not give us a detailed account of how this can be so,
but we can provide one for him without too much difficulty. Clearly, by
'spatiotemporal arrangement' here, Kant can mean neither the object's specific
position in space and time (which is given by sensibility), nor its particular shape^
insofar as this is determined by the empirical concept through which its manifold is unified
into an object of empirical perception. In other words, the place and time in which the
object is located, and the fact that it possesses the minimal conditions (marks) of
being, say, a rose must be considered to be objectively given. What should not be
considered to be objectively given is its beauty, or, in short, its form of
purposiveness. This form, though phenomenologically spatiotemporal, is best
conceived as a property that supervenes upon the objective qualities, and, hence,
may be, to varying degrees, constrained by them — but without being caused by
them. The form of purposiveness can be understood as an extra 'layer' of
empirical synthesis that takes place within the parameters laid down by the
more basic synthesis leading to empirical perception. The subjective 'aesthetic'
synthesis takes place in a parallel fashion to the objective conceptual synthesis;
but whereas the latter is governed by an empirical concept, the former occurs
through a schema. By applying my empirical concept of a rose to my manifold of
intuition, I unify it into an objective perceptual representation of a rose. If I also
see this rose as beautiful, however, I must go beyond this basic act of synthesis
according to a concept, and unify my manifold in a way that cannot be regarded
as objectively determined. This synthesis is affected through the application of the
schema of the beautiful to the manifold, and it results in a perception of the form of
purposiveness. 18 This perception occurs through the schema, and is thus blended
with it in the experience. The perception is also phenomenologically objectival, in
that it appears to the subject as a spatiotemporal arrangement of the object that
supervenes on his or her basic perception of the rose. Yet it cannot be regarded as
objective, because no concept is employed. Consequently, it is most appropriate to
consider it to be an imaginative projection, by the subject, onto an empirically real
object. Although the object is real, the projection is not. Nevertheless, the two
blend together seamlessly in experience — leading to the erroneous belief that

beauty is an objective property. The fact that the form of purposiveness is
phenomenologically spatiotemporal, then, does not have the consequence that it
is really a feature of the object.
In sum, the view of beauty as the form of purposiveness is, when properly
understood, entirely compatible with subjectivism about the beautiful. The fact
that this form is spatiotemporal is no bar to this conclusion, because its
spatiotemporality may be understood as a purely phenomenological feature,
rather than an objective property. Furthermore, by regarding the form of
purposiveness as an imaginative projection of the subject, rather than as a
representation caused by properties of the object, we can make better sense of
Kant's apparent slide between the two concepts of formal purposiveness in §12.
According to the reading put forth here, Kant is assuming in the passage quoted
from §12 that the slide in terminology is justified because he is referring to the
same phenomenon in both cases. The 'subjective' and 'objective' poles of the
beautiful are, at the end of the day, not really two distinct things, but rather
merely two distinct aspects of, or perspectives on the same thing. Finally, and most
importantly, this way of conceiving of the ontological status of the form of
purposiveness allows us to connect it more directly with the notion of the schema
of the beautiful. This schema can be seen as that through which the extra layer
of synthesis occurs which constitutes the aesthetic perception of the form of
purposiveness. Phenomenologically speaking, however, consciousness of the
schema of the beautiful and consciousness of the form of purposiveness may be
identified.
5. The Form of Purposiveness as the Basis of Pleasure

in the Beautiful: Closing
This brings us back to the question whether Kant has an argument adequate to
show that the pleasure in the beautiful must have a ground in the form of
purposiveness. Because of the intervening discussion, we now have a way in
which to understand the argument of §12 as non-question-begging. Kant is not
necessarily guilty of a non-sequitur when he slides from 'a merely formal
purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' to 'a mere form of the
subjective purposiveness of a representation', because he is assuming that these
are just two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same thing. The argument,
however, still cannot be considered adequate. This is because it fails to explain
why the form of purposiveness that is the ground of pleasure in the beautiful
must be a spatiotemporal arrangement that excludes charms and emotions. In fact,
the argument does not even attempt such an explanation. The only notion of the
form of purposiveness to which it leads is the notion of an 'objective correlative'
of free play. As far as we can see at this point, nothing in the latter notion implies
that the form must be a spatiotemporal arrangement. Thus, while §12 may
provide grounds for the view that some notion of the form of purposiveness is the
basis of pleasure in beauty, it cannot explain why it must be Kant's specific

notion. The argument, in short, does not lead to the full conclusion that Kant
wants.
In §14, Kant makes another attempt, but this argument too is ultimately
disappointing. Now his starting point is the assumption that the pleasure in the
beautiful must be 'universally communicable' — a term that, once again, he does
not explain (CJ 224/70). The conclusion he draws is that, in order for a pleasure
to be universally communicable, it must have as its basis the spatiotemporal
design of the object (or its representation). Kant is especially concerned in this
section to wage a campaign against the view, which he says is held by 'most
people', that charms — 'a mere color', or 'a mere tone' — can actually be the
source of pleasure in the beautiful (ibid.). He thus recognizes that his formalist
conception of the beautiful is revisionary, but he regards these revisions as
necessary in order to preserve one of the two essential features of pleasure in the
beautiful: its universality. If colours and tones could be the basis of pleasure in
the beautiful, Kant argues, then that pleasure would not be necessarily universal
— which contradicts the very notion of such a pleasure. It would not be
necessarily universal because colours and tones 'seem to be based merely on the
matter of representations, i.e., solely on sensation' (ibid.). 19 That is, Kant thinks
that the pleasure derived from colours and tones most likely has to be
understood as simply a causal effect of empirical objects. As such, there would be
no basis for regarding them as universally communicable: 'we cannot assume
that in all subjects the sensations [of colour and tone] agree in quality, let alone
that everyone will judge one color more agreeable than another, or judge the
tone of one musical instrument more agreeable than that of another' (ibid.).
Kant's next claim, obviously, must be that spatiotemporal design is not
vulnerable to this objection. He connects the apprehension of spatiotemporal
design to reflection,as opposed to mere sense, which is, he implies, a psychological
process with a greater claim to universality (ibid.). Unfortunately, Kant
explains neither (1) why this reflection should be concerned with spatiotemporal
arrangement in particular, nor (2) why the content apprehended in reflection
should be universally communicable. In regard to (2), it is natural to assume
that the 'reflection' to which Kant refers in §14 is the mental state of free play.
This would account for the fact that the content apprehended in this reflection is
universally communicable (provided, of course, that we are prepared to grant
that free play is a universally communicable mental state). But it still fails to
explain why free play should be concerned with spatiotemporal design.
If Kant's argument does not support his bias in favour of spatiotemporal
form, then where does this view come from? Commentators have tended to
assume that Kant simply conflated his conception of aesthetic form in the Third
Critique with his conception of the form of sensibility from the Transcendental
Aesthetic in the First Critique. Donald Crawford, for example, writes 'the a priori
character of space and time in part determines the kinds of qualities relevant to
the judgment of taste, if that judgment is to lay claim to universal validity'.20
Kant, on Crawford's view, regards the universal validity of the beautiful as
necessarily based on the form of space and time because Kant is following the
First Critique'?, doctrine of space and time as a priori — hence universal — forms of
intuition. This view, in one form or another, is supported by Guyer and Allison
as well. Guyer claims that the argument in §14 'basically rests on a parallel
between [Kant's] analysis of aesthetic judgment and the theory of perception
employed in the Critique of Pure Reason'.21 This, according to Guyer, leads Kant
into the error of thinking that free play has to be restricted to spatial and
temporal form. Against this restriction, Guyer asserts that there is no reason that
colours and tones could not be the source of free play, and concludes that, in the
end, the notion of the form of purposiveness really adds nothing to Kant's theory
of taste that was not already included in his conception of free play itself.22
Allison agrees with Crawford and Guyer about the source of Kant's view of
aesthetic form, explaining that
Just as spatiotemporal ordering and the content given in sensation were

characterized in the Transcendental Aesthetic respectively as the form and
matter of perception or empirical intuition, so now this same ordering or
organization is regarded as the unique 'formal,' beauty-making feature of
objects, and sensible content is viewed as the 'matter,' capable only of
'charming,' that is, producing a feeling of agreeableness lacking in any claim
to universality. 23
Like Guyer, Allison believes that Kant was misled by this analogy into
adopting a formalism that was 'restrictive, indeed unduly so', because it
'precludes, from the realm of taste proper, features that are usually (and rightly)
thought to be integral to the beauty of works of art', such as the arrangement of
colours and instrumentation in music. 24 Allison is, however, somewhat more
charitable to Kant than Guyer, arguing that some notion of the form of
purposiveness can be rescued and given a useful role to play in Kant's theory.
Allison proposes revising Kant's theory to allow for such things as the
arrangement of colours in painting and instrumentation in music to count as
form, asserting that all that is really essential to this notion is 'merely some kind
of diversity for the imagination to unify in its apprehension and present for
reflection'. 25 He accordingly concludes that there is no reason this diversity
could not be found in complexes of colours or tones as well as shapes and
sequences of time. Allison concludes, in short, that while Kant was led astray by
the influence of the First Critique into adopting an overly restrictive notion of
aesthetic form, this is a correctable misstep.
According to the view held by commentators such as Guyer and Allison, the
Third Moment fails to establish the thing that Kant wants it to establish: that
beauty must be based on spatiotemporal form alone. Since his commentators
regard this view as implausible, they are not particularly troubled by this
conclusion. They assume that its counter-intuitiveness provides sufficient reason
to disregard the view as an undesirable appendage of Kant's theory. But it is not
obvious that its mere counter-intuitiveness is the decisive objection it is often
taken to be. To begin with, Kant himself was aware that his view of beauty would
be unattractive to many, even most; and yet, he put it forward anyway. This
should raise the question in our minds of what it is that a theory of beauty is
supposed to be doing in the first place. Apparently, to be recognizable as a
theory of beauty, it must capture, clarify and systematize at least many, if not
most, of our intuitions about beauty. But there is no reason to suppose that it
needs to capture every one of these intuitions. There is, of course, a philosophical
bent of mind that is inclined to believe that this is what a theory of something
should do: provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that are
invulnerable to counterexamples. But if this is what is demanded in the case of
beauty, the demand will never be met. As many have noted, our uses of the term
'beauty' are too many and varied to possibly admit of a theory or definition of
this form. 26 It seems more reasonable to request of a theory of beauty merely a
'reflective equilibrium' between theoretical claims and ordinary beliefs or
intuitions. 27 A theory of beauty, therefore, may cause us to rethink certain of our
ordinary pre-reflective beliefs about the beautiful. Kant apparently thought that
it was worthwhile being somewhat revisionary on the question of the proper
'objective' grounds of taste. Is it really plausible to think that this was merely for
external reasons, because he wanted the term 'sensible form' to mean the same
thing in the First and Third Critiques? Perhaps. But we might also regard this as a
disappointing conclusion to arrive at about a philosopher of Kant's calibre, and,
hence, as one to be resisted if another plausible explanation is possible. There is
such an explanation: Kant regards the claim to universal validity, along with the
basis in pleasure, as one of the two most essential features of the beautiful as we
understand and talk about it, and believes that our conception of the beautiful
has to allow for the defensibility of that claim. It is for this reason, as I hope to
show in the following chapters, that Kant allows himself to revise certain other
features of our ordinary conception of the beautiful.
I believe that commentators have been too hasty in dismissing Kant's own
view of his formalism, and that this hasty dismissal has prevented them from
being forced to develop a fuller picture of what the form of the beautiful is
actually made up of for Kant. They have satisfied themselves that the inordinate
and inappropriate influence of the First Critique was the cause of Kant's
seduction by an unduly restrictive view. Because they have found this
explanation satisfactory, they have not felt the need to seek out other, more
adequate philosophical reasons why Kant was led to this position. If, on the
other hand, we take seriously Kant's own preferred conception of the form of
purposiveness, then we are forced to conclude that his discussion of the objective
pole of the beautiful in §§10—15 is inadequate. He clearly lacks an argument in
these sections sufficient to show that the pleasure in the beautiful must be based
on the form of purposiveness, understood as spatiotemporal design. But if this is
the case, then it might very well make us question whether we truly possess a
complete picture of what the form of purposiveness itself is. The conclusion that I
draw from these considerations is that the account of the form of purposiveness
in §§10—15 is in fact not complete. This should not be surprising, because the
Third Moment does not end at this point. In what follows, I shall pursue the
hypothesis that the concluding sections of the Third Moment — §§16—17 — are
actually much more central to Kant's account of the beautiful than has usually
been believed. This will lead in the next chapter to a richer and, hopefully, more
illuminating conception of the form of the beautiful.
6. Free and Adherent Beauty and the

Ideal of the Beautiful
It has been generally recognized that §§16—17 greatly complicate the task of
interpreting Kant's views on the form of the beautiful. 28 Indeed, these sections
can seem to overturn, not only the account of the form of purposiveness built up
in the preceding six sections of the Third Moment, but also the standard
interpretations of free play. The usual response, however, has been to explain
away, dismiss, minimize, or simply ignore the peculiarities of these sections.29 I
shall try to make clear why §§16—17 have such upsetting implications; but I shall
also proceed on the assumption that this is not a bad thing, something to be
mitigated or avoided. Given the shortcomings in the accounts of both free play
and the form of purposiveness that we have seen thus far, the complications of
§§16—17 should, in my view, be welcomed as an opportunity to redeem Kant's
account of the sources of pleasure in the beautiful. The direction to a more
adequate account of these sources is pointed to, I shall suggest, in Kant's
introduction in §17 of the 'archetype of taste', and specifically, his statement that
this 'archetype' is 'an idea which everyone must generate within himself and by
which he must judge any object of taste' (CJ 232/ 79). Far from ignoring this as a
mere throwaway comment, I propose to take it seriously, and see what picture of
the form of purposiveness and free play might result. In the next chapter, I shall
pursue the hypothesis that this claim in §17 suggests both a more complex
conception and a more central role for the notion of an aesthetic idea in Kant's
theory of taste than is usually recognized.
In the last two sections of the Third Moment, Kant introduces two new
conceptions: (1) the distinction between 'free' and 'adherent' beauty (in §16),
and (2) the notion of the 'ideal of the beautiful' (in §17). Both of these
conceptions seem to have disturbing implications. These notions are linked to
one another conceptually, insofar as Kant views the ideal of the beautiful as an
instance of adherent beauty; but elements of his characterization of the nature of
the ideal and its role in aesthetic appreciation also generate further questions
that are specific to it.
The distinction between free and adherent beauty is troubling to many
commentators because it threatens to undermine the standard interpretations of
both the form of purposiveness and free play. It does this by calling into question
the independence from concepts that hitherto has seemed to be an essential
feature of pleasure in the beautiful. Kant opens §16 by proclaiming that
There are two kinds of beauty, free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) and merely adherent
beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens).^ Free beauty does not presuppose a concept of
what the object is [meant] to be. Adherent beauty does presuppose such a
concept, as well as the object's perfection in terms of that concept. (CJ 229/76)
The concept of'free beauty' seems to describe what, up to this point, Kant had
simply called 'beauty'. The new concept of 'adherent beauty', with its
'presupposition' of a concept, is apparently an innovation. Kant explains that
while judging free beauties, in which he includes flowers, 'many birds' (such as
the parrot, hummingbird and bird of paradise) and 'a lot of crustaceans of the
sea', 'we presuppose no concept of any purpose for which the manifold is to serve
the given object, and hence no concept of what the object is [meant] to
represent' (CJ 229-230/76-77). On the other hand, when judging the beauty of
such things as a human being, a horse, or a building such as a church, palace,
armory or summer house, we do 'presuppose the concept of the purpose that
determines what the thing is [meant] to be, and hence a concept of its perfection'
(CJ 230/77). There are thus basically two different sorts of beauty, or
judgements of beauty, with two different grounds or bases.31
Several questions can be raised in conjunction with this account, among them
the fundamental question whether Kant is distinguishing between two types of
beauty, or rather merely between two types of judgement of beauty. On the former
reading, objects would be restricted to being assessed in one way or the other:
certain classes of objects, that is, would be understood as being such that they are
properly appreciated only in relation to a concept of the purpose that they serve
(adherent beauties), whereas others would be understood as being properly
appreciated only independently of such purposes (free beauties). On the latter
reading, by contrast, any object that could be assessed as an adherent beauty
(i.e., in terms of the purpose it fulfils) could also be assessed as a free beauty; it
would all depend on the voluntary attitude that the subject adopts towards the
object. If the subject abstracts from all concepts of purposes served by the object,
it is judged as a free beauty; but if the subject bases his or her judgement on these
purposes, it is judged as an adherent beauty.
If we adopt the 'two-judgements' reading, there is an easy way in which to
understand what Kant is doing in introducing the new concept of adherent
beauty. The main reason that this concept is puzzling is that Kant now seems to
be describing as a species of beauty what was formerly described as a liking for the
perfection of a thing. Why has he apparently changed his mind? If we accept the
interpretation that Kant is distinguishing two types of judgement, we might easily
answer this question by saying that, appearances to the contrary, he really has
not changed his mind: a judgement of so-called 'adherent beauty' really is a
judgement of perfection, and, hence, really is not a genuine judgement of beauty
at all. Kant's use of the term 'beauty' for this type of judgement could be
explained simply as a concession to common usage, rather than a modification of
his own conception of beauty. 32 On this reading, there would be no need to
adjust our understanding of Kant's conception of beauty to accommodate
adherent beauty, because the latter is, strictly speaking, 'beauty' in name only.
This easy answer applies, of course, only if Kant is properly read as
distinguishing between two types of judgements, rather than two kinds of
objects. While there is some evidence in favour of the former reading, there is
stronger evidence in favour of the latter. Kant does suggest the 'two-judgements'
reading when he says that a flower is judged as a free beauty by the botanist
because 'while recognizing it as the reproductive organ of the plant, [the
botanist] pays no attention to this natural purpose when he judges the flower by
taste' (CJ 229/76). This suggests that the flower, which is here being judged as a
free beauty, could just as well have been judged as an adherent beauty if its
purpose — which is being abstracted from in this case — were taken into account.
At the end of §16, furthermore, Kant declares that 'a judgment of taste about an
object that has a determinate intrinsic purpose would be pure only if the judging
person either had no concept of this purpose, or if he abstracted from it in
making his judgment', thereby suggesting once again that any object that is
judged as an adherent beauty could also be judged as a free beauty, if we
abstract from its purpose in our assessment of it (CJ 231/78).
On the other hand, Kant strongly suggests that there are certain objects which
it is inappropriate to judge as free beauties. This, at any rate, seems to be the
implication of the notorious passage in which he writes:
Much that would be liked directly in intuition could be added to a building, if

only the building were not [meant] to be a church. A figure could be
embellished with all sorts of curlicues and light but regular lines, as the New
Zealanders do with their tattoos, if only it were not the figure of a human
being. And this human being might have had much more delicate features
and a facial structure with a softer and more likable outline, if only he were
not [meant] to represent a man, let alone a warlike one. (ibid.)
The clear implication of this passage seems to be that the tattoos of the Maori
might be judged beautiful, were it possible to judge the human form as a free
beauty — but this is not possible. The Maori are found wanting in beauty
because we are forced to judge their beauty in relation to the purposes of the
human being, as we are forced to judge the beauty of a church in relation to its
purposes. In both of these cases, the purposes intrinsic to the objects themselves —
moral perfection in the case of human beings, worship of God in the case of the
church — limit the way we may judge their beauty. While the biological purpose
of the flower is irrelevant to the way we judge its beauty, this seems to be
definitely not the case for certain other objects. It seems, then, that for Kant there
are really two distinct types of beauties, rather than merely two distinct types of
judgements of beauty.
If this reading is correct, then this again raises the problem of how we are to
incorporate the notion of adherent beauty into our overall understanding of
Kant's theory of the beautiful. There will be no easy solution, so we are forced to
investigate further. The crucial question in this investigation concerns how we
are to understand the notion of 'presupposing a concept of what the object is

meant to be'. In what sense does the judgement of adherent beauty 'presuppose
a concept', and in what sense does the judgement of free beauty not? One
possible reading would take the locution 'presuppose a concept' as saying that
the judgement of adherent beauty is simply a direct consequence of subsuming
the object under the concept of a purpose, such that the recognition that the
object fulfils its purpose would be the necessary and sufficient condition for its
being (felt as) beautiful. This really would make the judgement of adherent
beauty nothing but a judgement of perfection. It is more likely, however, that
Kant actually has a weaker notion of conceptual presupposition in mind. The
subsumption of the object under the concept of its purpose might provide merely
a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for its being an instance of adherent
beauty. That is, thinking the object through the concept of a purpose of which it
is the fulfilment somehow circumscribes or constrains the freedom of the imagination
in making the judgement of beauty, but is not sufficient in itself to occasion a
pleasure. As Guyer points out in advocating a solution along these lines, Kant
himself suggests he has something like this in mind when he condemns Maori
tattooing as incompatible with the dignity of the human form. 33 The idea here
would seem to be that the purposes inherent in the human form are necessary
conditions of beauty, such that they constrain the possible forms (here,
decorations) that can count as contributing to its beauty. The fulfilment of
these purposes is not, however, sufficientto make a human being beautiful; Kant
is not claiming that the fulfilment of moral purposes makes one's bodily form
beautiful (although it may make one's soul 'beautiful' — in a different but related
sense).
This line seems promising as an articulation of what Kant wants to say, but it
remains, in my view, philosophically under-described. 34 The apparent
arbitrariness of Kant's condemnation of Maori tattooing vividly illustrates that
we still lack a clear explanation of how any concept of perfection could possibly
constrain a judgement of beauty. How does Kant arrive at the conclusion that
the New Zealanders have violated the requirements of good taste, as opposed to
morality? The answer has to be because morality, in this instance, imposes a
constraint on taste. Kant is not simply saying here that moral considerations
trump aesthetic considerations; he is saying that moral considerations influence
aesthetic considerations. This claim, however, seems to flout everything he has
said so far about the basic logical distinction between the beautiful and the good.
Given the basic parameters of Kant's theory, how is it possible for concepts of the
moral purpose of humanity, or any other concepts, to play a role in the
constitution of the beautiful?
In §17, Kant complicates his theory of taste still further by introducing the
notion of the ideal of the beautiful. This notion obviously alludes to and draws
upon Kant's discussion of the 'ideal of pure reason' that was developed in the
First Critique,35 An ideal, he reminds us, is 'the representation of an individual
being as adequate to an idea' (CJ 232/80). Kant explains that he intends the
term 'idea' in his technical sense: a concept of the unconditioned or absolute, to
which no concrete, particular intuition can be fully adequate. So an ideal, in

Kant's original conception, would be a particular, unique entity that was
thought through an idea, but never exhibited in intuition — in the First Critique,
this is God. This concept, however, has to be modified in order to apply to the
beautiful. While God is an ideal of reason, the ideal of the beautiful would be an
ideal of the imagination (ibid.). It would, in other words, have to be an inner
intuition or image. This image, Kant writes, would serve as the 'archetype of taste'
which is 'a mere idea, an idea which everyone must generate within himself and
by which he must judge any object of taste, any example of someone's judging by
taste, and even the taste of everyone' (CJ 232/79).
There are at least two immediately puzzling aspects of this notion of the
archetype of taste. First, and more basically, there is Kant's description of it as
an 'idea', which, as he remarks, 'properly means a rational concept' (CJ 232/
80). If an idea is a rational concept, than why does Kant also describe the ideal
of the beautiful as an 'idea', given that he has just said that it is a product of the
imagination, rather than reason? Second, given his opening remarks about the
general role that the archetype of taste is to play as an inner standard of
judgement, Kant imposes a seemingly bizarre restriction on the ideal, claiming
that 'It is man, alone among all objects in the world, who admits of an ideal of
beauty' (CJ 233/81). If the ideal is the standard by which we 'must judge any
object of taste, any example of taste', and so forth, then how can it be limited to
the human figure? Is Kant making the absurd suggestion that the beauty of the
human figure is the standard by which we must judge, say, the beauty of
Handel's Water Music, the Parthenon, an English garden, or an Arabian show
horse?
Kant addresses the first puzzle by noting that the archetype of taste 'does
indeed rest on reason's indeterminate idea of a maximum, but [it] still can be
represented not through concepts but only in an individual exhibition' (CJ 232/
80). This remark at least shows Kant's cognizance of the problem, even if as a
solution, it remains obscure. Kant here implicitly acknowledges a tension, if not
an outright contradiction, in the very notion of an idea of the imagination', as an
idea, it cannot be exhibited in intuition, but as a product of the imagination, it is
inherently intuitive. The solution that Kant seems to be proposing here is to
weaken the sense in which the archetype of taste is an 'idea'. He reaffirms that
the archetype of taste is basically an intuitive representation, but it is one that
'rests on' an idea of reason — specifically, the idea of a maximum. He does not
explain, unfortunately, the sense in which the archetype of taste 'rests on' this
idea, nor does he really clarify which idea it is. It is unclear, that is, what the
'maximum' here is a maximum of. More information is evidently needed to solve
this puzzle completely.
The second puzzle stems from Kant's claim that 'man alone' admits of an
ideal of beauty. Here, fortunately, he at least gives us a sketch of the reasoning
that leads him to this strange conclusion. First, 'if an ideal is to be located in any
kind of bases for judging, then there must be some underlying idea of reason,
governed by determinate concepts, that determines a priori the purpose on which
the object's inner possibility rests' (CJ 233/80). Kant seems to justify this claim
by an implicit reliance on his definition of the term 'ideal', which is based on an
idea of reason. From this, he infers that the ideal presupposes the objective
purposiveness of the object. Hence, 'if we are to seek an ideal of beauty then the
beauty must be fixed rather than vague, fixed by a concept of objective
purposiveness' (CJ 232/80). This premise evidently contains an allusion to the
newly introduced distinction between free and adherent beauty, which Kant
now terms 'vague' and 'fixed' beauty, respectively. If the ideal must be based on
an idea of reason, such that we relate the object to a rational purpose, then it
obviously must be adherent rather than free beauty. Since, moreover, the ideal is
based, not on just any purpose, but on a rational purpose, or an idea of reason, not
just any type of object can admit of an ideal. Only an object, that is, that can be
properly seen as fulfilling (or not fulfilling) a rational purpose can have its ideal.
For this reason, 'an ideal of beautiful flowers, of beautiful furnishings, or of a
beautiful view is unthinkable' (CJ 233/80). These things, Kant obviously
assumes, are not properly seen as fulfilling (or not fulfilling) a rational purpose.
But it is not necessarily the case that all of those things that can be seen as
fulfilling a rational purpose — such as, for example, 'a beautiful mansion, a
beautiful tree, a beautiful garden' — admit of an ideal (CJ 233/81). This is
because 'the purposes [in these examples] are not sufficiently determined and
fixed by their concept, so that the purposiveness is nearly as free as in the case of
vague beauty' (ibid.). It is unclear why Kant believes that the purpose of, say, a
mansion is insufficiently determined by its concept. One possible answer might
refer back to the central notion in this discussion: that of an idea of reason. Kant
may be thinking that things like mansions, trees and gardens may have purposes
that we assign to them, but these are not rational purposes that they give to
themselves. Giving purposes to oneself is, of course, the prerogative of a rational
being only. Kant concludes that there is thus only one candidate left for being
the object of an ideal: man. Only man admits of an ideal because only he 'can
himself determine his purposes by reason' (ibid.).
What, then, does the ideal of human beauty involve? There are, according to
Kant, two basic components. The first is what he calls 'the aesthetic standard idea'
(CJ 233/81). This is 'an individual intuition (of the imagination) [by] which we
present the standard for judging man as a thing belonging to a particular animal
species' (ibid.). This 'idea', once again, is not strictly speaking an idea (in Kant's
technical sense), because it is an image, rather than a concept. It is the image,
specifically, of the standard shape or figure of an animal of a particular kind, or
the 'model image' that exhibits 'the greatest purposiveness in the structure of
that shape' (ibid.). This image, Kant says, 'would be suitable as the universal
standard for judging each individual of that species aesthetically' (ibid.). It is
'the image that nature used as the archetype on which it based its productions
within any one species, but which it does not seem to have attained completely
in any individual' (CJ 234—5/83). The aesthetic standard idea is formed through
a psychological process of 'aesthetic averaging', whereby the imagination
produces an image that approximates the average or standard stature of a
member of a particular species. In order to get a clearer idea of what Kant has in
mind, it is useful to quote his description of this process at some length:
Notice how in a manner wholly beyond our grasp our imagination is able on
occasion not only to recall, even from the distant past, the signs that stand for
concepts, but also to reproduce [an] object's image and shape from a vast
number of objects of different kinds or even of one and the same kind.
Moreover, all indications suggest that this power, when the mind wants to
make comparisons, can actually proceed as follows, though this process does
not reach consciousness: the imagination projects, as it were, one image onto
another, and from the congruence of most images of the same kind it arrives
at an average that serves as the common standard for all of them. For
instance: Someone has seen a thousand adult men. If now he wishes to make a
judgment about their standard size, to be estimated by way of a comparison,
then (in my opinion) the imagination projects a large number of the images
(perhaps the entire thousand) onto one another. If I may be permitted to
illustrate this by an analogy with optics: in the space where most of the images
are united, and within the outline where the area is illuminated by the color
applied most heavily, there the average size emerges, equally distant in both
height and breadth from the outermost bounds of the tallest and shortest
stature; and that is the stature for the beautiful man. . . . Now if in a similar
way we try to find for this man the average head, the average nose, etc., then
it is this shape which underlies the standard idea of a beautiful man in the
country where this comparison is made. . . . The same would apply to the
model of a beautiful horse or dog (of a certain breed). (CJ 233—234/82)
The aesthetic standard idea is thus formed by an imaginative process that looks
remarkably similar to my proposal in the last chapter for understanding how the
mind forms empirical schemata.36 It is true that here the aim of the process is not
the production of a concept, but rather of an 'aesthetic' standard for judging the
beauty of a thing. Kant suggests, however, that the standard idea, like an
empirical schema, can lead to 'determinate rules for judging', claiming that it is
through the formation of such an idea that 'rules for judging become possible in
the first place' (CJ 234/83).
Kant warns, however, that 'the standard idea is by no means the entire
archetype of beauty', but rather only 'the indispensable condition of all beauty' (CJ
234—235/83). Something else must be added to the aesthetic standard idea of the
human figure in order to arrive at the ideal of the beautiful. This extra ingredient
is 'the rational idea, which makes the purposes of humanity, insofar as they cannot
be represented in sensibility, the principle for judging his figure, which reveals
these purposes, as their effect in appearance' (CJ 233/81). These 'purposes', of
course, would be moral purposes — or, in other words, the moral perfection of
humanity. Such moral perfection, for Kant, can never be given directly in
intuition. The ideal of the beautiful, then, must somehow embody or serve as the
sign of humanity's inner moral vocation and potential. The archetypal human
figure must be seen as the 'visible expression of moral ideas'; only in that case
does it become a true ideal of the beautiful (CJ 235/84). Kant even goes so far as
to identify 'the ideal in this figure' with 'the expression of the moral' (CJ 235/83).
Strictly speaking, however, this cannot be correct. According to what he said
earlier, the ideal must be a result of both the aesthetic standard idea of the human
figure and the expression of moral ideas.
As an instance of adherent beauty, the ideal is subject, of course, to the same
basic question that surrounds the earlier notion: why is this an ideal of beauty, as
opposed to perfection? Why should a connection with moral ideas be necessary for
the ideal of beauty? These questions are familiar to us from our earlier discussion
of adherent beauty. But in addition to these now familiar problems, Kant's
description of the ideal and its employment in the appreciation of the beautiful
raises further issues. The most important of these concerns Kant's new
conception of the 'archetype of taste', and his claim that this archetype is the
standard by which one makes judgements of taste. Taken on its face, this
certainly seems to be a new element in Kant's psychology of aesthetic response;
nothing in our earlier account of free play obviously corresponds to it. Yet Kant
says little by way of elaboration on how the archetype of taste functions. Are we
to take him literally to mean that the ideal of the beautiful is the standard for all
judging? Then how can we take him seriously when he claims that this ideal is
restricted to the (standard idea of the) human figure? It seems preposterous to
claim that this one type of figure could be the single standard for all types of
beauty. But if we cannot seriously take Kant to be claiming this, how are we to
understand him?
7. Conclusions
In this chapter, we have added new unanswered questions concerning the form
of purposiveness to place alongside the previous chapter's questions concerning
free play. None of the arguments that Kant offers to show that pleasure in the
beautiful is based on the form of purposiveness gets us to the conclusion that he
desires: that this pleasure must be based on the (phenomenologically)
spatiotemporal form of an object. This conception of form appears to constitute
a major stumbling block, yet we still lack a clear understanding of the reason for
Kant's insistence on it. Furthermore, the questions about the form of
purposiveness only multiply when we factor in Kant's introduction of the
notions of adherent beauty and the ideal of the beautiful. Kant evidently
believes that we are forced to judge the beauty of some objects in relation to their
purposes. But why is this? Furthermore, it is far from clear what a judgement of
adherent beauty really entails. In what sense does the judgement of adherent
beauty 'presuppose a concept', and in what sense does the judgement of free
beauty not? How can a concept of perfection constrain what can count as
beautiful in the case of certain forms? Why does Kant hold that there must be an
inner intuition that everyone forms within themselves and which serves as a
standard of taste? How are we to take his claim that only man can represent the
ideal of beauty?
The answer to these questions, I claim, must be based on an analysis of Kant's
conception of an 'aesthetic idea'. Properly understood, this notion is, in my view,
the key to Kant's theory of taste. By understanding the role of aesthetic ideas in
the constitution of the form of purposiveness and in the occasioning of free play,
we may not only illuminate the puzzles surrounding the notion of adherent
beauty and the ideal, but we may also address the outstanding problems
concerning free play and the form of purposiveness. To this concept, therefore,
we must now turn.
Chapter IV
Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas

My objectives in this chapter are threefold: (1) to analyse Kant's conception of
an 'aesthetic idea', (2) to incorporate that conception into enriched accounts of
the form of purposiveness and free play, and (3) to use the resulting accounts of
these notions to address the interpretive problems raised in the previous two
chapters. Most commentators treat the doctrine of the aesthetic ideas as an
addendum to Kant's theory of taste, first introduced late in his discussion of fine
art (§§43—54).1 On the analysis offered below, however, the conception of an
aesthetic idea is first introduced and discussed by Kant in §17 — much earlier
than is typically assumed. My main interpretive claim regarding the notion of
an aesthetic idea is that this idea is a complex representation that contains two
elements that are in tension with one another: 'standardness' and 'originality'.
The aesthetic ideas' aspect of standardness is given its most significant explication
in §17; their aspect of originality only much later, in §§46—50. In my view, these
two accounts are not, as is generally assumed, referring to separate things, but
rather only to separate aspects of the same thing. Although in tension with one
another, the two elements of aesthetic ideas are both equally essential in
determining the importance of these ideas to Kant's theory of taste.
My second main claim is that aesthetic ideas are present in all types of beauty
— both natural and artistic. On my reading of Kant, the aesthetic ideas, with
their two constitutive elements of standardness and originality, are individually
necessary and jointly sufficient for beauty as such. This goes against the common
assumption that they pertain exclusively or primarily to fine art. In accordance
with this claim about the centrality of aesthetic ideas, I shall provide an
interpretation of the form of purposiveness that makes the 'expression of
aesthetic ideas' essential to it. This will allow us to explain why the form of
purposiveness must be restricted to spatiotemporal shape or composition, and
also to show how Kant's notions of adherent beauty and the ideal of the
beautiful are consistent with his earlier remarks about the form of purposiveness
in §§10-15.
Finally, I shall build on the foregoing account to provide, in addition, a
reconstruction of Kant's conception of free play. Since it was argued in the last
chapter that free play is the psychological activity that results in the form of the
beautiful, whatever we learn about the latter should also improve our
understanding of the former. We should, therefore, be able to extrapolate from
the enriched account of the form of purposiveness incorporating aesthetic ideas
to account for free play as well. The resulting reconstruction will then be tested
for its ability to fill in the gaps left by the preliminary account in Chapter II.
2. Aesthetic Ideas: Opening Remarks

On the usual view, the concept of an aesthetic idea is first introduced in §49, as
part of Kant's account of fine art (schone Kunst). There it appears as the solution
to what is perhaps the central issue in this account: how such a thing as fine art is
possible at all. Fine art, obviously, must be, by definition, both beautiful (schone)
and art (Kunst).Given Kant's accounts of each of these characteristics, however,
it is far from clear how anything could be both at once. Kant's conception of
'art', in the generic sense of the term, refers to any practical human skill — for
instance, the shoemaker's skill in making shoes (CJ 303—304/170—171). The
principal characteristic of art is that it is a product of rational deliberation; it is
this feature that distinguishes the 'work' of art from the mere 'effect' of nature
(CJ 303/170). A work is the product of rational deliberation if'the cause which
produced it was thinking of a purpose to which this object owes its form' (ibid.).
In order, then, to recognize something as a work of art, one must see it as a
purpose, or as being 'of such a character that before it became actual its cause
must have had a representation of it' (ibid.). We see a handmade shoe as a work
of art because we recognize its shape to be the result of the shoemaker's conscious
intention. Accordingly, one must, in the case of fine art, see its beauty as the
product of an intention, or, in Kant's terminology, as stemming from the
concept of a purpose. Fine art, Kant says, 'intends directly [to arouse] the feeling
of pleasure' in the beautiful (CJ 305/172). Just as the intended purpose of the
shoemaker is the shoe, the intended purpose of the fine artist is an object of
beauty, or one that evokes the distinctive pleasure of the beautiful. The problem
with the consistency of this picture is that the notion of a concept of beauty is
undefined, if not unintelligible. This problem is actually just another result of the
now familiar lack of clarity in Kant's account of the relation of the beautiful to
concepts. If beauty is the form of purposiveness without a purpose, then how can
there be a concept of it? If there could be such a concept, and fine art could be
produced in accordance with it, would that not make the resulting product a
form with a purpose? It seems, then, that the effort to make beautiful art has to
be, on Kant's view, self-defeating and unintelligible. Without a resolution to this
problem, Kant's conception of fine art threatens to dissolve into incoherence.
Kant attempts to resolve this problem by introducing the notions of genius and
aesthetic ideas. Like all other forms of art, fine art is the product of a conscious
intention. On Kant's way of thinking, this implies that there must be, in some
sense, a 'rule' guiding the intentional action; otherwise the action would have to
be considered random, rather than purposive. 2 This rule, however, cannot be
Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas 93
derived in the usual way from the understanding or reason. Unlike all other
forms of art, the intention guiding the production of fine art does not involve the
conceptual representation of a purpose. Fine art must occasion pleasure in the
beautiful, which it cannot do if it cannot occasion free play. In order to occasion
free play, however, the work of fine art 'must seem as free from all constraint of
chosen rules as if it were a product of mere nature' (CJ 306/173). In other words,
the work of fine art must be suitable to occasion the representation of the
beautiful, which means that it cannot be simply the result of applying a
determinate concept to an artistic medium. Since the rule guiding the
production of fine art cannot, therefore, be derived in the usual way from the
understanding or reason, we must posit a new, distinct faculty that provides it.
As Kant summarizes this line of reasoning:
every art presupposes rules, which serve as the foundation on which a

product, if it is to be called artistic, is thought of as possible in the first place.
On the other hand, the concept of fine art does not permit a judgment about
the beauty of its product to be derived from any rule whatsoever that has a
concept as its determining basis, i.e., the judgment must not be based on a
concept of the way in which the product is possible. Hence fine art cannot
itself devise the rule by which it is to bring about its product. Since, however,
a product can never be called art unless it is preceded by a rule, it must be
nature in the subject (and through the attunement of his powers) that gives
the rule to art; in other words, fine art is possible only as the product of
genius. (CJ 307/175)
What is the meaning of the opposition in this passage between 'fine art itself and
'nature in the subject'? We might understand 'fine art itself to refer here to the
conceptual rules that the understanding or reason can devise. 'Nature in the
subject' then refers to some faculty in addition to the understanding or reason.
This faculty is what Kant calls 'genius'. He identifies genius with nature for two
related reasons. First, genius is a talent, not something that can be acquired by
learning; it is, in that sense, a matter of'nature', as opposed to 'nurture'. Second,
genius is something that is passively received, rather than actively employed.
Like the data of the senses through which the mind relates to the natural world,
genius arises in a manner that is wholly outside the artist's knowledge and
volition. Thus, Kant remarks that 'if an author owes a product to his genius, he
himself does not know how he came by the ideas for it; nor is it in his power to
devise such products at his pleasure' (CJ 308/175). This is in contrast to products
that we owe to the understanding or reason, which we can explain rationally
and produce at will (provided that we have the technical means at our disposal).
Kant defines genius as 'the talent (natural endowment) that gives the rule to
art' (CJ 307/174). The rule provided by genius cannot, however, be a concept.
So what kind of'rule' is it? Kant addresses this question in detail for the first time
in §49, in which genius is explained as an ability to 'discover' and 'express'
aesthetic ideas. Kant defines an 'aesthetic idea' as 'a representation of the
imagination which prompts much thought, but to which no determinate

thought whatsoever, i.e., no [determinate] concept, can be adequate, so that no
language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it' (CJ 314/182). It is
worth noting immediately that an aesthetic 'idea' is actually an idea in name
only, since, as a 'representation of the imagination', it is an intuition, rather than
a concept. The term 'idea' is apparently a sort of honorary title that Kant bestows
upon this particular type of intuition because it is the 'counterpart' of a rational
idea — i.e., a concept to which no intuition is completely adequate (ibid.). The
notion of an intuition to which no concept is completely adequate calls to mind,
of course, the similar formulations that Kant uses to describe free play and
formal purposiveness. A connection with free play in particular is suggested in
Kant's repeated linking of the aesthetic ideas to the 'quickening' or 'animation'
(beleben) of the mind (CJ 315/183). Kant says of an aesthetic idea that 'its proper
function is to quicken (beleben) the mind by opening up for it a view into an
immense realm of kindred representations' (CJ 315/183—184). The suggestion
here is that an aesthetic idea is an intuition that prompts an open-ended chain of
mental associations, which presumably may include both 'thoughts' or concepts
and further representations of the imagination or intuitions. This process of
association is not to be confused, however, with the mechanical association that
occurs in the synthesis of reproduction in accordance with empirical
psychological laws. It is, rather, to be understood as a spontaneous and 'free'
creative process in its own right. Aesthetic ideas impart to the mental powers 'a
play which is such that it sustains itself on its own and even strengthens the
powers for such play' (CJ 313/182). Here Kant very nearly invokes the notion of
'free play' by name, indicating that aesthetic ideas are to be understood as the
proper ground of the mental state that accounts for pleasure in the beautiful.
While these initial remarks about aesthetic ideas still leave their intrinsic
nature veiled in some obscurity, they are sufficient, I believe, to allow us to see
how the aesthetic ideas function in the creation of fine art. Kant, unfortunately,
is less explicit on this issue than we might like. He does claim that genius consists
in the ability 'to discover ideas for a given concept, and, second, to hit upon a
way of expressing these ideas that enables us to communicate to others, as
accompanying a concept, the mental attunement that those ideas produce' (CJ
317/185—186). Kant also writes that genius 'manifests itself not so much in the
fact that the proposed purpose [i.e., the art object] is achieved in exhibiting a
determinate concept, as, rather, in the way aesthetic ideas, which contain a wealth
of material [suitable] for that intention, are offered or expressed' (CJ 317/186).
As I read these statements, Kant is indicating that aesthetic ideas play a
functional role in relation to fine art that is analogous to the role that concepts
play in relation to other types of art. Just as a concept in the mind of the
shoemaker serves as the necessary inner mental condition of a shoe, an aesthetic
idea that arises in the mind of the genius serves as the inner mental condition of a
work of fine art. In both of these cases, the inner representation serves as a rule
guiding and structuring the creative activity: the shoemaker strives to follow his
inner idea of what a shoe should be like, and correspondingly, the artistic genius
follows his inner 'idea' — his imaginative representation or intuition — of what his
work should look or sound like. The genius aims to 'express what is ineffable' —
i.e., inexpressible through concepts alone — by embodying it in a publicly
accessible art-object (ibid.). In this way, beauty is created in accordance with a
conscious intention, yet without a concept. Aesthetic ideas thus play a crucial
role in accounting for the possibility of fine art.
But what exactly is an aesthetic idea? Before we can adequately address this
question, we must settle the prior issue of whether aesthetic ideas belong
exclusively to the domain of art, or whether they pertain to a wider domain.
Much of what Kant says about aesthetic ideas in §49 makes it seem as if they
pertain only to art. Perhaps most significantly, Kant at one point speaks as if an
aesthetic idea is always the product of what he calls 'aesthetic attributes'. An
'aesthetic attribute' is a 'form' that does not 'constitute the exhibition of a given
concept itself, but rather expresses 'the concept's implications and its kinships
with other concepts' (CJ 315/183). Thus, aesthetic attributes are, generally
speaking, a metaphor or related type of symbol. To cite two examples provided
by Kant, 'Jupiter's eagle with the lightning in its claws is an attribute of the
mighty king of heaven, and the peacock is an attribute of heaven's stately queen'
(ibid.). In the continuation, Kant claims that a set of such attributes 'yield an
aesthetic idea', thus suggesting that an aesthetic idea is itself a metaphor or related
symbol, or set of such symbols (ibid.). In my view, however, it would be a
mistake to draw this conclusion.3 Aesthetic ideas cannot be equated with
anything essentially artistic, because they pertain to more than merely fine art.
To the extent that Kant seems to suggest otherwise, this can be explained by the
fact that, in the passage in question, he is explicitly limiting himself to discussing
only the case of art. In the passage quoted above, for instance, his emphasis on
the relation of aesthetic ideas to metaphorical symbols can be explained by the
fact that he is concerned in this section primarily with describing how aesthetic
ideas are 'discovered' and 'expressed' by the artistic genius. This should not be
taken to imply, however, that all objects that express aesthetic ideas are the
creation of a human being.
At the beginning of §51, Kant explicitly states that aesthetic ideas are present
in every instance of beauty — natural as well as artistic. As he puts it,
We may in general call beauty (whether natural or artistic) the expression of

aesthetic ideas; the difference is that in the case of beautiful art the aesthetic
idea must be prompted by a concept of the object, whereas in the case of
beautiful nature, mere reflection on a given intuition, without a concept of
what the object is [meant] to be, is sufficient for arousing and communicating
the idea of which that object is regarded as the expression. (CJ 320/189)
Let us leave to one side Kant's way of differentiating between aesthetic ideas in
nature and art in terms of whether a 'concept of what the object is meant to be'
is involved.4 Regardless of how we ultimately understand this point, Kant's
statement makes it clear that he intends his concept of an aesthetic idea to have a
general application to all beautiful objects.5 As a general statement about the

topic, his characterization of beauty as 'the expression of aesthetic ideas' has to
be placed alongside the earlier general characterization of it as 'the form of
purposiveness without a purpose'. Kant evidently sees no conflict between these
two alternative descriptions of beauty. We may assume, then, that Kant wanted
his discussions of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas and beauty as the
form of purposiveness to be harmonized. Unfortunately, he provides us with no
explicit account of how this is to be accomplished. Instead, we must rely on a
plausible reconstruction based on hints and implicit indications. The resulting
interpretation is necessarily somewhat speculative, but it nevertheless recom-
mends itself on the basis of its ability to make sense of Kant's various theses and
remarks on the beautiful. Below I shall argue that the account of aesthetic ideas
in §49 must be integrated with the account of aesthetic standard ideas in §17.
These accounts each highlight one essential aspect or element of aesthetic ideas:
their standardness and their originality. Standardness and originality are, in my
view, the two individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of beauty
for Kant. To see this, however, requires some effort of reconstruction. In the
sections that follow, I first separately consider the conditions of standardness and
originality, respectively. I then weave these notions together into new accounts
of the form of purposiveness and free play.
3. The Standardness Condition
Kant asserts in §17 that the 'aesthetic standard idea' is a constituent feature of the
ideal of the beautiful, which is the 'model' according to which we must judge all
objects of taste. Later in §51, Kant equates beauty itself with the 'expression' of
something that he calls simply an 'aesthetic idea'. What is the relationship
between these similar-sounding concepts? As I propose to read him, Kant holds
that every aesthetic idea must possess within itself an aesthetic standard idea (or
something comparable). Since beauty is the expression of aesthetic ideas, this
implies that beauty itself requires an element of 'standardness'. Standardness,
therefore, is 'the indispensable condition of all beauty', and that by which
judging by taste becomes possible in the first place (CJ 234—235/83). This
requirement of standardness is expressed in various ways and in various places in
the Critique.
Kant sometimes speaks of the need of objects of taste to be 'exemplary'. In the
Fourth Moment, exemplarity is associated with the very necessity of an aesthetic
judgement. As Kant puts it, this necessity 'can only be called exemplary, i.e., a
necessity of the assent of everyone to a judgment that is regarded as an example of
a universal rule that we are unable to state' (CJ 237/85). The significance of
Kant's choice of the term 'exemplary', although obscured in the Fourth
Moment, emerges in those places where Kant discusses the canon of classical
art.6 The first such place is in §17, where Kant attempts to explain 'why we
regard some products of taste as exemplary',even though, of course, a judgement
of taste cannot be made 'by imitating someone else's' (CJ 232/79). His
explanation is that there are certain 'models' which have been widely found to
be examples of beauty 'among all ages and peoples' (ibid.). Kant seems here to
be gesturing in the direction of Hume; but whereas Hume saw in such
agreement a foundation for the universal validity of taste, Kant regards it as a
mere 'empirical criterion' of beauty, one that is 'weak and barely sufficient for a
conjecture' (ibid.). Nevertheless, Kant clearly wants to incorporate into his own
theory the fact that the practice of making judgements of taste depends to a
certain extent upon the existence of an inherited canon of model works that are
regarded as exemplary instances of beauty.
In the preparatory sections leading up to the deduction of taste, Kant
develops this idea further. In Chapter II, we saw that in these sections Kant
emphasizes the notion of the autonomy of taste. In using this term to describe the
nature of a judgement of taste, Kant is saying in effect that the basis for a
judgement of taste must come from within, rather than being taken on from
without. As he puts it, 'other people's approval in no way provides [one] with a
valid proof by which to judge beauty' (CJ 284/147). Hence, Kant denies that
arbiters of taste such as Batteaux or Lessing or Aristotle or Horace really possess
any legitimate authority to legislate someone else's judgement. On the other
hand, Kant also recognizes that taste is to a certain extent an acquired skill; it is a
power of judgement that must be 'sharpened by practice' (CJ 282/146). One
practises one's taste by 'familiarizing [oneself] with a sufficient number of objects
of a certain kind' (CJ 284/147). The objects Kant has in mind are,
unsurprisingly, the classics', 'we extol, and rightly so, the works of the ancients
as models, and call their authors classical, as if they form a certain noble class
among writers which gives laws to people by the precedent it sets' (CJ 282/146).
Kant recognizes that there is a tension between the autonomy of taste and the
reliance on the classics as models of taste, for the latter practice 'seems to point to
a posteriori sources of taste and to refute the autonomy of every subject's taste'
(ibid.). In other words, if we rely on an established canon of works to mould our
taste, we must simply trust that these works are beautiful before we can judge
them to be so for ourselves. This, of course, infringes greatly on our aesthetic
autonomy. Nevertheless, Kant insists upon the indispensable role of the classics
in the formation of taste. As he explains,
Among all our abilities and talents, taste is precisely what stands most in need
of examples regarding what has enjoyed the longest-lasting approval in the
course of cultural progress, in order that it will not become uncouth again
and relapse into the crudeness of its first attempts. (CJ 283/147)
The items that have enjoyed the longest-lasting approval are the works of the
ancients. These works represent the achievement of a very high degree of
civilization, and we must preserve the memory of this, lest culture be reduced once
again to a primitive state. At one point, Kant even suggests that the perfection of
art has 'probably long since been reached' (CJ 309/177). The great artistic
achievements of the past, in other words, cannot be expected to be exceeded, or

even repeated with each generation; the Greek and Latin classics in particular
represent a height of human achievement that, in Kant's view, is unlikely ever to
be surpassed. Consequently, we should take these classical works as examples of
what perfect beauty is, in order to cultivate our taste to the highest possible degree
— even if this requires sacrificing a certain degree of autonomy in our judgement.
Kant resolves the tension between autonomy and classicism by distinguishing
between 'following (Nachfolge)' and 'imitating (Nachahmung)' (CJ 283/146—147).
'Following by reference to a precedent' is different from merely imitating someone
else's judgement, because in following we are 'drawing on the same sources from
which the predecessor himself drew', 'learning from him only how to go about
doing so' (CJ 283/148). What this distinction amounts to, and whether it is a valid
one, remains here an open question.
In §46, Kant incorporates this line of thought into his discussion of genius,
and thereby clarifies it significantly. 'The products of genius', Kant says, must
'be models, i.e., they must be exemplary, hence, though they do not themselves
arise through imitation, still they must serve others for this, i.e., as a standard or
rule by which to judge' (CJ 308/175). In §47, Kant further explains the contrast
between 'imitating' and 'using as a model' in terms which parallel the distinction
introduced earlier between 'imitating' and 'following'. Just as the man of taste
must 'follow' the examples put forth by the ancients without 'imitating' them, so
too must the genius 'follow' previous geniuses without 'copying'. Unfortunately,
Kant confuses the matter by switching his terminology, now referring to the
recommended course as 'imitating' rather than 'following', whereas 'imitating'
was previously discouraged. As Kant puts it, 'the rule must be abstracted from
what the artist has done, i.e., from the product, which others may use to test
their own talent, letting it serve as their model, not to be copied (Nachmachung)
but to be imitated (Nachahmung)' (CJ 309/177). To avoid confusion, I shall assume
that what Kant meant to say here was 'not to be imitated (Nachahmung), but to be
followed (Nachfolge)'. What, then, does Kant mean by 'following'? Previously,
Kant obscurely referred to 'drawing on the same sources from which the
predecessor himself drew'; now, however, he is clearer about what these 'sources'
are. As Kant explains, 'the artist's ideas [must] arouse similar ideas in his
apprentice' (ibid.). In the present context, these 'ideas' can only refer to aesthetic
ideas. Kant is saying, in other words, that the genius should form his aesthetic
ideas so that they are sufficiently similar to the aesthetic ideas 'expressed by' the
classics. Kant concludes, accordingly, that 'the models of art are the only means
of transmitting [the ideas of the genius] to posterity' (CJ 310/177—178).
What is it, though, that renders an object suitable for being a model or
exemplary work? At the culmination of his discussion of genius in §50, Kant
somewhat confusingly calls this quality 'showing taste'. By the term 'taste', Kant
usually simply means the ability to judge something to be beautiful. In §50,
however, he evidently has a narrower sense of 'taste' in mind, that is roughly
equivalent to the notion of exemplarity. In this sense, art which shows 'taste' is
contrasted with 'inspired', 'imaginative' or 'original' art. The latter qualities
Kant equates with 'showing genius' — which here is likewise used in a narrower
sense than usual. Kant declares that art 'deserves to be calledyzree art only insofar
as it shows taste', which is 'an indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non'f (CJ
319/188). Kant next proceeds to explain why this condition obtains:
Taste, like the power of judgment in general, consists in disciplining (or

training) genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it civilized, or polished;
but at the same time it gives guidance as to how far and over what it may
spread while still remaining purposive. It introduces clarity and order into
the wealth of thought, and hence makes the ideas durable, fit for approval
that is both lasting and universal, and [hence] fit for being followed by others
and for an ever advancing culture, (ibid.)
According to this passage, a work shows taste if it is 'clear' and 'orderly', and is
'fit for lasting and universal approval'. A work of art strives for these qualities
because it attempts, by its essential nature, to be the source of a universally valid
pleasure. Consequently, it must be 'disciplined', 'trained' and 'polished'. It is
still not yet quite clear, however, what precisely a work must exhibit in order to
possess these qualities.
In order to make more lucid the narrow conception of'tastefulness' that Kant
introduces in §50, we need to connect it with the closely related notion of
'correctness'. To begin to develop this notion, we must return to the discussion of
the aesthetic standard idea in §17. The aesthetic standard idea is constitutive for
Kant of the element of correctness in an object that can serve as an exemplary
model of taste. This idea, one will recall, was characterized by Kant as the
standard or principle for judging the figure of the members of a certain animal
species. The aesthetic standard idea of a species is formed through a
psychological process of uniting in the imagination the reproduced images of
the individuals belonging to that species. The resultant image produced by the
imagination represents the average-size individual of that type, with the
average-size features: e.g., the average nose, average chin, average-length limbs,
etc. Kant describes the aesthetic standard idea as 'the image for the entire kind,
hovering between all the singular and multiply varied intuitions of the
individuals, the image that nature used as the archetype on which it based its
productions within any one species' (CJ 234/83). Kant goes on to characterize
this 'archetype' in terms that echo what he will later say about works that show
taste (in the narrow sense): the standard idea is 'the form that constitutes the
indispensable condition of all beauty' (CJ 235/83). Hence, it is the form that
represents 'the correctness in the exhibition of the kind' (ibid.).
The aesthetic standard idea appears to be combined, through a method that
Kant does not make entirely clear, with another factor in the constitution of
aesthetic correctness. This other factor is the rules abstracted from the canon of
classical works. In §47, Kant says that the rule that the apprentice-genius follows
'must be abstracted (abstrahiert) from what the artist has done' (CJ 309/177).
This 'rule', however, 'cannot be couched in a formula and serve as a precept'
(ibid.). Instead, it exists as an 'idea' in the mind of the apprentice — i.e., an

aesthetic idea that he 'abstracts' from his experience of the work. It does not seem
to be unreasonable to suppose that this process of'abstraction' may be similar in
nature to the process by which empirical schemata are 'abstracted', or aesthetic
standard ideas formed. The schematic nature of the idea that is abstracted by the
pupil from works of genius is indicated by the fact that the pupil is not expected
simply to copy everything that the past genius has done. Kant calls this sort of
slavish imitation of every detail 'aping' (Machaffung)and derides it as
'mannerism' — 'aping mere peculiarity', including 'the deformities that the
genius had to permit only because it would have been difficult to eliminate them
without diminishing the force of the idea' (CJ 318/187). The apprentice is
expected to overlook these deformities and abstract the purely exemplary and
academically correct 'idea' that inheres in the work of genius. This seems to
involve a psychological process that is complementary to the formation of an
aesthetic standard idea.
We are now in a position to summarize and derive some conclusions from the
foregoing discussion. These scattered remarks point to a phenomenon that Kant
clearly regards as a necessary condition of beauty. One could potentially choose
any one of the terms just discussed — 'exemplarity', 'tastefulness' (in the narrow
sense), 'correctness', 'standardness' — for the quality of beauty that Kant is
describing in the several passages cited above. I choose to call it 'standardness'
for several reasons. To begin, I wish to evoke the aesthetic standard idea, which I
believe represents the paradigmatic instance of this quality. 7 The term
'standard' also usefully includes the ideas of authority, model, measure or criterion,
and custom or convention — all of which are bound up with the quality in question. 8
'Standardness', we may say, refers in general to the quality of being orderly,
proportioned, balanced and measured. It is, in short, the notion of those
qualities that have traditionally been associated with the classical and
neoclassical traditions in Western art. Consequently, standardness overlaps to
a great extent with the customary and conventional in art (i.e., the
'academically correct'), and the normal and well-proportioned in nature. This
explains why Kant associates it with the model or exemplary instance: the
quality of standardness is the typicality of an instance, the quality of being a
representative of a type, a mean between the extremes of variability.
In art, standardness refers to both natural experience and cultural tradition.
These are the two aspects of 'correctness' that we have just seen Kant describe.
The foundation of standardness in the representation of animals in art must be
our natural experience of individuals of a certain kind, and the aesthetic
standard idea as the standard or principle for judging the figure of the members
of a certain animal species. Kant explicitly says that the standard idea of a
human being (man, woman or child), horse or dog serves as a constraint on
what can count as a beautiful figure of an individual of the respective type.
Although he does not say so explicitly, it seems possible to generalize this
principle to cover every animal species at least, and possibly every plant species
as well: the standard idea of an organism is the 'image for the entire kind' which
is formed by the imaginative process of'aesthetic averaging' of one's experiences

of figures of that kind. Thus, a painter or sculptor who desired to impart the
quality of standardness to his representation of a particular type of organism
should, according to Kant, observe the constraint imposed by the aesthetic
standard idea of that type.
But standardness seems to involve more than simply the standard idea formed
through our individual experience of living things in nature. Kant suggests that
it also involves the inheritance of a cultural tradition: specifically, a classical
tradition. This inheritance is expressed in the possession of the 'rules' abstracted
from the classical works of past genius. This aspect of standardness may involve a
broader notion than the aesthetic standard idea as Kant describes it in §17,
encompassing such things as conventional patterns or style in architecture, or
customary poetic or musical forms, such as the sonnet or sonata. This seems, at
any rate, like a reasonable characterization of what Kant means by the 'rule
abstracted from the work'. While these are obviously not simple average figures
of the members of a living species, they are kindred 'aesthetic ideas'. It seems
possible, that is, to possess a schematic intuition of what the Doric style in
architecture or the Shakespearian sonnet is, without necessarily imagining any
particular building or poem. We might even go so far as to extend the term
'aesthetic standard idea' to these intuitive 'rules' as well.
Since most of Kant's discussions of the phenomenon of standardness occur in
relation to fine art, one might question whether it is a notion that has much
relevance to the beautiful in nature. There is every reason to believe, however,
that Kant intended this notion to apply equally to natural beauty. The aesthetic
standard idea, after all, is formed from the subject's experience of natural objects,
rather than objects of art: the standard idea of a man determines the beauty of
real, living men as well as the beauty of artistic representations of men. As Kant
pictures it, however, an aesthetic standard idea can be formed only in the case of
living kinds. This seems to leave out of account instances of beautiful inanimate
nature: beautiful mountains and streams, oceans and lakes, and the like. There
are other places in the Critique, however, where Kant points to a parallel
phenomenon of standardness, under the name of 'regularity'. Regularity
represents a quality of standardness which parallels the aesthetic standard idea,
but which is also distinctive in its own right. By this term, Kant refers to patterns
of order that may occur in appearances of either nature or art. The notion of
regularity thus also allows Kant to encompass instances of abstract art in his
notion of standardness. A key instance is Kant's discussion of the regularity of an
'aggregate' of natural objects which we perceive 'without a concept'. Kant
consistently denies that a 'stiff mathematical regularity — e.g., the regularity of
geometrical figures such as the circle, or the rigid regularity of a Sumatran
pepper-garden — can contribute to beauty. 9 On the other hand, he hints at the
notion that a non-mathematical regularity may be part of the sense of
purposiveness we get in the face of beauty in nature. In this connection, Kant
cites the 'order and regularity in an aggregrate, enclosed within certain
boundaries, of things outside me: e.g., in a garden, order and regularity among
trees, flower beds, walks, etc.' (CJ 364/241). We can imagine that Kant is here
talking about the regularity of a bed of flowers or grove of trees which look like
those that have been planted in accordance with a plan, but yet to look 'natural'
(as in an English garden). 10 Since in this case we have an ordering that must be
perceived aesthetically, rather than determined through an a priori mathemat-
ical concept, this sort of regularity seems like a suitable parallel to the other
forms of standardness mentioned above. This type of regularity would also seem
to best represent the element of standardness in the abstract natural and artistic
patterns that Kant mentions as examples of 'free beauties' in §16: e.g., the
feathers of birds of paradise, the shells of crustaceans, the foliage on borders or on
wallpaper, designs a la grecgue, and the like (CJ 229/76). In all of these cases, we
have a regularly recurring sequence of shapes that constitute a determinate
pattern, but do not approach the rigidity of simple mathematical figures.11
It seems, then, that there is no instance of beauty, either natural or artistic,
which does not admit of and require some form of standardness. Why does Kant
insist that standardness must be a constituent feature of beauty? The answer is
that standardness is required in order to meet the needs of the understanding. As
Kant puts it, for a work to be beautiful, it is
necessary that the imagination in its freedom be commensurate with the

lawfulness of the understanding. For if the imagination is left in lawless
freedom, all its riches produce nothing but nonsense, and it is judgment that
adapts the imagination to the understanding. (CJ 319/188)
The term 'judgment' here refers to tastefulness in the narrow sense. The suggestion
of this passage is thus that standardness is necessary in order for an intuition to be
suitable for the understanding in the activity of aesthetic apprehension. It is the
quality of standardness in an intuition that satisfies the purpose of the
understanding to bring a manifold of intuition under a rule. The rule in these
cases, of course, is not the typical concept of the understanding, but it is something
at least analogous to a concept. The notion of standardness will thus be crucial to
any explanation of how the beautiful is purposive for the understanding.
4. The Originality Condition

Standardness, however, is only one of the two main constituent features of
beauty: it is merely a necessary, not a sufficient condition. In §17, Kant makes clear
that the aesthetic standard idea is not sufficient for beauty. He writes that is not
'because of its beauty' that we like something that exhibits the standard idea of
its kind, but merely 'because it does not contradict any of the conditions under
which alone a thing of this kind can be beautiful' (CJ 235/83). In other words,
anything which merely exhibits the standard idea would not, by reason of that
alone, be considered beautiful. In an interesting footnote to this remark, Kant
elaborates as follows:
It will be found that a perfectly regular face, such as a painter would like to
have as a model, usually conveys nothing. This is because it contains nothing
characteristic and hence expresses more the idea of the [human] kind than
what is specific in one person; if what is characteristic in this way is
exaggerated, i.e., if it offends against the standard idea (of purposiveness of
the kind) itself, then it is called a caricature. Experience shows, moreover, that
such wholly regular faces usually indicate that inwardly too the person is only
mediocre. I suppose (if we may assume that nature expresses in [our] outward
[appearance] the proportions of what is inward) this is because, if none of the
mental predispositions stands out beyond the proportion that is required for
someone to constitute merely a person free from defects, then we must not
expect in him any degree of what we call genius] in the case of genius nature
seems to depart from the proportions it usually imparts to our mental powers,
instead favoring just one. (CJ 235/83n57)
On an initial reading, this passage may seem to be merely an embarrassing

indulgence of the peculiar eighteenth-century fascination with physiognomy. 12
Actually, however, it nicely encapsulates Kant's views about the constituents of
beauty. The real issue here, contrary to first impressions, is not the moral virtues
that a particular face expresses, but the economy of 'proportion' and
'disproportion' that is characteristic of a truly beautiful face. A person with a
perfectly regular face, Kant might say, has a face that 'lacks character'. But this
turns out to be equivalent for Kant to lacking beauty as well. This is because the
beautiful for Kant is not merely a regular or proportionate form; it is also an
interesting form. The interest here, as I hope to make clear in what follows, is
purely aesthetic; it is what is aesthetically interesting — or, in other words, suitable
for sustaining free play — that is at issue. In order to be interesting in this way,
however, a form needs to be something more than merely standard.
Like standardness, the other necessary condition of beauty also goes by
various names, including 'originality', 'imagination', 'spirit' and 'genius'. Kant
introduces 'originality' as 'the foremost property of genius', since it is a quality
'for which no determinate rule can be given' (CJ 307—308/175). Kant equates
the original work of the genius in several places with the 'inspired' (geistreich) , 13
Originality thus appears to be intimately related to the quality of'spirit' (Geist).
The latter quality is associated in §49 with the source of aesthetic ideas. Kant
begins this section with the observation that 'Of certain products that are
expected to reveal themselves at least in part to be fine art, we say that they have
no spirit, even though we find nothing to censure in them as far as taste is
concerned' (CJ 313/181). 'Taste' here should be taken in the narrow sense, in
which it is equivalent to standardness. 'Spirit', consequently, refers to a criterion
of excellence in beautiful art over and above mere correctness; it is opposed to
the merely 'nice and elegant', or 'precisely and orderly' (ibid.). By 'spirit', Kant
says he means 'the animating principle in the mind', specifically, 'the ability to
exhibit aesthetic ideas' (CJ 313/181—182). Spirit thus seems to be simply another
name for genius, and likewise is principally a power of the imagination. The
inspired or ingenious imagination is a source of aesthetic ideas, but not the

standard idea per se; rather, it gives rise to something new or original: 'another
nature out of the material that actual nature gives it' and 'something that
surpasses nature' (CJ 314/182). Kant here speaks of the creative imagination in
terms that presage the Romantic deification of artistic genius.
The above discussion points to a phenomenon that Kant apparently regards
as a second necessary condition of beauty. I will call this phenomenon
'originality' because of this word's connotations of novelty, unconventionality,
individuality and uniqueness. 'Originality', then, refers to the quality of being bold,
incommensurable, and individual or unique. It is, in short, the notion of those
qualities that have traditionally been associated with the romantic tradition in
Western art — including its predecessor in Kant's own time, the Sturm und Drang
movement. Consequently, originality overlaps to a great extent with the novel
and unconventional in art. This explains why Kant associates it with
imagination and creative genius: the quality of originality is the novelty of an
instance, the quality of being a representative of nothing but itself, an irregular
variation on the common theme.
In art, originality is exhibited in those aspects of a work that flout tradition
and convention, and by doing so, give the work its special quality of uniqueness.
Provided that it is intentional or purposive, a violation of the rules of academic
correctness would count as original, and the bolder the violation, the greater the
originality. Kant is quite prepared to tolerate 'the courage to retain deformities'
— i.e., violations of the rules of correctness — and 'a certain boldness of expression,
and in general some deviation from the common rule' if this is necessary to retain
the 'force of the [aesthetic] idea' (CJ 318/187). While Kant sometimes seems to
equate the violation of given rules or norms of correctness with irregularity, in
other places he sees this violation — more accurately, I believe — as the
replacement of one set of rules with another. The example of the genius 'gives
the rule to fine art' and 'gives rise to a school for other good minds' (ibid.).
Originality thus becomes, not merely rebellion, but the process by which art
progresses and culture renews itself.
If originality is a condition of all beauty, then this must apply to nature as
well. It may seem awkward, however, to speak of products of nature as possessing
the quality of'originality'. On the one hand, if we think of nature as a mechanism
that endlessly churns out its products according to immutable laws, it may seem
that there is no place in this picture for any thought of originality. On the other
hand, if we think that by using this term we mean merely to remark on the
familiar uniqueness that every product of nature has — the idea expressed in
cliches like 'no two snowflakes are exactly alike' — this may seem true, but
obviously banal. More importantly, it would not seem to encapsulate any special
condition of beauty, since everything is unique in this sense. How then are we to
understand the original in nature? Unfortunately, Kant is not very helpful here,
and so our account must be somewhat more speculative than in the case of art. It
is clear at least that for Kant, nature does not 'violate' its rules or laws — so it is
not possible to understand originality in nature in this way. But we should not
forget that, according to Kant, it is nature that is credited with being the source of
all original genius. The originality of a product of nature, we might say, does
consist in something unique in it, which we might call the 'exceptional'. There is
such a thing as an 'exceptional' country vista or ocean view; even a humble rose
may be 'exceptional'. While it is not easy to define what we mean when we call a
natural object 'exceptional' in this sense, the idea, I believe, is intuitive enough. It
is unique, but not merely in the sense that every natural thing is unique; it
somehow exceeds other things in its uniqueness. Originality in such cases may
perhaps be expressed in the sense that a natural thing is 'a work of art'.14
If standardness is a constituent feature of beauty because of the needs of the
understanding, it should come as no surprise that originality is required in order
to meet the needs of the imagination. It is in the name of the freedom of the
imagination that Kant criticizes the notion that forms displaying an overly 'stiff
regularity could be beautiful. As he puts it:
Everything that [shows] stiff regularity (close to mathematical regularity)

runs counter to taste because it does not allow us to be entertained for long in
our contemplation of it; instead it bores us, unless it is expressly intended
either for cognition or a determinate practical purpose. On the other hand,
whatever lends itself to the unstudied and purposive play of the imagination is
always new to us and we never tire of looking at it. (CJ 242—243/93)
The novelty and irregularity of the original form is needed in order to cater to
the imagination in its free play. Originality represents the 'divorce from any
constraint of a rule' with which Kant associates the 'free and indeterminately
purposive entertainment of the mental powers regarding what we call beautiful,
where the understanding serves the imagination rather than vice-versa' (CJ 242/
93). A form is purposive for the imagination if it serves its goal of producing ever-
newer imaginative forms, or, in other words, prompts the 'wealth of thought'
that accompanies the representation of the genius' aesthetic ideas. In short,
imagination needs originality as much as understanding needs standardness.
Finally, we need to deal here with a potential objection that might be raised
against the suggestion that originality is a condition of beauty. This objection
would consider originality to be an extrinsic or relational quality of an object,
whereas, on this view, its beauty is an intrinsic or non-relational quality.
Consequently, it does not, so the objection goes, make any sense to consider
originality a constitutive element or otherwise necessary condition of beauty.
Originality is an extrinsic or relational quality in the sense that it concerns the
causal origin of the work or its relation to other works in a tradition. A work is
original if it is not, say, a forgery or copy of another work, or if it is historically
among the first of its particular kind (e.g., the first Pollock drip painting). A
work or other object is thus always judged original in relation to other things.
But beauty is not, according to this objection, relational in this way; a thing
possesses beauty in itself, regardless of how things are with other objects. Hence,
beauty is something quite independent of originality. Indeed, Kant himself
seems to be conceding this point when he remarks that 'in order for a work to be
beautiful, it is not strictly necessary that [it] be rich and original in ideas' (CJ
319/188). Kant here seems to be quite straightforwardly denying that originality
is a necessary condition of beauty.
In response, one should simply deny that beauty is 'intrinsic' and 'non-
relational' in the above sense. Certainly, there is nothing in Kant's theory that
would lead us to hold that it must be, nor, in my view, does this view
recommend itself on its own merits. I consider it to be a virtue of Kant's view of
beauty that, for him, our perception of beauty does not exist in a vacuum: our
aesthetic appreciation of an object is always affected by our range of experience
of other objects. This is part of what it means to cultivate taste 'by familiarizing
oneself with a sufficient number of objects of a particular kind' (CJ 284/147). A
naive, uncultivated aesthetic appreciator may thus think that a derivative poem
by Frederick the Great or the countryside around Konigsburg are highly
beautiful, but this is merely a sign of his insufficient experience: he has not read
Shakespeare (in English) or seen the Tuscan countryside. On the other hand, if a
particular work that is thought to be beautiful is later revealed to be a forgery or
a copy of another work, then what has happened is that someone has been
deceived into thinking that a work is beautiful itself, when in fact, it is (at most)
the representation of a beautiful work.
Furthermore, the passage from Kant quoted above need not be taken as a
denial that originality is a necessary condition of beauty. The context is the
emphasis in §50 on respecting 'taste' (in the narrow sense) as a condition of
beauty. This emphasis may have been prompted by Kant's animus against the
Sturm und Drang movement, which may in turn have led Kant to overstate his
point.15 Whether Kant actually had such an animus or not, the claim there has to
be balanced against the other passages in which Kant seems to suggest otherwise.
Consequently, we may want to read Kant as saying something like the following
in this passage: 'in order for a work to be beautiful, it must not overvalue
originality; in particular, the artist must not let the drive for originality lead him
to ignore the need for correctness'. This advice would be more in keeping with
Kant's other remarks, and consonant with this general view of how standardness
and originality must be balanced. It is this view to which I shall now turn.
5. Standardness and Originality in the

Form of the Beautiful
We are now in a position to see more clearly what is involved in the

characterization of beauty as 'the expression of aesthetic ideas'. An aesthetic idea
is an intuition that contains within itself an aesthetic standard idea or,
alternatively, some comparable element of regularity, but also possesses
something in it of novelty or originality. This is the notion of an aesthetic idea
that is derived from linking Kant's various discussions of 'exemplarity',
'standardness', 'taste', and the like with his discussions of 'originality', 'spirit'
and 'genius'. On this interpretation, the introduction of the aesthetic standard

idea in §17 is a partial introduction of the notion of an aesthetic idea, simpliciter.
The later discussion in §49 completes the picture of aesthetic ideas begun in the
earlier section, with an emphasis now on the element of originality. There are,
nevertheless, indications in each of these places that the aesthetic idea embodies
both conditions of beauty.
What, then, is the expression of aesthetic ideas, if it must embody both the
standardness and the originality of a form? Kant's view of beauty as an
expression of aesthetic ideas, blending standardness and originality, is probably
best viewed — was probably viewed by Kant himself — as representing the
reasonable middle ground between the extremes of an excessively rigid and
boring classicism and a wild and grotesque Sturm und Drang. Here Kant shows
the mediating tendency so characteristic of his philosophy everywhere. An initial
objection to this solution, however, stems from the worry that it is merely ad hoc.
Can something truly be both standard and original? Or, on the other hand, is
Kant's notion of beauty intrinsically contradictory? It must be admitted that the
two necessary conditions of beauty pull in opposite directions, and hence are
unavoidably in tension with one another. No object can be both perfectly
standard and perfectly y original in its appearance. That would be intrinsically
contradictory. In order to make sense of Kant's two competing conditions of
beauty, then, we must stipulate that every actual beautiful object involves a
compromise between these two demands, or a balancing between these two
elements. The achievement of beauty, whether by nature or the fine artist, is
precisely the achievement of such a balance. It also goes almost without saying
that there can be no recipe or formula for achieving the balance; the existence of
the achievement can only be recognized aesthetically, through the consciousness
that an object has the ability to occasion free play. Free play can only occur
when the intuition of the object is both standard to a sufficient degree, and
original to a sufficient degree. But what counts as 'sufficient' in both cases cannot
be determined in advance of the experience of the object. This implies that the
determination of the degree of overall standardness and originality in a given
case, and the determination of the specific parts, elements and qualities in the
intuition of a given object that constitute or display standardness or originality,
is a task for the practical critic, rather than the philosopher.16
An equally serious question that naturally arises in relation to Kant's
conception of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas concerns the overall
systematic coherence of his theory. How is this conception of beauty to be
integrated with the earlier conception of beauty as the form of purposiveness
without a purpose? Recall that, according to the earlier conception, beauty is
the spatiotemporal arrangement of a phenomenal object, which is considered as
if designed, yet in abstraction from any specific intentions that the object might
fulfil. Mow Kant wants to say that beauty is also the occasion for an intuition that
exhibits both standardness and originality in an ideal balance. The challenge is
to show how these two characterizations can be integrated with one another.
Before going any further, it is perhaps worth immediately noting the obvious:
there is no incompatibility between the two characterizations. Certainly, it is

possible for a phenomenal form to be spatiotemporal, appearing as if designed,
without any obvious purpose, while at the same time exhibiting an aesthetic
standard idea combined with elements of originality. The compatibility of the
two characterizations is not really the issue; rather, the question is what, if any,
systematic relationship they have. What distinctive role does each conception play
in Kant's theory of the beautiful? How is each conception integrated into the
overall argumentative strategy of the Critique"? In the absence of plausible
answers to these questions, the solutions to the problems with the earlier account
that I intend to suggest are liable to seeming merely ad hoc.
The relation of these two accounts of the form of the beautiful is best
understood, in my view, as the relation between a negative and a positive concept of
aesthetic form. The suggestion, in other words, is that Kant is following his
precedent set in Groundwork III, in which he distinguishes between negative and
positive definitions or concepts of freedom (GW 446/52). A negative definition
explains a concept merely in terms of what it is not, as when Kant defines
'freedom' as a causality that is not determined by any alien causes (ibid.). A
positive definition, in contrast, explains a concept in terms of what it is, as when
Kant explains that freedom is a causality determined by the moral law (GW 447 /
53). Given the manifest structure of the Third Moment, I believe that it is
plausible to read Kant as offering a merely negative account of the form of the
beautiful in §§10—15 before filling in the details — at least partly — with a positive
characterization in §17. The complete account of beauty as the expression of
aesthetic ideas is left for the discussion of fine art, which probably seemed to Kant
like the most appropriate place in which to bring up the topic of originality.
Reading Kant in this way allows us to address some of the problems we saw
with the argument of the Third Moment. A basic problem with the preliminary
account of the form of purposiveness, one will recall, was how to give content to
the notion of appearing 'as if designed'. Guyer argues that this notion is vacuous,
and hence useless as a positive characterization of the form of the beautiful. But
what if this description was never intended by Kant to be a positive
characterization of this form? Kant's main use of the term 'design' in the Third
Moment is arguably in the contrast between spatiotemporal 'design' and charms
and emotions. This notion of design, therefore, has a mainly negative import: to
distinguish the form of the beautiful from (especially) the charming. This
negative point seems indeed to be the main object of the first six sections of the
Third Moment. It is only later that Kant moves on to the positive
characterization of the form of the beautiful.
A second problem that this suggestion for understanding the relationship of
Kant's two accounts of the beautiful allows us to address concerns the
explanation of Kant's belief that the form of the beautiful must be
spatiotemporal. While commentators have usually explained this as an illicit
importation from the First Critique, we now have available to us a more
satisfactory explanation. The form of the beautiful must be spatiotemporal
because it must incorporate the element of standardness, and this pertains to
spatiotemporal form alone. The notion of a 'standard' or 'regular' colour or tone

of an animal or living thing has no place in Kant's picture. The aesthetic
standard idea of a man, as Kant conceives of it, is no particular colour; it is not,
for instance, the average-colour skin tone of all the men one has experienced.
This absence of colour from the standard idea is not arbitrary, but rather is a
function of its intrinsic nature and the process by which it is formed in the first
place. It is formed by imaginatively 'layering' various shapes onto one another,
and observing where the colour — whichever colour it is — is 'applied most heavily'
(CJ 234/82). The resulting image of a man, Kant says, 'cannot contain any
specific characteristics, since then it would not be the standard idea for that kind'
(CJ 235/83). The standard idea, in other words, is truly a general, schematic shape.
But there is no such thing as a 'general, schematic colour'.
The standardness in a regularly repeating pattern — as in the foliage on
wallpaper or on sea shells — is similarly incommensurable with colours or tones.
It does not seem possible for a colour or tone to be 'regular' in this or any nearly
analogous sense.17 We can, of course, imagine a regular repeating pattern of
colours — such as the red-white pattern of horizontal stripes on the American flag
— but this is not, in the relevant sense, a regularity of colour. It is rather a
regularity of figure that is, at most, conditioned and made possible by the
alternating colours. In other words, while the difference between red and white
is what allows us to recognize the regularity of spatial alternation from one
region of the flag to the next, there is nothing 'regular' in the colours
themselves.18 From the perspective of regularity alone, the pattern on the
American flag would be the same if it were orange and blue stripes. We would,
of course, experience this second pattern differently; we might, for instance, enjoy
the blue and orange stripes more. But, for Kant, this difference in effect would
have to be due entirely to the way the colours blue and orange (or their visual
interaction) charmed us; with respect to regularity, the two alternating colour-
patterns are identical. In sum, colour is excluded from the form of purposiveness
because it does not admit of regularity.19 Kant's insistence on the restriction of
the quality of beauty to spatiotemporal form is thus not arbitrary. It is internal
to his theory, having its basis in the standardness condition itself.
We are now also able to make better sense of Kant's conceptions of adherent
beauty and the ideal of the beautiful. A judgement of adherent beauty is a
judgement of beauty that 'presupposes a concept of what the object is meant to
be', in the sense that a concept of the object's purpose and of its perfection in
terms of that purpose constrains what can count as beautiful in its case. There are,
apparently, certain specific classes of objects whose beauty must be assessed in this
way: human beings, horses, churches, palaces, armories. One source of confusion
in regard to this notion is that Kant does not explain his principle of selection for
objects that are to be counted as adherent beauties. Kant's most striking
example of a judgement of adherent beauty is negative', the case of Maori
tattooing. Such 'curlicues and light but regular lines' might be beautiful on
wallpaper, but not on the body of a human being. This is supposedly because
tattooing is somehow incompatible with the purpose of humanity. This example
is problematic, however, because even if we want to defend Kant's overall point

in formulating the notion of adherent beauty, we may want to disagree with his
particular application of this notion in condemnation of the Maori.20 Perhaps a
better example can be constructed from Kant's mention of another case of
adherent beauty: the beauty of a church. The purpose of a church is to be a
solemn place of worship. Consequently, ornamentation that might be beautiful
in itself— beautiful lace curtains, for example — might not be compatible with the
purpose of a church. From Kant's point of view, this purpose constrains what
can count as the church's beauty. A church with beautiful lace curtains would fail
to be a beautiful church. The fulfilment of this purpose somehow serves as the
necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the beauty of a church. But how is this
possible?
We might now formulate the answer to this question as follows. (1) The
appearances of certain beautiful things contain within themselves an aesthetic
standard idea. This is something that Kant, of course, explicitly holds in the case
of animals. But for this solution to work, we must be willing to suppose that it
also holds in the case of certain familiar artificial structures, such as churches.
This supposition seems reasonable; we do seem to find within ourselves a
standard idea (i.e., a schematic intuition) of a church, as well as of such things as
'standard' palaces and armories. (2) Certain particular aesthetic standard ideas
are, as a matter of natural or historical fact, associated with particular rational
ideas. The term rational idea is intended here principally in the sense of a concept of
purposes. (3) Presumably, it is possible, psychologically speaking, to dissociate these
ideas. I might, for instance, abstract from the purpose of a church and simply
assess the beauty of its lace curtains. (4) Kant, however, holds the normative
view that we ought not to dissociate these ideas — that, conversely, we ought to
make consonance with the rational idea the condition of the marriage, constitutive
of beauty, of the aesthetic standard idea with the freedom of the imagination.
This is how I read Kant's claim that, in the case of adherent beauty, the
judgement of taste of the object 'is made to (wird . . . gemacht] depend on' the
purpose of the object (CJ 230/77; my emphasis). In other words, the association
of the aesthetic standard idea with a rational idea in these cases is not a
psychological necessity, but rather a normative prescription. (5) Kant intimates that
the ground of this normative stricture is based on the connection between the
value of the beautiful and morality. For Kant, beauty is something worthy of our
attention in the first place because it is instrumentally useful for moral purposes.
Adherent beauty represents for Kant a 'connection of aesthetic with intellectual
liking', or in other words, of 'the beautiful with the good' (CJ 230/78). This
'union' of the beautiful with the good, Kant continues,
enables us to use the beautiful as an instrument for our aim regarding the
good, so that the mental attunement that sustains itself and has subjective
universal validity may serve as the basis for that other way of thinking that
can be sustained only by laborious resolve but that is universally valid
objectively. (CJ 230-231/78)
Kant is here referring to part of his theory of the sources of the value of the
beautiful: the beautiful is valuable because it is an instrument for the
cultivation of moral feeling. 21 But this instrumental use of the phenomenon of
beauty apparently presupposes that the purposiveness that is felt in the
aesthetic experience of the thing (aesthetic purposiveness) is not at odds with
the purposiveness that is thought in the idea of the thing's rational purpose.
This normative requirement is not, strictly speaking, an aesthetic norm, but
rather a moral one. (6) In cases of adherent beauty, the moral requirement
that an object be suitable for its rational purpose overrides the aesthetic
assessment of the object, and we are forbidden by rational/moral consider-
ations from allowing the imagination its normal freedom. There is in these
cases a moral proscription on exercising our taste to the fullest extent. (7) This
restriction is one that applies strictly to the imagination. The standard idea is
not, as in the normal case of judging the beautiful, merely balanced against the
requirement of originality or imaginative freedom; it serves a more dictatorial
role, stipulating what the imagination can and can not do. (8) This brings the
judgement of adherent beauty much closer to the situation of a cognitive
judgement, so it comes as no surprise that Kant does not consider this to be
purely a judgement of taste. As he puts it, a judgement of adherent beauty 'is
no longer a free and pure judgment of taste', but rather, he implies, also a
partly rational (i.e., moral) judgment (CJ 230/77). (9) On the other hand, it is
still partly a judgement of taste, because the requirement of standardness at
least is given its usual scope, even if the imagination is not.
This account of adherent beauty also allows us to easily explain what was
recognized to be the most puzzling aspect of Kant's notion of the ideal of the
beautiful: the combination of his claim that the ideal constitutes the 'archetype
of taste' — i.e., the ultimate standard by which we must judge every object — with
his insistence that only humanity admits of an ideal. The ideal of the beautiful for
Kant includes two elements: the aesthetic standard idea of man, combined with
the rational idea of the moral vocation of humankind. We have seen that there is
a straightforward sense in which the standardness represented in general by the
standard idea is the ultimate criterion for judging the beauty of any object: it is
one of the two necessary conditions of beauty. But Kant has more than this in
mind in claiming that the ideal as a whole serves as such a criterion. He intends
to make the point that all our concern over beauty comes to nothing unless it is
directed to the service of humanity's moral vocation. As he puts the point in a
later passage:
the pleasure we take in purposive form is also culture, and it attunes the spirit
to ideas, and so makes it receptive to more such pleasure and entertainment;
in the case of the matter of sensation, however, the aim is merely enjoyment,
which leaves nothing behind as an idea and makes the spirit dull, the object
gradually disgusting, and the mind dissatisfied with itself and moody because
it is conscious that in reason's judgment its attunement is contrapurposive.
Unless we connect the fine arts, closely or remotely, with moral ideas, which
alone carry with them an independent liking, the second of the two
alternatives just mentioned is their ultimate fate. (CJ 195—326/196)
What Kant says here about the fine arts should be taken as applying to all
aesthetic experience: unless it can somehow be viewed as morally edifying, it is of
no ultimate value. 22 Kant's suggestion that the beauty of the human figure is the
standard by which we must judge the beauty of the Parthenon and Arabian
show horses should be taken in light of this conception of the ultimate value of
beauty. It is only because he holds the view that all our concern over beauty is
worthless unless it is directed to the goal of human moral perfection that he
thinks that (1) an ideal is necessary, and (2) only human beauty can be the ideal.
An ideal is necessary in order to remind us that aesthetic experience is not
intrinsically valuable, but rather valuable only in relation to ultimate moral
ends. Because only humanity can pursue moral ends, only the figure of the
human being can represent or symbolize the ultimate purpose of all our concern
with beauty. Without his assumption about the source of the value of beauty,
neither of these points would follow from the basic tenets of Kant's theory of
taste alone.
6. Standardness and Originality in Free Play
In this section, I shall offer my interpretation of Kant's conception of free play,

which is based on the preceding interpretation of the form of purposiveness.
Since, on my view, the form of purposiveness is not actually distinct from the
psychological activity of free play, but is rather merely its phenomenologically
objectival 'correlate', it should be possible to derive some further conclusions
about the nature of free play from the enriched account of the form of
purposiveness given above. This further interpretation of free play must then be
tested according to its ability to deal with the lacunae outlined in Chapter II.
We have seen how Kant characterizes the free and harmonious play of the
faculties as the source of our pleasure in the beautiful. Free play must be
understood as a modification of the ordinary functioning of the understanding
and the imagination as they cooperate in various ways in order to produce a
cognition, or act of empirical perception. The preliminary account of this
activity considered in Chapter II compared it to the spontaneous activity of the
productive imagination when it generates empirical schemata leading to the
formation of empirical concepts. In this activity, the imagination acts for the
sake of the need of the understanding to bring the manifold of intuition under
concepts, but without being directed by a specific conceptual rule. This notion of
how empirical concepts are formed led to the suggestion that perhaps in free
play the imagination does something similar. The activity of the imagination in
free play, however, does not lead to an empirical concept, but rather only to
what we called 'the schema of the beautiful'. In Chapter III, we identified this
schema with the form of purposiveness, and argued that it should be understood
as a merely subjective 'projection'. This form is phenomenologically objectival

when considered as an intentional object of consciousness, but is not
ontologically real in the empirical sense; in order to continue to exist, it must
be sustained by the ongoing mental activity of the subject. The form of the
beautiful, it was argued, is best conceived as a subjective projection that
supervenes upon the objective qualities of an object. Hence, though it may be to
varying degrees constrained by these qualities, it is not caused by them; rather, the
form of purposiveness is merely occasioned by the properties of a given object. It is
produced through an extra 'layer' of synthesis that takes place within the
parameters laid down by the more basic synthesis leading to empirical
perception — although these two syntheses blend together seamlessly in our
actual experience of the object.
If free play is the mental activity that generates the form of purposiveness,
and the form of purposiveness includes the expression of aesthetic ideas, then we
may reasonably draw certain conclusions about what free play involves. In free
play, the imagination must produce the aspects of standardness and originality
that characterize aesthetic ideas, and this productive activity must be
understood as being occasioned, but not caused by, the objective features of
certain objects.
Kant himself provides us with a detailed account of how the imagination
produces standardness in his description of the psychological process underlying
the formation of aesthetic standard ideas. This description was excerpted in
detail in Chapter III, so I shall merely remind us of the relevant details here.
Kant describes an unconscious process whereby the imagination acts both
reproductively and productively to produce the standard idea of a kind. This
process begins with the reproduction in the imagination of the images and
shapes of a variety of objects of the same species. Kant hypothesizes that the
imagination may even have the capacity to reproduce every one of the
individuals that one has experienced within a certain type — e.g., all the adult
men. The imagination then begins to act as a productive faculty on these
reproduced images. It projects them onto one another, such that, in the space
where most of the images are united, a schematic image of the average figure of
individuals of that kind emerges. This is the aesthetic standard idea. Kant notes
that one might achieve the same result by conscious intellectual means by
measuring and averaging the figures of all these individuals (CJ 234/82).
Nevertheless, he supposes that the mind has a purely aesthetic capacity to achieve
the same result unconsciously and intuitively. In this way, it produces an 'inner'
intuitive criterion of standardness. This process presumably would apply not
only to the determination of the aesthetic standard ideas of animal figures, but
also to the other types of standard ideas which, it has been suggested, Kant
implicitly recognizes. These include, one will recall, the standard ideas of artistic
genres and styles, and of familiar types of buildings such as churches. I assume
that it is readily apparent how the parallel processes would have to work in these
additional cases.
A similar psychological process should account for the other type of
standardness as well: the abstract yet regular patterns on feathered birds, sea
shells, the borders of wallpaper, and the like. In the case of such regular patterns,
we might suppose that Kant thinks that we have an analogous capacity for
intuitive schematization. Certainly, we have an analogous capacity to determine
such patterns mathematically; it would be possible, with sufficient mathematical
ingenuity, to formulate an algorithm that would capture the pattern on a
crustacean's shell or the wallpaper's foliage. It is, of course, not actually
necessary for us to do this in order to grasp the regularity of the pattern; we can
grasp this order in a purely intuitive manner. How is this possible? In the
analogous case of aesthetic standard ideas, Kant posited a special unconscious
imaginative process of comparing past experiences, whereby a standard or
average schema resulted. It seems reasonable to suppose that Kant might think
that there is an analogous unconscious imaginative process that is at work in
abstract pattern recognition: some template or schema through which we
determine this sort of regularity by intuitive means.
Kant's account of how the imagination produces originality is more obscure —
perhaps necessarily so, given the subject matter. Most of what Kant has to say
explicitly about this process is found in his account of genius. The main factor
here, of course, is the 'very mighty power' of the productive imagination, which
'creates, as it were, another nature out of the material that actual nature gives it'
(CJ 314/182). Kant continues: 'in this process we feel our freedom from the law
of association . . . for although it is under that law that nature lends us material,
yet we can process that material into something different, namely, into
something that surpasses nature' (ibid.). Perhaps a little more can be said about
this process. We have seen that, in his study of the great exemplary works of the
past, the genius' own imagination is stimulated to produce an original work of
his own. The exhibition of an original aesthetic idea has a mysterious power,
that is, to evoke a parallel process in the genius. This presumably accounts not
only for how a new aesthetic idea is formed in the mind of the genius, but also for
how aesthetic ideas are conveyed from the genius to his audience. Genius, after
all, is not merely the capacity to produce aesthetic ideas, but also the capacity to
communicate these ideas to others — who presumably are not all geniuses (CJ 317/
186). A work of genius imparts an aesthetic idea, which possesses the power to
produce a wealth of associations in the sensitive viewer or listener — whether he
or she is a genius himself or herself or not. Thus, the difference between the
genius and the ordinary mortal — Kant's remarks about the genius being
'nature's favourite' and 'a rare phenomenon' notwithstanding — may be merely
a matter of degree, rather than of kind. We are all, to some extent or other, in
possession of the genius' capacity to respond to an object by generating an
aesthetic idea. The genius is distinguished perhaps only by the greater power of
his productive imagination.
These accounts of how standardness and originality are produced by the
productive imagination only get us part of the way to a full account of free play,
however. It is still necessary to explain how this activity of the imagination
interacts with the empirically given object. All this productive activity of the
imagination must be understood as being occasioned, rather than caused by, the
objective features of certain objects. Certain objects, that is, are appropriate
occasions for free play, while others are not. But what happens when the
imagination interacts with an object that is such an occasion? Clearly, an
interpretation of free play must take account of the difference between creating
and responding to an object. The notion of the productive imagination is most at
home — is immediately intelligible, that is — in the explanation of artistic
production. It is less clear how it can figure in an explanation of aesthetic
response — whether to beautiful objects of art or nature.
Kant, unfortunately, provides us with little direct assistance here, so this
account must necessarily be somewhat speculative. Nevertheless, I believe that
the following can justifiably be said. In aesthetic perception, we import our past
experience and cultivation into our present apprehension of the object. The
imagination produces an aesthetic idea, containing elements of standardness and
originality derived from that past experience, in response to the appearance of
an empirical object that provides the occasion for its activity. The resultant
image is phenomenologically objectival, and hence, in being projected onto the
empirical object, blends seamlessly with our objective empirical perception of
the thing. The understanding sees the object through the imagination's aesthetic
idea, even as the imagination incorporates the appearance of the object into it.
In providing the understanding with an aesthetic idea through which to view
the object, the imagination provides the mind as a whole with the means for an
enriched perception of it. What occurs in aesthetic perception is an added layer
of synthesis — a synthesis, however, that is achieved aesthetically, by means of an
aesthetic idea, rather than a concept. The resultant perception is, because of its
standardness, perceived as purposive for the understanding, and, because of its
originality, perceived as purposive for the (productive) imagination. Because of
this, both of these faculties are energized or 'quickened' to 'linger in their
contemplation' (or representation) of the object.
We must now ask whether this view of free play allows us to fill in the gaps in
our earlier account in Chapter II. The initial problem we considered in
connection with that earlier account concerned the explanation of how the
schema of the beautiful is produced. According to the analogy with empirical
concept formation, this schema apparently has to be produced through an act of
reflective comparison, either of representations with one another, or of a given
representation with one's cognitive powers. The problem was that we could not
see how either sort of comparison fit the case of aesthetic perception. Our
enriched account of free play, however, makes it clear how the schema of the
beautiful is produced through an act of reflective comparison that is akin to, but
distinct from, the comparison involved in the production of an empirical
schema. In Chapter II, I suggested that an empirical schema is formed through
a process of imaginatively comparing various representations. The empirical
schema of a tree, for instance, could be formed by a process of superimposing
reproductions of a spruce, willow and a linden, etc. onto one another in the
imagination, and then noticing the 'darkest' area of overlap that resulted from
this superimposition. After abstracting from everything in the reproduced

impressions except for the overlap, the mind would be left with the schematic
image of a tree. This process, we can now see, is strikingly similar to the process
by which an aesthetic standard idea is formed. While it is less easy to tell, there
may be similar parallels with the formation of original ideas. It seems reasonable
to suppose that the 'material' of the productive imagination to which Kant refers
when talking about the genius' production of original ideas arise from some sort
of comparison of works of past geniuses. In responding to an object's uniqueness
or novelty, moreover, we must compare it with the standard, conventional or
typical. Consequently, it would seem that some familiar sort of imaginative
comparison is involved in the production of the 'original' side of the form of the
beautiful as well.23
On this account, it is not difficult to see how the form of the beautiful and the
activity of free play are purposive for the understanding. Here again, it is useful
to draw a parallel with the activity of the imagination in empirical concept
formation. In empirical concept formation, the imagination is acting in a
manner that can be considered purposive for the understanding because it is
presenting it with something — an empirical schema — that assists it in fulfilling its
purpose of bringing a manifold of intuition under a concept. In the case of
aesthetic perception, the imagination is presenting the understanding with
something that is akin to an empirical schema, which is either an aesthetic
standard idea or comparable pattern of regularity. It is purposive for the
understanding because of the way in which the synthesis of the manifold
achieved through this schema is conducive to the aim of the understanding,
which is to bring intuitions under concepts. Any empirical synthesis that is
brought by the imagination to the understanding for purposes of conceptualiza-
tion will be purposive for the understanding, in the sense that it will involve at
least the minimum required for the exhibition of a concept. For example, any
intuitive representation that we can recognize as a representation of a man must
possess a certain minimum (though indeterminate) number of the typical
features of a man. In certain cases, however, the understanding may have to
strain in order to recognize a representation to be a man; this might be the case if
the viewing conditions are less than optimal, or we are dealing with what are
called 'borderline cases'. In such cases, we might say that we are dealing with
the 'bare' exhibition of a concept. This is one extreme on the spectrum of
possibilities for the exhibition of the concept 'man'. At the other extreme, we
have the exhibition that matches an aesthetic standard idea of man. The
aesthetic standard idea may be considered as an 'ideal' rather than a 'bare'
exhibition of a concept. The synthesis of a manifold through such an idea
naturally energizes or enlivens the understanding — assuming it is functioning
properly — to compare its representation of this object with other objects of that
kind, because doing so will enable it to grasp the rule more precisely. It is in this
way that the form of the beautiful is purposive for the understanding. 24
Another major gap in our preliminary account of free play concerned the
relation of the imagination in free play to concepts. The primary issue was
whether the schema of the beautiful was subsumable under a concept. Kant, as we
have seen, emphasizes in many places that the pleasure in the beautiful is
independent of concepts. There seemed, however, to be two possible ways to
understand this: either the schema of the beautiful could never, in principle, be
subsumable under a concept, or else it could be brought under a concept, but
simply not in the act of aesthetic reflection; in this act, we abstract from the
concept that would, in fact, capture the schema. We saw that both of these
options seemed problematic. The first option seemed supported by Kant's denial
of principles of taste, but suffered from two serious problems. First, it could not
adequately explain why free play should be purposive for, or felt as pleasurable
by the understanding. Second, it could not make the concept of something that
could never, in principle, be brought under a concept sufficiently intelligible. On
the other hand, the second option for understanding the relationship between
the imagination and concepts suffered from problems of its own. First, it was not
obviously compatible with Kant's denial of principles of taste. Second, it lacked
an account of how the activity of free play was distinct from the activity in
empirical concept formation. Consequently, it was haunted by the spectre of the
everything-is-beautiful problem: the problem of explaining how the harmony of
the faculties in free play is different from the harmony of the faculties in ordinary
empirical perception, such that not every object of empirical perception turns
out to be beautiful.
The interpretation of free play advanced above requires us to choose the
second of these two options. The form of purposiveness, on the foregoing
interpretation, can clearly be brought under a concept, but we abstract from this
fact in the act of aesthetic reflection. As was just noted in the foregoing discussion
of the imaginative process whereby standardness is produced, both the aesthetic
standard idea and the regularity of a figurative pattern can be represented
mathematically. The aesthetic standard idea of man, for instance, can be
grasped through the determinate concept of the 'average man'. There is likewise
no reason to deny that an original aesthetic idea can, 'in the course of cultural
progress', become quite standard or typical, and thus brought under a concept.
In an aesthetic judgement, of course, we pay no attention to this fact. Instead, we
abstract from any conceptual knowledge that we may have and indulge in a
purely intuitive and felt apprehension of the object's sensible form.
On the other hand, the present interpretation allows us to preserve Kant's
denial of principles of taste. As we have seen, Kant denies that there could be an
'objective' principle of taste. Such a principle, as Kant conceives of it, would be a
determinate discursive rule that could function as the major premise in a
syllogism which led to a judgement of taste as its conclusion, or, in other words,
that could serve as a norm for the correct subsumption of objects determined to
fall under it. Such a principle would give discursive expression to some sufficient
condition of beauty, such as the Golden Section. We can readily see that the
explanation of the form of the beautiful and free play given above provides for
no such discursive rule. The judgement of taste on this account remains purely
and entirely an aesthetic judgement — i.e., one that has to be made on the basis of
the subject's immediate response to the object. No discursive principle is

employed in this judgement, nor does this account suggest that such a principle
could be derived from the aesthetic response and serve as a substitute for it.
While it is true that there is an intellectual or discursive substitute for the
element of standardness, two facts need to be emphasized. First, this substitute is
not acceptable as a component of an aesthetic judgement, and second, even if it
were, standardness is not by itself sufficient for beauty. Originality is, of course,
also required. That which is original in an intuition can eventually be
conceptualized, but, again, this does not imply that the resultant conceptual
representation can serve as a substitute for the aesthetic one. In this case, the
reason is that the imagination is no longer satisfied by a once original quality that has
since become so stale that there is a ready-made concept for it. The work has
lapsed into standardness. In order for the imagination to achieve satisfaction,
there must be an element in the object that is novel, individual and as yet
'ineffable' or incommensurable — in short, not yet conceptualized. Consequently,
there can be no objective principles of taste.
Lastly, the foregoing interpretation of beauty is also well designed for dealing
with the everything-is-beautiful problem. On this account of what beauty
involves, it is obvious that not everything has it. More precisely, there are in
general two ways in which the form of an object may be unsuited to occasion free
play: this form may fail to exhibit either standardness or originality.25 Both types
of failure, moreover, are possible in nature and art alike. Kant warns of the
artistic failure that results from rashly abandoning all rules of academic
correctness, chastising those 'shallow minds' who 'believe that the best way to
show that they are geniuses in full bloom is to renounce all rules of academic
constraint, believing that they will cut a better figure on the back of an ill-
tempered than of a training horse' (CJ 310/178). A work of art may thus fail to
be beautiful by lacking any element of academic form, measure or regularity —
thereby falling short of satisfying the understanding's need for order. Likewise,
an object of nature may so 'offend against the standard idea' that the
understanding finds nothing satisfying in it (CJ 235/83). In general, Kant seems
to think of a form as failing to satisfy the understanding because it pulls too far in
the direction of the imagination. Kant approves of'carrying the imagination's
freedom very far, even to the verge of the grotesque', but in saying this he also
marks the limit beyond which this striving for imaginative freedom fails to
produce beauty any longer: viz., when it begins to produce the grotesque (CJ
242/93).
The grotesque thus seems to be one typical instance of the ugly for Kant. 26
The other, which he does not name, might be called the 'plain'. This at any rate
seems an apt name for the aesthetic failure that results from pulling too far in the
other direction: in the direction of the understanding. We have already seen that
an overly regular or standard face or figure is described by Kant as 'spiritless'
and 'mediocre'. Such forms have nothing in them to interest the imagination,
and so cannot be beautiful. It is for this reason as well that Kant contradicts
those 'critics of taste' who 'adduce geometrically regular figures, such as a circle,
a square, or cube, etc., as the simplest and most indubitable examples of beauty'
(CJ 241/92). From Kant's point of view, this is an understandable but erroneous
judgement. Such figures, by their boring and easily comprehended regularity,
lack the power to stimulate the imagination, and so are not beautiful.
7. Conclusions
In this chapter, I have analysed Kant's conception of an 'aesthetic idea' into its
constitutive elements of standardness and originality, and incorporated that
conception into enriched accounts of the form of purposiveness and free play. We
now have a clearer picture of what the beautiful entails for Kant which has
allowed us to better address the interpretive problems raised in the previous two
chapters. But we have in a sense not yet even begun to address the crucial
question with which this study began: what legitimates the demand for universal
agreement in pleasure contained in the judgement of taste? The preceding
investigations have, however, set the stage to provide an answer to this question
as well — or so I shall argue in the next chapter.
Chapter V
Pleasure and Justification
Kant's theory of beauty as the form of purposiveness and the expression of

aesthetic ideas can be valued for its own sake, as an interesting and illuminating
phenomenology of certain of our experiences of the beautiful in nature and art.
Kant himself, however, pursues this account of the beautiful with an ulterior
motive in mind, namely, to lay the groundwork for a justification of the claim to
universal validity implied in a judgement of taste. In Kant's mind, it is because
this form of judgement possesses normativity that the phenomenon of the
beautiful is worthy of a transcendental critique in the first place. Accordingly,
our examination of the demands of taste in Kant's aesthetics should properly
culminate in an investigation of his attempt to legitimate these demands.
The locus of this attempt is Kant's 'deduction of taste', which is therefore the
central focus of the present chapter. I shall here be primarily concerned to
analyse the precise nature of the problem that, according to Kant, the deduction
is designed to solve, and, following this, reconstruct the argument of the
deduction itself. My principal aim shall be to demonstrate that the deduction,
properly interpreted, is a successful argument, and hence Kant's theory of taste
does indeed accomplish its fundamental aim, which is to show how beauty — at
least as Kant understands it — can legitimately be the object of a universal
normative demand to take pleasure in it.
In addition to this primary objective, I shall also take up some essential
preliminary business concerning the nature of the pleasure in the beautiful. A
thorough understanding of the nature of Kant's views on aesthetic justification
requires an accurate and precise conception of his views on the nature of
aesthetic pleasure. If free play is to serve as the ground of the judgement of taste,
then it must of course be seen as a source of pleasure. But our account so far has
not yet shown why this must be so. To show this requires broaching a topic that
has up to now been passed over, namely, how Kant conceives of pleasure in
general. Once this conception is understood, it will be possible to see how
pleasure is connected to free play.
Following these preliminary matters, I shall take up the interpretive issues
surrounding the problem leading to the need for a deduction. The problem of
the deduction, as I shall demonstrate, is to show that the 'subjective principle'
Pleasure and Justification 121
that is the basis for a judgement of taste is a norm or rule that legitimately
legislates for the pleasure of all subjects. The main interpretive question that
arises in this domain concerns our understanding of the nature of this 'subjective
principle'. What is a subjective principle, and why should we think that taste
operates by applying such a principle? The analysis of the role of aesthetic ideas
in the previous chapter will once again prove useful in resolving these questions.
I shall demonstrate that the subjective principle in question is nothing other
than the harmony of the faculties in free play itself, and, hence, if the analysis of
the last chapter is correct, it can be equated with the aesthetic ideas that serve as
the models for our judgements of taste. What the deduction therefore needs to
show is that these ideas represent valid norms of judgement, such that the
pleasure that results from applying them is appropriate for all similarly
constituted cognitive subjects.
Following this analysis of the problem with which the deduction is concerned,
I shall examine the argument itself. Given the normative reading of universal
validity established in Chapter I, we should expect that the conclusion of the
deduction of taste will be that the pleasure-imperative implied in a judgement of
taste is legitimately issued. This conclusion must be carefully distinguished from
the claim that many commentators have thought the deduction must establish,
namely, the claim that when a judgement of taste is made, there is a supposition,
perhaps qualified, that everyone will actually agree with it. As was argued
previously, however, the deduction is not a prediction, qualified or not, about
how actual subjects will react to a certain object, but rather a normative
declaration of how they ought to react. In order to make out Kant's grounds for
this conclusion, however, one must first find the argument, which turns out to be
not as easy as one might expect. Although the deduction of taste is 'officially'
presented in §38, the real deduction, as I interpret it, is not in fact given in this
section at all, but rather at the end of the Analytic in §21. I shall accordingly
point out the deficiencies of the 'official' version, and then offer a detailed
reconstruction and defence of the true deduction.
2. Free Play and Pleasure

Since the notion of the harmony of the faculties in free play was originally
introduced as the explanation of pleasure in the beautiful, no interpretation of
free play can be considered complete that does not explicitly address the
question why it must be considered as a necessary source of pleasure. In this
section, I attempt to explain the precise nature of the relationship between the
mental states of pleasure and free play. There are two basic options for
understanding this relationship. On the one hand, we can construe it as a causal
relationship, such that free play and pleasure are understood as distinct mental
states, with the former producing the latter as a cause produces an effect. While
this is a very natural way to construe the relationship, and has some textual
support, I conclude that it is ultimately insupportable. Instead, I argue for an
alternative view that interprets the relation of free play and pleasure as one of
identity, rather than cause and effect. That is, the mental state of free play — or
rather, the consciousness of this state — may be seen as a species of the genus of
mental states to which Kant applies the term 'pleasure'. This view is equally well
supported by the text, without being vulnerable to the objections against the
causal reading. Showing this will require an examination of Kant's general
conception of the nature of pleasure. I shall argue that on the reading of free
play advanced in the previous chapter, the consciousness of free play can be
reasonably regarded as a species of the feeling of life, which is one of Kant's
definitions of pleasure. The equation of pleasure with the feeling of life, however,
may not be regarded as self-evidently appropriate. Consequently, I conclude the
section by investigating the manner in which Kant might derive this definition
from his 'transcendental' definition of pleasure as a mental state that is the basis
for preserving itself.
There seem to be two basic options for understanding the necessary
connection of free play and pleasure. Probably the more natural way to
understand this connection is as a causal relation between distinct mental states.
We might, however, alternatively understand this relation as one of identity,
such that free play, or our consciousness of it, is identified with a specific type of
state of pleasure. While the former, causal reading has naturalness and some
textual support on its side, it is also subject to objections that ultimately render it
unacceptable. For a well-developed example of the causal reading, we may turn
once again to Guyer. While Guyer's interpretation is certainly a plausible one —
especially given his own general understanding of Kant's theory of taste — it
suffers, in my view, from two crippling defects. First, it undermines the
normativity of judgements of taste by introducing a synthetic a posteriori principle
into the foundations of aesthetic judgements of the beautiful. Second, it leads to
a deficient phenomenology of the experience of the beautiful, which implausibly
separates the pleasure from the experience of the beautiful form itself.
Guyer regards the harmony of the faculties in free play and the pleasure in
the beautiful that is connected to it as two distinct mental states that are related
to one another as a cause is related to an effect. He is well aware of the possibility
of reading Kant as holding that 'we do not have two distinct kinds of feelings,
feelings of unity or harmony and feelings of pleasure', but rather that 'feelings of
unity just are pleasurable'. 1 Guyer rejects this view, however, on the grounds
that, for Kant, 'all feelings of pleasure are qualitatively identical'. 2 Since all
feelings of pleasure are qualitatively identical, the pleasures accompanying such
diverse activities as eating an ice cream cone, having a warm bath, winning a
marathon, finishing a book, or viewing a beautiful painting are, according to
Guyer's reading of Kant, phenomenologically indistinguishable. Obviously, the
only way to make sense of such a view is to regard pleasure as a distinct sensation
accompanying the experience. Guyer's attribution of this view of pleasure to
Kant rests on his reading of a particular passage of the Critique of Practical Reason,
in which Kant writes:
However dissimilar representations of objects may be — they may be

representations of the understanding or even of reason, in contrast to
representations of sense — the feeling of pleasure by which alone they properly
constitute the determining ground of the will . . . is nevertheless of one and the
same kind not only insofar as it can always be cognized only empirically but
also insofar as it affects one and the same vital force that is manifested in the
faculty of desire, and in this respect can differ only in degree from any other
determining ground. (CPR 5: 23/21)
Guyer reads this passage as saying that 'whether the feeling of pleasure is one of
contemplation or desire', its 'content as a conscious state of mind is the same'.3
The consequence of this view, as Guyer notes, is that the only way to
differentiate between pleasures is by their 'causal history': pleasures in the
agreeable and the good are distinguished from the pleasures in the beautiful not
by their inherent quality, but merely by the fact that they have different causes.*
Guyer is thus committed to interpreting the relation between pleasure in the
beautiful and free play as a causal relation. According to him, the connection
between the harmony and the pleasure depends on 'a psychological process or
mechanism, in virtue of which the harmony of the faculties causes a feeling of
pleasure'. 5 As Guyer is quick to point out, this causal reading appears to be
supported by several passages in the Third Critique, in which Kant uses causal
terminology such as 'affected (afficirt)' or 'effected (bewirkt)' to describe the
relation between the subject and his pleasure, on the one hand, and the
representation of the object, on the other.6 Guyer concludes that 'all of these
remarks suggests a causal relationship between the harmony of the faculties and
the feeling of pleasure'. 7
The view of free play and pleasure as distinct mental states related by an
external causal relation obviously raises a question, however, about the basis of
this connection. As Guyer puts it, the basic question is now 'why the harmony of
the faculties [in free play] should produce pleasure in the beautiful'. 8 Kant of
course makes clear in the Critique of Pure Reason that he is committed to the
general doctrine that every causal relation must have a law or 'rule' at its basis.
What, then, is the law or rule which underwrites the supposed necessary causal
connection of free play and pleasure?
In the attempt to answer this question, Guyer attributes to Kant 'a general
theory of the production of pleasure'. 9 According to this theory, 'all pleasure
results from the fulfillment of some aim of the subject'. 10 Guyer extrapolates from
two remarks by Kant in order to support this theory. First, in Section VI of the
Introduction, Kant claims that the 'attainment of an aim (Absicht) is always
connected with the feeling of pleasure' (CJ 187/27). Second, in the 'General
Comment' concluding the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant adds that 'achieving
any aim (Absicht), even a problematical one, is accompanied by a liking' (CJ
242/93). Guyer reads these passages (which he says are 'Kant's only general
statements on the conditions in which pleasure occurs') as asserting that 'all
pleasure is linked to the satisfaction of some aim', such that the satisfaction of an
aim is both necessary and sufficient for pleasure. 11 With this theory of the origin
of pleasure in hand, Guyer infers that the free harmony of the faculties generates
pleasure simply because it involves the satisfaction of a quasi-cognitive objective
of the subject — i.e., the unification of a manifold of intuition (without a
concept). 12
It is at this point, however, that Guyer's reading becomes problematic. For he
quite rightly goes on to ask what the status is of this general view about the
production of pleasure; i.e., whether Kant is entitled to employ it as 'a lawlike
and fundamental premise'. 13 Is this claim to be regarded as analytic or synthetic,
a priori or a posteriori? Guyer quite reasonably concludes that it can be neither
analytic, nor synthetic a priori. It cannot be analytic, according to Guyer,
because it cannot be derived from any definition of pleasure that Kant gives;
that is, it cannot be taken to be a defining feature of pleasure that it results from
the satisfaction of an aim. If, on the other hand, Kant intends this claim to be
synthetic a priori, then we must expect him to put forth a transcendental
argument in support of it; no such argument, however, is ever given. If it can be
neither analytic nor synthetic a priori, then it must be synthetic a posteriori. This
would be the case if it were, as Guyer suggests, 'a fundamental law of human
psychology' that would have an empirical basis, and hence be 'at least
conceivably disconfirmable'. 14 This is a problematic result, because it means that
the foundation of Kant's theory of judgements of taste actually involves an
empirical presupposition. This fact would be inconsistent with the under-
standing of the universal validity of judgements of taste as a form of normativity,
for no normative claim for Kant could ever have an empirical basis.15 Guyer is
untroubled by this result however, because he regards it as less a problem with
his reading than as an exposure of the limitations of Kant's theory. An
interpreter who attempts to take the normative reading seriously, on the other
hand, obviously has an incentive to resist Guyer's conclusions, if this is at all
possible.
A second incentive is arguably provided by the phenomenological implica-
tions of Guyer's reading. On Guyer's view, Kant thinks that pleasure in the
beautiful is a distinct, separate sensation that accompanies our representation of
the beautiful object.16 Several commentators have noted that this represents a
significantly distorted phenomenology of our actual experience of the beautiful.
As Richard Aquila remarks, the causal reading 'is a philosophically
unsatisfactory one because it fails to accommodate the fact that there is a
phenomenological difference between an experience in which one perceives some
object while at the same time feeling a pleasure, and an experience in which one
feels a pleasure in that very object'.17 Aquila's observation, if it is accurate,
provides us with an additional incentive to resist Guyer's interpretation.
Of course, incentives to resist an interpretation are irrelevant if there is no
cogent textual argument to back them up. Fortunately, the textual evidence
does not unambiguously favour Guyer's causal reading. There is at least an
equal amount of evidence favouring the identification of consciousness of free play
with pleasure in the beautiful. On this reading, the feeling of pleasure and the
feeling of the harmony of the faculties in free play are internally, rather than
externally related. Pleasure in the beautiful just is the feeling of free harmony, or
that through which we become conscious of it. On this view, free play is the
'intentional object' of the pleasure; consequently, this view could also be called
the 'intentionalistic' reading.
Evidence for this reading can be found in several places in the Third Critique.
In the 'Comment' to Section VIII, Kant characterizes 'the feeling of pleasure in
certain objects' as 'the empirical consciousness of subjective purposiveness' (FI
227/416). Two paragraphs later, he says that 'the representation of a subjective
purposiveness in an object [not only has something to do with but] is even
identical with the feeling of pleasure' (FI 228/418). Finally, Kant says that 'the
concept of the formal but subjective purposiveness of objects' is 'basically
identical with the feeling of pleasure' (FI 228/418). No doubt, these remarks are
somewhat obscure (especially the last, which by identifying pleasure with a
concept, seems to contradict Kant's earlier remarks). Their general thrust,
however, is clear: pleasure is to be understood as an intentional state — viz., a
representation of 'subjective purposiveness'. Other remarks suggesting an
intentionalistic interpretation of pleasure can be found in the First Introduction
and the Critique proper.18 For instance, Kant speaks of the relation of the
faculties as one that 'can be sensed' (FI 223/411). He refers to the sensation of
pleasure in the beautiful as 'a sensible representation of the state of the subject
who is affected by an act of [the] power of judgment' (FI 223/412). Lastly, he
also describes this sensation as 'the very consciousness of a merely formal
purposiveness in the play of the subject's cognitive powers' (CJ 222/68). Clearly,
there are solid textual grounds for ascribing to Kant an intentional view of the
pleasure in the beautiful.
A key point to be emphasized here is that the consciousness of free play must
be understood as a form of sensuous or 'feeling-consciousness', rather than an
intellectual or conceptual form of consciousness. This necessity is made apparent
by the way in which Kant answers the self-posed question of 'how we become
conscious, in a judgment of taste, of a reciprocal subjective harmony between the
cognitive powers: is it aesthetically, through mere inner sense and sensation? Or
is it intellectually, through consciousness of the intentional activity by which we
bring these powers into play?' (CJ 218/63). Kant's answer to this question is
unambiguous:
If the given representation that prompts the judgment of taste were a concept
which, in our judgment of the object, united understanding and imagination
so as to give rise to cognition of the object, then the consciousness of this
relation would be intellectual . . . But in that case the judgment would not
have been made in reference to pleasure and displeasure and hence would not
be a judgment of taste. But in fact a judgment of taste determines the object,
independently of concepts, with regard to the liking and the predicate of
beauty. Hence that unity in the relation [between the cognitive powers] in
the subject can reveal itself only through sensation. (CJ 218—219/63)
In other words, the consciousness of free play must be a feeling, because

otherwise the judgement of taste would not be an aesthetic judgement. According
to the 'identity' or 'intentionalistic' reading, the pleasure in the beautiful is itself
this feeling-consciousness of free play.
We have seen the textual evidence suggesting an identification of pleasure in
the beautiful with consciousness of free play, but we have not yet seen a
justification of this identification. What is pleasure, such that free play can be
plausibly thought to be a species of it? I shall now argue that a direct connection
between pleasure and the consciousness of free play can be made via the
concepts of 'life' and 'enlivenment'. As we have seen, Kant standardly
characterizes the mental state of free play as more than merely a static
condition: it is best understood as a mental activity or process, according to which
the two cognitive faculties 'further' each other. The consciousness of this activity
is what we are aware of in the feeling-consciousness of free play. As Kant says in
the key §9, 'that unity in the relation [between the cognitive powers] in the
subject can reveal itself only through sensation. This sensation . . . is the
enlivenment (Belebung) of the two powers . . . to an activity' (CJ 219/63). So our
consciousness of free play is not a consciousness of a static mental state, but
rather the consciousness of an enlivenment of the faculties as they engage with an
object whose phenomenologically objectival representation is felt to be purposive
for that activity. For this reason, consciousness of free play is aptly described as
the 'feeling of life'.
The 'feeling of life', however, is also one of Kant's ways of describing the
nature of pleasure itself. Already in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant defined
pleasure as 'the representation of the agreement of an object or of an action with the
subjective conditions of life'' (CPR 9/8fn). This definition is carried over into the
Third Critique, where Kant introduces the concept of pleasure using similar
language. In an aesthetic judgement, Kant writes, the representation of an
object 'is referred only to the subject, namely, to his feeling of life, under the
name feeling of pleasure or displeasure' (CJ 204/44). If pleasure is simply the
feeling of life, then it is obvious that the consciousness of free play, which is one
instance of the feeling of life (or enlivenment), should be considered a species of
pleasure.
This still leaves the question, however, of why pleasure and displeasure should
be equated with the feeling of life in the first place. The suggestion appears to be
that as long as we are alive, we are constantly experiencing pleasure or
displeasure — to however minimal a degree. Although Kant (so far as I know)
nowhere makes this claim explicit, pleasure would presumably be distinguished
from displeasure or pain by the fact that enlivenment, or the increase of our vital
force, is experienced as pleasure, whereas a diminution of our vital force is
experienced as pain. But what is the basis of this presumption? Perhaps the
closest thing to an argument for it can be inferred by connecting it with another
definition of pleasure that Kant puts forth in the Critique of Judgment. In both
Section VIII of the First Introduction and in §10 of the Analytic, Kant puts
forth what he calls a 'transcendental' or 'general' definition of pleasure as a self-
perpetuating mental state. In the First Introduction, Kant defines pleasure as 'a
mental state in which a representation is in harmony with itself [and] which is
the basis either for merely preserving this state itself . . . or for producing the
object of this representation' (FI 230-231/420). In §10, he says that
'consciousness of a representation's causality directed at the subject's state so
as to keep him in that state, may here designate generally what we call pleasure'
(CJ 220/65). The key claim in both of these definitions is that pleasure is a
mental state that is the basis for its own preservation, or that it is a self-
perpetuating state. Unlike the definition of pleasure as a feeling of life, this seems
like an uncontroversial characterization of what pleasure is. It seems hard to
dispute the evident fact that pleasure is, if anything, an experience that holds our
attention or consciousness in place, such that we feel as if our state of mind has a
certain 'psychic momentum' all its own. When taking pleasure in an object, we
always feel absorbed or engrossed in it to a degree that is directly proportioned
to the pleasure we derive from it. Pleasure, in short, is aptly characterized as the
consciousness of being preserved in one's mental state by one's consciousness o
an object. Kant remarks that we are in possession of something like this
consciousness when we experience the beautiful. Our consciousness of a beautiful
form, he says, has a 'causality in it', which is an ability to 'keep [us in] the state
of [having] the representation itself, and [to keep] the cognitive powers engaged
[in their occupation] without any further aim' (CJ 222/68). This connection
itself goes some way towards establishing free play as a pleasure, but it rests on
Kant's separate claim that 'we linger in our contemplation of the beautiful'
(ibid.). It would be better to be able to establish the connection between free
play and pleasure through the feature of enlivenment, which is more central to
Kant's account of free play itself. This connection can perhaps be made if we
think of enlivenement as the mode in which our 'state' of being alive is
perpetuated. We maintain our being-alive only by a continually renewed
process of enlivenment, interrupted by occasional periods in which the vital force
is diminished (e.g., when we fall asleep). If this enlivenment did not occur, we
would soon lapse into a deathly state. The consciousness of the enlivenment of
the faculties is equivalent to the consciousness of a representation's ability to
enliven our faculties. This consciousness, then, is the consciousness of being
preserved in one's state of being alive by one's consciousness of an object.
Consequently, it is, by Kant's plausible general definition, a pleasure.
3. The Problem of the Deduction
We are now prepared to turn to the main business of this chapter, which is to see
how Kant attempts to justify the demand for pleasure implied in a judgement of
taste. The centrepiece of Kant's attempt to justify the demands of taste is the so-
called 'deduction' of judgements of taste. But what is the aim of such an
argument? Fortunately, Kant provides us with a fair amount of discussion of the
answer to that question, both in the Critique of Judgment itself and in the previous
two Critiques. Kant of course originally employed the notion of a 'deduction' in

the Critique of Pure Reason. As Kant uses it there, this notion has a specific
technical sense, which is not simply equivalent to the familiar concept of a
logical deductive inference. As Dieter Henrich has revealingly demonstrated,
this notion, in Kant's particular usage, has a specific historical origin, referring
to special legal publications employed in the Holy Roman Empire known as
Deduktionsschriften.l<3 Henrich shows that these publications contained 'argumen-
tation intended to justify convincingly a claim of a possession or usage', for
example, the possession of a piece of land or the usage of a certain noble title.20
The typical means that these Deduktionsschriften employed to establish such
claims, according to Henrich, was to 'legally trace the possession somebody
claims back to its origin', for example, back to a legitimate birth to a particular
set of parents.21 This is the legal background to which Kant is alluding in the
well-known introduction to the second chapter of the Transcendental Analytic,
entitled 'On the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding':
Jurists, when they speak of entitlements and claims, distinguish in a legal

matter between the questions about what is lawful (quidjuris] and that which
concerns the fact (quidfacti), and since they demand proof of both, they call
the first, that which is to establish the entitlement or the legal claim, the
deduction (A 84/B 116; 219-220)
The quid juris is the question of the right to a certain possession or usage, which
is, in a deduction, to be traced back to a legitimate source. This model of
justification is transferred to an epistemological context in the deduction of the
pure concepts of the understanding. The applicability of this legal model to the
realm of the epistemology of perception depends upon thinking of the
employment of a concept as the staking of a claim or the assertion of an
entitlement: just as one might stake a claim to a noble title, so too, in employing
a concept, one stakes a claim to a certain ontological picture of the world.
Ordinarily, the question of the legitimacy of a concept can be settled by
appealing to experience. For instance, if I claim that there are rodents that can
fly, and someone doubts this, I only need to point to a bat in order to settle the
dispute. The employment of concepts becomes problematic, however, when they
are 'destined for pure use a priori (completely independently of all experience)'
(A 85/B 117; 220). If a concept cannot be legitimated by tracing its origin to
experience, then it must either be abandoned as inapplicable to empirical
objects, or else it must be traced to some other legitimate source. The latter
method is what Kant calls a 'transcendental deduction', which is 'the
explanation of the way in which concepts can relate to objects a priori' (ibid.).
The term 'transcendental' is here evidently designed to emphasize the contrast
with an 'empirical' deduction, which legitimates a concept by tracing it to
experience (ibid.). The term 'transcendental' by itself does not appear to specify
positively what alternative method of justification must be employed in the case of
a priori or pure concepts, or to use Kant's phrase, what taking the
'transcendental path' involves (A 87/B 119; 221). As we have already seen in

Chapter II, however, the general strategy that Kant employs in making a
transcendental deduction is to trace concepts to their origin in essential functions
of our faculties. As Kant puts it, the pure concepts must be shown to 'be
grounded in the understanding completely a priori' (A 91/B 123; 223). The
questions whether and how this can be done, of course, are complex issues. We
have seen that the more specific strategy Kant employs in the deduction is to
show how the essential nature of the faculties of understanding and imagination
actually contribute to the constitution of objects of experience; the details of that
argument, however, are not important here. For the present, the important
point to see is that a transcendental deduction is an argument that is required
when dealing with a priori concepts, and it aims to justify the employment of such
concepts by tracing them to a legitimate source. We should note, therefore, that
a deduction is a very general argument. It pertains merely to the possibility of
employing a certain concept. The question in the deduction of the pure concepts
is whether any judgements employing the concept of, say, a 'substance' can be
legitimate, or whether this concept has any applicability to objects at all. The
deduction itself says nothing about whether particular judgements are right — e.g.,
whether a particular scientist's theory that a certain substance is present in a vial
of liquid is correct. Accordingly, we should not expect a deduction of taste to
justify particular judgements of taste. 22
Kant revived the notion of a deduction in the Second Critique. Whereas the
deduction in the First Critique was an argument to justify concepts, the deduction in
the Second Critique is billed rather as a deduction of principles — specifically, of the
'principles of pure practical reason' (CPR 42/37). 23 The primary (or 'supreme')
principle here is naturally the moral law, or categorical imperative. The moral
law is similar to the pure concepts of the understanding, in that it is an a priori
principle that cannot be derived from any facts of experience. The organizing
question of the Critique of Practical Reason is 'whether pure reason of itself alone
suffices to determine the will or whether it can be a determining ground of the will
only as empirically conditioned' (CPR 15/12). The question, in other words, is
whether our 'pure', a priori idea of moral perfection, which Kant thinks we could
never acquire from any experience, and which is embodied in the categorical
imperative, can serve to motivate us to action, or whether, on the other hand,
motivation always requires some pathological inclination. Kant of course is
committed to the notion that the moral law is truly a law for us: i.e., that it can
move the will. In this case, what is required is that our everyday sense that the
moral law is a binding normative principle be traced back to a legitimating 'fact',
which Kant calls the 'fact of reason', or consciousness of the moral law (CPR 31 /
28). While this alleged 'fact' is supposedly sufficient to legitimate the objective
reality of the moral law, it does not, Kant says, actually constitute a deduction
(CPR 48/55). In fact (and to the reader's surprise), Kant concludes that a
deduction of the moral law is actually impossible: ' the objective reality of the
moral law cannot be proved by any deduction' (ibid.). A 'deduction' of it would
be a 'justification of [the moral law's] objective and universal validity and the
discernment of the possibility of such a synthetic proposition apriori' (CPR 46/41).

This mode of justification, Kant says, is not possible in the case of practical
principles as it was in the case of theoretical concepts of the understanding,
because the former, unlike the latter, are not necessary conditions of the
constitution of objects (ibid.). Kant is saying, in other words, that the specific
argumentative strategy of the First Critique — viz., to show that a priori concepts
(hence principles) are necessary conditions of objects of experience — is not possible
in the domain of practical philosophy. Nevertheless, Kant makes clear that the
more general strategy of the First Critique — to trace concepts to their origin in
essential functions of our faculties — is also applied in the Second Critique. For this
reason, Kant very well might have claimed that the moral law could be given a
'deduction', if he had been willing to loosen the analogy with the deduction of the
categories a bit. The key common strategy in both arguments is tracing the origin
of an a priori claim to basic functions of our faculties: the functions of the
understanding in the case of the categories, the functions of the will in the case of the
moral law. Kant regards the account of such functions as the bedrock of all
explanatory justification, or as he puts it, 'all human insight is at an end as soon as
we have arrived at basic powers or basic faculties; for there is nothing through
which their possibility can be conceived, and yet it may not be invented and
assumed at one's discretion' (CPR 46—47/41). Kant seems to be assuming here
that the mind simply finds itself with certain powers and capacities (of
understanding, judging, willing, feeling, etc.); our awareness of their existence
and functions is certain and indubitable. A 'transcendental' investigation for Kant
can thus be viewed as largely an investigation into the necessary conditions for the
(proper) functioning of these given faculties. The employment in general of an a
priori concept or principle can be justified if it can be shown to be in some way a
necessary result of these conditions.
Based on the role of the transcendental deductions in the first two Critiques, we
might expect that the deduction in the Third Critique will be concerned with the
task of showing that an a priori concept or principle has a legitimate application
to a certain domain of experience. This is in fact what Kant argues in §30 of the
Critique of Judgment. This section begins with the claim that 'Since an aesthetic
judgment lays claim to universal validity for every subject and hence must be
based on some a priori principle or other, it requires a deduction (i.e., a
legitimation of its pretension)' (CJ 279/141). It might seem to be initially
surprising that Kant should claim that an aesthetic judgement must be based on
an a priori principle. After all, by Kant's own account, aesthetic judgements are
based on a feeling of pleasure, which on his view, as well as according to the
ordinary way of thinking, is certainly an experience. Are not aesthetic judgements
therefore empirical judgements? In what sense can they be 'based on some a priori
principle?' Kant makes clear in this opening statement, however, that the reason
that aesthetic judgements must be based on an a priori principle has to do with
their implied demand for agreement or normativity. As Kant puts it in the
following section (§31), 'the obligation to provide a deduction for judgments of a
[certain] kind, i.e., a guarantee of their legitimacy, arises only if the judgment
lays claim to necessity' (CJ 280/143). In other words, it is because a judgement

of taste claims, not merely that the subject of the judgement likes something, but
also that anyone else ought to like it as well, that it must be based on an a priori
principle. The general claim implied in a judgement of taste is not an
empirically based generalization; it is not an empirical prediction about how
others will respond to the object based on inductive reasoning, nor is it a
generalization about how people have in fact responded in the past. Thus, while
the pleasure I feel in my representation of an object is certainly empirical, the
demand that I connect with this pleasure is not. As Kant puts it, 'it is not the
pleasure, but the universal validity of this pleasure, perceived as connected in the
mind with our mere judging of an object, that we present a priori as [a] universal
rule for the power of judgment, valid for everyone' (CJ 289/154).
The question, then, obviously arises: on what basis, if not experience, do we
issue this demand? Kant's answer, as we have seen, is that there must be an a
priori principle that can serve as its foundation. There is a complication, however:
because judgements of taste are merely aesthetic judgements, they cannot be
based on an objective principle. We have previously seen the grounds on which
Kant argues for this claim. An objective principle of taste would be 'a principle
under which, as condition, we could subsume the concept of an object and then
infer that the object is beautiful' (CJ 285/149). I previously glossed this as a
determinate discursive rule that could function as the major premise in a
syllogism leading to a judgement of taste as a conclusion — for example, a
principle stating that all painterly compositions exhibiting the Golden Section
are ipso facto beautiful. We have also seen that the denial of objective principles of
taste is the major way in which Kant distinguishes judgements of the beautiful
from judgements of the good. It is crucial to Kant's peculiar conception of the
autonomy of taste that these judgements cannot be compelled by rational proof.
Hence, they cannot be based on an objective discursive principle.
The fact that judgements of taste are not based on an objective principle does
not mean, however, that they have no principle at all; it is still possible that these
judgements have a subjective principle. Accordingly, Kant proclaims in the title
to §35 that 'The Principle of Taste is the Subjective Principle of the Power of
Judgment as Such' (CJ 286/150). Here we run up against what is perhaps the
main interpretive problem in understanding the problem of the deduction of
taste. What is this 'subjective principle' on which the judgement of taste is
based? According to Kant, it is 'only the subjective formal condition of a
judgment as such'; but this 'subjective condition of all judgments is our very
ability to judge, i.e., the power of judgment' (CJ 287/151). To say that the
subjective principle of the judgement of taste is 'the power of judgment' is
obviously not very helpful. But Kant goes on to make clear that he is really
talking here about the mental state of the harmony of the faculties in free play:
Now since a judgment of taste is not based on a concept of the object . . ., it

can consist only in the subsumption of the very imagination under the
condition [which must be met] for the understanding to proceed in general
from intuition to concepts. In other words, since the imagination's freedom

consists precisely in its schematizing without a concept, a judgment of taste
must rest upon a mere sensation, namely, our sensation of both the
imagination in its freedom and the understanding with its lawfulness, as they
reciprocally quicken each other; i.e., it must rest on a feeling that allows us to
judge the object by the purposiveness that the representation . . . has insofar as
it furthers the cognitive powers in their free play. Hence taste, as a subjective
power of judgment, contains a principle of subsumption; however, this
subsumption is not one of intuitions under concepts, but rather one ofthepower
of intuitions or exhibitions (the imagination) under thepower of concepts (the
understanding), insofar as the imagination in its freedom harmonizes with the
understanding in its lawfulness, (ibid.)
Kant is here unmistakably talking about the harmony of the faculties in free
play; this mental state is thus the 'subjective principle' of judgements of taste.
This principle does not involve the subsumption of a manifold of intuition under
a concept, but it does involve, in a general sense, the purposiveness of the
imagination for the understanding. This is why Kant describes the harmony of
the faculties as a 'subsumption' of the imagination under the understanding.
Unfortunately, this description does not dispel all of our puzzlement over how
judgements of taste can have an a priori principle. Two main questions remain
regarding the claim that the harmony of the faculties is the subjective principle
of judgement. First, how can the harmony of the faculties in free play be
regarded as a, principle of judgement, in addition to being a psychological ground of
aesthetic pleasure? Second, in what sense can this harmony be understood as an
a priori principle, as it must be if it is to require a deduction? The answer to both
of these questions involves appealing to the idea that the harmony of the faculties
in free play is not simply the mental state that we are in when we are enjoying
beauty; this harmony also serves as the normative standard that we bring to our
representation of objects in order to estimate their beauty. It is because it serves
as a normative standard that the harmony of the faculties in free play can be
regarded as an a priori principle of judgement.
The account of free play given in the last chapter allows us to make sense of
this suggestion. Free play is the mental activity that generates the form of
purposiveness, which is also essentially the expression of an aesthetic idea.
According to our account, this aesthetic idea is not causally produced by the
object, but is rather brought to it, and used, in a sense, to 'test' or 'measure' the
object. The understanding sees the object, that is, through the imagination's
aesthetic idea. The apparent purposiveness that we 'feel' in the object is the
result of an added 'synthesis' that results from bringing our aesthetic idea to the
manifold. The resulting formal purposiveness, expressing an aesthetic idea,
incorporates the two elements of standardness and originality. The 'felt' balance
of these two elements in our intuition of the object is the inner standard or
'subjective principle' by which we judge the object. We thus use the aesthetic
idea that the mind generates as a template or model for judging whether a
manifold of intuition provides us with an appropriate occasion for free play or

not. We consider our activity of free play in perceiving and contemplating the
object to be not just a psychological state we are in, but also a norm for judging
the object. We consider our state to be, that is, not merely a state we happen to be
in, but also a state we ought to be in. But this 'ought' claim includes the idea of a
necessity — a necessity that is bound up with the very notion of a standard for
judgement. Although elements of our aesthetic idea may be derived from
experience, the use of this idea as a normative standard is not. This is the a priori
aspect of the subjective principle of judgement.
We can now say more precisely what the deduction of taste must show, and
how it ought to go about showing it. Kant asserts that, although the principle of
taste 'may well be merely subjective', it still 'requires a deduction, in order that
we may grasp how an aesthetic judgment can lay claim to necessity' (CJ 288/
153). The problem of a deduction of taste thus 'concerns the a priori principles
that the pure power of judgment [uses when it makes] aesthetic judgments'
(ibid.). The 'principles' in question are the aesthetic ideas we generate, through
which we estimate the appropriateness of a manifold of intuition for sustaining
free play. What needs to be shown is that these subjective principles do in fact
make a legitimate normative claim on the pleasure of all human subjects — i.e.,
all subjects with similarly constituted faculties of sensibility, imagination and
understanding. Based upon what we have seen about the argumentative strategy
of a deduction as employed by Kant, it is fair to assume that he will attempt to
legitimate this normative principle by tracing it to its origin in the basic
functions of the faculties, the end-point of 'all human insight'. The subjective
principles of judgements of taste must be shown to be in some way a function of
the necessary conditions of the proper functioning of sensibility, imagination and
understanding. This deduction will be a very general argument, designed only
to show that this way of judging objects has normative validity. It is not designed
to provide a method for showing that any particular judgement of taste is
correct. Nonetheless, if the argument is successful, it will show that our discursive
practices of making and quarrelling over judgements of taste are themselves
legitimate.
4. The 'Official' Deduction of Taste in §38

By 'transcendental deduction of taste', I mean Kant's actual argument to
vindicate the pleasure-imperative, wherever this may be found. Thus, even
though §38 is entitled 'Deduction of Judgments of Taste', we cannot assume that
the full presentation of the deduction is actually to be found there. In fact, I shall
argue that the main presentation of the deduction is to be found much earlier, at
the conclusion of the Analytic of the Beautiful in §21.24 A summary restatement
of this core argument is then later situated in the systematic conceptual
framework of the First Critique in §38. If we want to know what Kant thought the
significance of this argument was, we should turn to the later sections leading up
to §38; if, however, we want to understand the details of the actual argument
itself, and see how Kant proves that the subjective principle of taste is a valid
norm of judgement, we should look to §21.
The argument in §38 is, in my view, vulnerable to a number of legitimate
criticisms. There is one line of criticism, however, that I do not regard as
legitimate, which is the standard objection that this argument does not answer
what Andrew Chignell has called 'the problem of particularity'. 25 The
deduction needs to show only that the pleasure-imperative implied in such a
judgement is legitimately grounded; it does not need to establish the claim
that when a judgement of taste is made, there is a supposition that everyone
will actually agree with it, or, as Guyer puts it, 'justify the imputation of
specific feelings to others on specific occasions'. 26 As we saw in Chapter I,
Guyer holds this view because of his Humean understanding of what is
implied in a judgement of taste. If, as I argued there, we should reject that
reading, then there is no remaining reason for us to think that Kant must
satisfy this 'particularity condition'. 27 Nevertheless, the argument of §38, even
if we release it from this obligation, still possesses a number of serious
shortcomings.
The argument presented here is, in my view, simply too sketchy to be
considered adequate. Kant begins this surprisingly brief argument by reminding
us that the liking for a beautiful object is 'nothing but [our consciousness of] the
form's subjective purposiveness for the power of judgment' (CJ 289—90/155). He
next makes the point that 'as far as the formal rules of judging are concerned', if
a judgement is based merely on considerations of formal purposiveness, then it
'can be directed only to the subjective conditions for our employment of the
power of judgment as such', and this 'we may presuppose in all people' (CJ 290/
155). From these premises, he says, 'it follows that we must be entitled to assume
a priori that a representation's harmony with these conditions of the power of
judgment is valid for everyone' (ibid.). Tn other words,' Kant concludes, 'we
must be entitled to require (angesonnen) this pleasure from everyone' (ibid.).
This argument basically consists of the following three propositions:
1. The pleasure in the beautiful is constituted by a representation's

'harmony' with the subjective conditions for the employment of the power
of judgement as such.
2. We can presuppose that these conditions are the same in all human beings.
3. Therefore, we are entitled to assume that the pleasure in the beautiful can
be required of everyone.
The first premise of this argument is fairly unproblematic. While it is perhaps a bit
allusive, the basic point of this premise is relatively clear from the background we
have seen thus far. The pleasure in the beautiful, as we have seen, is the
consciousness of the free and harmonious play of the imagination and
understanding in relation to the purposive form of a representation. A
representation that facilitates this play can be said to be 'in harmony with the
conditions of the power of judgement' because the harmony of the imagination

and understanding is necessary in order for concepts to be applied to intuitions,
or, in other words, for a judgement to occur. The first premise thus seems to
describe accurately the situation in which the pleasure in the beautiful is
constituted.
The second premise, however, is far more problematic. The claim in this
premise is that we may presuppose that 'the subjective conditions for the
employment of the power of judgement as such' are the same in all people. This
claim, unfortunately, is ambiguous between three possible readings. Kant could
be saying that what must be the same is either: (1) the subjective conditions
required for cognitive perception, or (2) the subjective conditions required for the
perception of the beautiful, or (3) both (1) and (2). If we read Kant as saying (1),
then two problems arise. First, there is the issue of proof— it does not seem to be
self-evident that the subjective conditions required for cognitive perception can be
presumed to be the same in everyone. Why does Kant think that they can? He
does, admittedly, suggest an answer in the footnote appended to §38, in which he
says that 'this must be true, for otherwise people could not communicate their
representations to one another, indeed, they could not even communicate
cognition' (CJ 290/155). The suggestion here is that we must be able to
communicate our cognitions, and this presupposes that the subjective conditions
of cognition are the same; hence they must be the same. While this note does
help a bit, the argument is still obviously insufficient. In what sense 'must' we be
able to 'communicate' our cognitions? Clearly, more of an argument is needed
here. Perhaps the more serious problem with reading (1), however, is the fact
that, if we accept it, we are forced to see the deduction as guilty of a glaring non
sequitur. For how does it follow from the fact that the subjective conditions for
cognitive perception must be the same in everyone that we are entitled to assume
that the pleasure in the beautiful can be required of everyone? On reading (1), it
seems that, at best, the argument is missing a premise.
The other two readings, unfortunately, fare no better. Reading (2), according
to which Kant is referencing the subjective conditions required for the
perception of the beautiful, obviously begs the question. It is clear that Kant's
strategy in the deduction is to argue along something like the following lines:
since empirical perception is universally valid, then pleasure in the beautiful —
which is based on a similar mental state — must be universally valid as well. But if
this is how Kant wants to argue, some premise must make the connection
between the harmony of the faculties in empirical perception and the harmony
in the perception of beauty. Reading (2) would leave the reference to cognition
out altogether, which would not only make nonsense of the argument, but also
seems to contradict the implication of the footnote mentioned above, which
suggests that Kant was in fact referencing the subjective conditions of cognition
in the second premise.
The third possible reading is that Kant is here referencing both the cognitive
and the free or 'aesthetic' harmony of the faculties. The most straightforward
version of this reading would attribute to Kant the view that the cognitive and
aesthetic harmony of the faculties are identical, hence if we must presuppose the
cognitive harmony to be the same in all people, then we must presuppose the
aesthetic harmony to be the same as well. While this interpretation is consonant
with the general argumentative strategy that Kant wants to take, is it ultimately
unacceptable. From our perspective, an obvious problem with this reading is
that the interpretation of Kant's views on the basis of cognition and free play
given in the previous chapters leaves little possibility for simply identifying these
two states. We have seen that free play is a mental state (and activity) that is
clearly distinct from the mental state of ordinary perception. Nor is it clear that
we would want to make this identification even if we could, for this reading also
raises once again the old spectre of the 'everything-is-beautifuP problem. If one
identifies the cognitive and aesthetic harmony of the faculties, then what is left to
distinguish beautiful from non-beautiful objects? The third reading of premise
two is consonant with Kant's apparent argumentative strategy in the deduction
in its attempt to forge a strong link between cognition and aesthetic perception,
but it goes awry in making this connection too strong. Premise two, therefore,
seems faulty no matter how we read it.
Perhaps the most serious question that can be raised about the argument in
§38, however, concerns whether it is guilty of the gross (not to mention very 'un-
Kantian') non sequitur of deriving a normative conclusion from non-normative
premises. The premises of the deduction in §38 are both theoretical statements;
they make assertions of matters of fact. Premise one is really nothing more than a
theoretical explication of how pleasure in the beautiful is constituted. Premise
two appears to make a theoretical statement about the conditions that we can, a
a matter of fact, presuppose to be the same in everyone. From these two premises,
however, Kant evidently wants to derive a normative requirement', the requirement
that everyone take pleasure in a given object that has been estimated to be
beautiful. The obvious question to ask is: where did the normativity in this
conclusion come from? Kant is, of course, one of the best-known advocates of the
view that normative conclusions cannot be derived from merely factual
premises. Yet that is what he himself appears to do here.
The argument of §38 leaves so many unanswered questions, that we must
question whether it was really intended to present the full argument of the
deduction in the first place. These questions are left unanswered, in my view,
because contrary to appearances, §38 is not the location of the main argument of
the deduction, which, on my reading, actually occurs at the end of the Fourth
Moment in §21. The most charitable reading of §38 would see it in light of §21
and construe it as a sketchy (and, sad to say, somewhat sloppy) summary
restatement of that earlier argument.
One can only speculate as to why Kant chose not to reserve his best argument
for the 'official' deduction. Since the 'Analytic of the Sublime' interrupts the flow
of the argument from the 'Analytic of the Beautiful' to the 'Deduction of Pure
Aesthetic Judgments', it may have been the case that Kant wanted to place the
deduction closer to the exposition of judgements of taste. Certainly, the end of
the Fourth Moment, which is both the end of the Analytic and the moment
dealing with the necessity of taste, seems like an appropriate place for the
deduction. There is also some precedent for this placement, insofar as in the two
previous Critiques, the deduction is part of the Analytic. This does not explain, of
course, why Kant felt it necessary to repeat the argument in §38. One likely
possibility is that Kant wanted to connect the argument of the Third Critique
more systematically with the arguments of the first two Critiques. The sections
leading up to the deduction in §38, as we have seen, are rife with allusions to the
conceptual apparatus that informs the two earlier works in the critical system.28
Always a systematic thinker, Kant probably felt that it was important to make
these connections explicit, but that it would have encumbered the Analytic to do
so there. There is at least one other possible explanation worth mentioning.
Kant shows in the First Critique that it is not inappropriate to give a short
'summary representation' or 'brief concept' of a deduction after the more
detailed argument (cf. A 128-129/B 168-169). The briefer argument of §38
could be read in this way. However we explain it, the fact remains that the
argument in §21 is more complete than the argument of §38. I now propose to
turn to the reconstruction and analysis of this more important argument.
5. The Transcendental Deduction of Taste: §21

The main argument of the deduction occurs in the context of the Fourth
Moment, the stated aim of which is to explain the nature and basis of the
'modality' of the liking at the basis of the judgement of taste (CJ 236/85). The
'explication' Kant infers from the Fourth Moment is that the beautiful is what 'is
cognized as the object of a necessary liking' (CJ 240/90). By now, of course, this is
for us a familiar fact about the judgement of taste. In §18, Kant points out that
'this necessity is of a special kind' (CJ 236/85). It is an 'exemplary' necessity, or
'the necessity of the assent of everyone to a judgment that is regarded as an
example of a rule that we are unable to state' (CJ 237/85). The crucial point
that Kant appears to be making in calling the necessity of taste 'exemplary' is
that the judgement of taste is unsupported by an objective, publicly accessible
principle. We can recognize 'the rule that we are unable to state' as an allusion
to the inner, subjective principle on which a judgement of taste is based. An
inner principle such as this is very different from an external principle, and Kant
will point out in §22 that the fact that the necessity of taste is merely 'exemplary'
has important implications for the scope of the deduction.
As one would expect from an argument meant to provide a transcendental
deduction, the later sections of the Fourth Moment attempt to explain the basis
of the necessity of taste. As he does when explaining the problem of the
deduction in §§30—37, Kant links this basis to a subjective principle whose validity
must be vindicated. He then gives an argument to show that this principle is
valid. A problem for our understanding of the deduction arises at this point,
however, for it is not obvious that the subjective principle Kant introduces here
is the same as the one he mentions in §35. In §19, Kant postulates that 'the ought
in an aesthetic judgment, even once we have all the data needed for judging, is
still uttered only conditionally' (CJ 237/86). That is, even once we have used our
inner aesthetic idea to estimate the beauty of an object, and found that it can
sustain free play, we still can call it 'beautiful' — and hence demand that others
take pleasure in it — only provided that a certain condition is satisfied. The
condition in question, Kant says, is that 'we have a basis for it that is common to
all' (ibid.). In §20, Kant calls this shared basis a 'common sense' (or 'sensus
communis') (CJ 237—238/87). This is a notion, the reader may recall, that we
examined briefly in Chapter I. We will now need to review and expand upon
that earlier examination.
By the term 'common sense', Kant says that he means not 'the common
understanding that is also sometimes called a common sense', but rather 'a
subjective principle, which determines only by feeling rather than by concepts'
(CJ 238/87). The relevant notion of'common sense' here is not what Kant will
later call 'man's sound ([but] not yet cultivated) understanding', which is the
minimum intellectual capacity we are entitled to expect from any human being
(CJ 293/160). It is not an intellectual capacity at all, but rather a sensuous
capacity, or a capacity for feeling. This 'common sense', Kant claims, is the
'subjective principle' that constitutes the basis of the necessity in the judgement
of taste. In §35, this 'subjective principle' is the harmony of the faculties in free
play. Is 'common sense' therefore simply another name for this free harmony of
the faculties? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be 'no'. Kant goes on in the
same section to distinguish this common sense from the harmony of the faculties in
free play, claiming that the common sense is 'the effect arising from the free play
of our cognitive powers' (ibid, [my emphasis]). Free play is not the same thing as
the effect of free play. Which of these is the true subjective principle of taste?
While the introduction of the notion of a 'common sense' somewhat
complicates our understanding of the deduction, it is not an insurmountable
obstacle. It will emerge in the argument to follow that the specific 'effect of free
play' identified here with the common sense is simply the consciousness of the
quickening of the cognitive powers, which occurs through the feeling of pleasure
in the beautiful. The common sense here is nothing other than this pleasure. Of
course, by calling it a common sense, Kant is presupposing that this is a universally
valid feeling. The argument to show that there is a common sense is thus an
argument to show that there is a universally valid feeling — viz., the feeling of the
beautiful. This argument, as will become clear when we examine §21, in fact
proceeds as a deduction should, by attempting to vindicate the principle that lies
at the basis of this feeling. The principle that the argument actually attempts to
vindicate is the harmony of the faculties in free play —just as it was in §38. Thus,
Kant remains consistent in his conception of what the transcendental
justification of taste must do, even if he is somewhat loose in his terminology.
But since the harmony of the faculties in free play and the consciousness of the
quickening of the cognitive powers in free play are obviously very closely related,
and since the judgement of taste (i.e., the verdict) can be said to depend on both
equally, Kant's apparent uncertainty over which to call the 'subjective
principle' of taste is understandable. In the end, it does not matter much, for the
whole point of justifying the universal validity of free play is, of course, to justify
the pleasure-imperative.
We are now ready to examine the deduction proper. According to its title, §21
takes up the question 'Whether We Have a Basis for Presupposing a Common
Sense' (CJ 238/87). In this section, Kant lays out a line of argument supporting
an affirmative answer to this question. First, Kant says that cognitive
judgements must be 'universally communicable', since otherwise we could not
attribute to them a 'harmony with the object, but they would one and all be
merely a subjective play of the representational powers, just as skepticism would
have it' (CJ 238/87—88). However, if cognitions are to be communicated, then
'the mental state, i.e., the attunement of the cognitive powers that is required for
cognition in general' must also be communicated (CJ 238/88). Kant then
describes this 'attunement' as the 'proportion' between the cognitive powers that
is 'suited for turning a representation (by which an object is given to us) into
cognition' (ibid.). He makes clear that what he has in mind is the by now
familiar relation of the faculties in the process of cognitive synthesis, in which the
imagination combines a manifold of intuition, and the understanding provides
unity for this manifold in concepts. This 'attunement' or 'proportion' is, he says,
'the subjective condition of cognition' (ibid.). Kant goes on to observe that the
proportion between the faculties varies, 'depending upon what difference there is
among the objects that are given' (ibid.). And yet, 'there must be one
attunement in which this inner relation is most conducive to the mutual
quickening of the two mental powers with a view to cognition (of given objects)
in general; and the only way in which this attunement can be determined is by
feeling (rather than by concepts)' (CJ 238—239/88). Kant concludes that 'this
attunement itself must be universally communicable', and if the attunement
must be communicable, then so too must be 'the feeling of it' (CJ 239/88). The
universal communicability of a feeling, however, 'presupposes a common sense'
(ibid.). Consequently, we must have a basis for presupposing a common sense, or
at least a common sense must be 'presupposed in any logic and any principle of
cognitions that is not skeptical' (ibid.).
Admittedly, this argument is not as clear and detailed as one might like.
Nevertheless, it does represent, in my view, a significant improvement over the
argument of §38. While the basic strategy of the two arguments is the same, the
deduction in §21 adds crucial details that, with a sympathetic reconstuction,
allow this argument to avoid the pitfalls of §38. The basic strategy in §21, as in
§38, is to derive the universal validity of taste from the universal validity of
cognition, using the key 'bridging' notion of the harmony of the faculties. In this
earlier argument, however, Kant is more explicit in his explanation of why we
can presuppose that these conditions of harmony are the same in all human
beings. In this argument, Kant introduces the critical notions of a 'variation' in
the proportion of the faculties and an 'optimal' proportion — i.e., a proportion
most conductive to the quickening of the faculties. These notions create a space
for distinguishing between the cognitive and aesthetic harmonies of the faculties,
and thus enable us to avoid the 'everything-is-beautifuP problem. 29 Moreover,

the prominent role given to the conception of'universal communicability' in this
argument makes it clear that the deduction is based essentially on normative
premises; it is normative 'all the way down'.
The key term in the argument of §21 is 'universal communicability'. The
question of the relation of this term to the more orthodox term 'universal
validity' has come up previously (for example, in the analysis of the argument of
§9, the 'key to the critique of taste'), and has been deferred. Now, however, we
must arrive at some settled view of what this term means if we are to understand
the argument of §21. I shall assume that by 'universal communicability', Kant
simply means 'universal validity' — that these terms are equivalent, and Kant
uses them interchangeably. 30 'Universal communicability', in short, refers to the
normativity of a judgement or mental state. To say that something is universally
communicable is to say that it can be rightly required or demanded of everyone.
With this understanding of'universal communicability' in hand, we can now
interpret the argument of §21. I shall reconstruct and analyse this argument
premise by premise. Premises will be enumerated and italicized, with my
elaborative comments following beneath each premise.
1. Cognitions must be universally communicable, if scepticism about objective knowledge is
to be avoided. A cognition is a mental state involving the possession of objective
knowledge, especially a mental act of empirical perception. To say that
cognitions are 'universally communicable' is to say that agreement with a
(genuine) cognition can be demanded of everyone (or at least every rational
being). Kant asserts this connection between cognition and universal validity
only conditionally, however. Rather than make an absolute claim about the
communicability of cognitions, Kant asserts only that they must be communic-
able ifscepticism is to be avoided. The scepticism in question here is clearly glob a/;
Kant frames it as the threat that our perceptions 'one and all' would be 'a
merely subjective play of the representational powers'. Kant does not try to
refute this sceptical threat here, however. Thus, he does not attempt to ground
the demands of taste in an unconditional fashion; he contents himself with the
lesser ambition of making judgements of taste no less, but also no more vulnerable
to global scepticism than ordinary knowledge claims are. If he is successful, this
still is an important result, for it is clear that Kant (agreeing with all reasonable
people) thinks that global scepticism cannot be taken seriously. How then are we
to assess the conditional claim? If it is true, then we are faced with a choice
between the universal communicability of all cognitions as such, on the one
hand, or global scepticism, on the other. I believe that this assumption of the
argument can easily be shown to be at least a reasonable one. It is important to
keep in mind here that the issue is not whether all cognitions must be
'communicable' in the everyday sense: i.e., the sense in which we would say that
one must be able to actually communicate them to other rational subjects. The
point is rather that, if one is to assert a claim of knowledge, one must be able to
demand that others agree with it. I believe that this is in fact an essential or
'analytic' feature of all knowledge-claims. If we are prepared to assert
knowledge, then we are prepared to assert that everyone ought to agree with us;
otherwise, we would say that we are only putting forth an opinion, rather than
knowledge. It is merely the normative aspect that is 'analytic' of knowledge here;
we of course do not always expect everyone to agree with what we think we know.
We might even believe that some knowledge is intrinsically esoteric or ineffable.
Nonetheless, all knowledge at least pretends to be universally valid. To deny that
knowledge has the feature of universal communicability is to deny the existence
of knowledge itself— hence to lapse into global scepticism.31
2. Cognitions have a 'subjective condition' — i.e., a subjective conditio sine qua non:
the 'attunement' or 'proportion' of the cognitive powers. With this premise, Kant begins
to build the bridge between cognition and taste. Here we obviously face two
crucial questions: (1) What is this 'attunement' or 'proportion'? (2) Why is it the
necessary condition of cognition? It seems clear that the answer to the first
question is that the attunement is simply the harmony of the faculties. Kant now
wants to redescribe this 'attunement' as a 'proportion' so that it admits of
variation, which is the crucial idea in the next premise. This answer to the first
question of course also gives us the answer to the second: the harmony of the
faculties is necessary for cognition because it is presupposed in the process by
which a manifold of intuition gets synthesized into an object of perception. The
deduction of taste therefore depends upon the analysis of cognition that we
examined in the second chapter — just as we should expect.
3. This attunementjproportion is susceptible to differentvariations, relative to the
particular characteristics of the manifold of intuition in the object being perceived. The claim
that there are different variations in the proportion is meant to simultaneously
(1) distinguish the harmony of the faculties in free play from the harmony in
ordinary perception, and (2) assimilate these two 'proportions'. They must be
distinguished because otherwise the argument is threatened by the 'everything-is-
beautifuP problem. On the other hand, they must be assimilated because
otherwise there will be no reason to think that the universal communicability of
the proportion necessary for cognition entails the universal communicability of
the proportion necessary for aesthetic appreciation. How are we to understand
the claim of 'different variations'? Keeping in mind Kant's aim in putting forth
this claim, we may assume that he is referring to the different degrees to which a
given manifold of intuition is suitable for sustaining free play. If the analysis of the
last chapter is correct, this is a function of the degree to which a manifold admits
of being synthesized through an aesthetic idea. Aesthetic ideas, of course,
themselves admit of varying 'proportions' of standardness and originality. The
highest degree of beauty is to be found in the optimal balance of these two
qualities. Lesser degrees of balance will correspond to lesser degrees of beauty. A
manifold that does not admit of synthesis through an aesthetic idea at all may, as
we have seen, be considered plain or grotesque.
4. Among these variations, there is an 'optimal' proportion for quickening the faculties
(the proportion 'most conducive' to this quickening). Given what has just been said, this
optimal proportion is obviously the optimal balance, found in an aesthetic idea,
of standardness and originality — i.e., the highest degree of beauty. 32 An intuition
exhibiting this balance will be the one most conducive for quickening the
faculties. That is, the generation of the form of purposiveness, and the added
'layer' of synthesis of a manifold of intuition that occurs through this activity, is
understood by Kant as the product of a heightened or energized engagement of
the faculties with the given manifold. The understanding does not just see this
manifold as the occasion for the bare exhibition of one of its concepts, but rather
as an 'ideal' exhibition, which energizes the understanding to compare the result
of the synthesis to other objects of that kind. The imagination likewise is
energized to explore the particularity and uniqueness (originality) of the
intuition and present it as vividly and with as much detail as possible. This
heightened engagement with the object reaches its limit in relation to the type of
manifold that manages to 'feed' or accommodate the maximal degree of balance
between the standardness in an idea that sustains the interest of the
understanding and the originality in an idea that sustains the interest of the
imagination.
5. If cognitions are universally communicable, then their subjective condition (the
proportion of the cognitive powers) must be universally communicable as well. This is the
premise through which Kant takes his first definite step towards deriving the
universal validity of the pleasure in the beautiful from the presumed universal
validity of cognitions. The presumption here is that any particular cognition —
i.e., any given mental state involving the possession of objective knowledge — is
constituted by a given 'proportion' of the cognitive faculties. 33 Since the cognition
is understood to be a mental state — i.e., a state of the imagination and the
understanding — the actual relation between the particular cognition and the
particular proportion of the faculties is one of identity. Consequently, to require
the former just is to require the latter. It is useful to note that it is ineffective to
object to this premise on the grounds that we can imagine a mental state of
empirical perception that is formed in some other way than by a certain
proportionate relation of the understanding and the imagination.34 For Kant
would be quite happy to grant this point. He is clear in his view that the pleasure
in the beautiful is a distinctively human phenomenon — i.e., that it applies only to
beings with a sensibility and a discursive intellect such as we in fact are
presumed to have.35 But such beings — at least if we accept Kant's analysis of
knowledge — constitute their cognitions by relating their imagination and
understanding in a particular proportion. Consequently, to require agreement
in certain cognitions from such beings is to require that they be in certain specific
states in which the understanding and imagination are in a certain relation.
6. If the proportion of the cognitive powers required for cognition is universally
communicable, then so too must the 'optimal' proportion be universally communicable. This is
the crucial premise that bridges the realms of cognition and taste. If we are to
accept this premise, then we must accept the notion that what we are actually
requiring when we require agreement in cognitions and hence in the proportion
of the faculties required for cognition is that the faculties be functioning in the proper
way. That is, we require, in making a cognition, that our faculty of understanding
is operating properly to grasp the rule, that our imagination is synthesizing in a
way that is appropriate for the understanding, and so on.36 This premise merely
claims that if we must make this requirement in the case of the proportion
required for cognition, then we must also make it in the case of aesthetic
perception. This claim seems reasonable. Aesthetic perception, after all,
presupposes only functions of the faculties that are also required for cognitive
perception; in aesthetic perception, these functions are merely employed in a
different way. We have, moreover, seen the respect in which free play is
'purposive' for the functions of those faculties. Consequently, it would seem that if
we must require the proper functioning of the faculties in the case of cognition, we
have no reason not to make the same requirement in the case of aesthetic response.
7. If the 'optimal' proportion for quickening the faculties is universally communicable, then
the way of 'determining' this proportion must also be universally communicable. By
'determining' here Kant means 'becoming conscious of. The basis of this claim
would thus seem to be the simple fact that the optimal proportion of the faculties
is a mental state. While Kant is not of the opinion that all mental states are
conscious, it seems reasonable to suppose that if a mental state is to become the
subject of discourse, then it must be possible — at least theoretically — to become
conscious of it. Free play, of course, becomes the subject of discourse when we
issue verdicts of taste. But if one is to become conscious of a mental state, then
there must be a means of doing so. From this it would seem to follow that if a
mental state can be consciously required, as when we actually express our
judgement, then the means of becoming conscious of this state can also be
required. Hence, as the next premise asserts, if there is a single means of becoming
conscious of a required state, then that particular means can also be required.
8. The 'optimal' proportion can only be determined by feeling (not by concepts).We
have seen that Kant is committed to the view that in fact consciousness of the
optimal proportion or free play is a peculiar brand of feeling-consciousness. As
far as I can see, however, he does not have an argument to the effect that it can
only be determined by feeling. This, it would seem, has to be regarded as simply a
brute fact, one to be established by introspection.
9. The feeling through which the optimal proportion of the faculties is determined is the
pleasure in the beautiful. If the foregoing interpretation of the 'optimal'
attunement/proportion of the faculties is correct, then this conclusion of course
follows from Kant's analysis of the beautiful as reconstructed in this and the
previous chapters.
10. Therefore, barring global scepticism about claims to knowledge, the pleasure in the
beautiful is universally communicable. This conclusion, of course, is what the
transcendental deduction of taste was supposed to show. We may thus conclude
that the deduction in §21, sympathetically reconstructed, is a reasonable success.
It does not establish the universal validity of taste unconditionally, but it does
manage to establish that the normativity of taste is at least as well grounded as
the normativity of cognitive claims. This is itself a notable achievement.
This achievement however, does not entail that every judgement of taste that
is actually made is universally valid, as Kant makes clear in §22. This section
contains an important discussion of the limitations of the deduction. Kant's
remarks here specify that the deduction in §21 merely defines and justifies a
normative ideal of an optimal state of the faculties; it does not claim that
everyone is actually capable, here and now, of achieving this state, hence it does
not claim that universal agreement with one's valid judgement of taste can
actually be expected. According to Kant, the 'common sense' — i.e., the felt
quickening of the cognitive faculties — is a 'mere ideal standard': it is a state that
should serve everyone as a norm for judging, although it may not actually do so in
practice (CJ 239/89). This feature by itself does not distinguish the common
sense (or harmony of the faculties) from any other standard, such as the moral
law, or the norm of validity in formal logic. In these cases as well, everyone should
abide by these standards, although they may not in fact do so. Kant, however, is
making a qualification more specific to aesthetic judgement when he describes
the common sense as 'merely ideal'. He intends, that is, to contrast the merely
subjective standard of taste with the objective standards in other spheres. The
standard of taste is essentially an inner, private principle, as opposed to a public
and inter-subjectively accessible one; it is just my inner feeling. Thus, unlike in
the case of morality or logic, I cannot compel my opponent in a question of taste
to agree with me by appealing to a public principle that we both understand
and accept. In short, I cannot prove to you that I am right in my judgement of
taste — i.e., that my pleasure in this case is really appropriate or normative for
human judgement. Actual agreement can only occur if you have the same inner
principle (hence feeling) as I do. As Kant writes, if we could presuppose this
commonality of inner subjective principles, 'we could rightly turn a judgment
that agreed with it, as well as the liking that is expressed in it for some object,
into a rule for everyone' (ibid.). The subjective principle of taste would, in other
words, function 'like an objective principle' (ibid.). The fact of disagreement in
matters of taste suggests that there are important differences in individuals'
actual subjective principles, which are, in turn, due to differences in levels of
refinement and cultivation. This does not mean, though, that disagreement is
inevitable, for the existence of a norm of optimal proportion of the faculties
suggests the possibility of achieving a common set of responses through the
acquisition of common subjective principles. Thus Kant implies that taste is not
'an original and natural ability', but rather 'an ability yet to be acquired and
therefore artificial' (CJ 240/90). This suggests that if universal agreement is
actually to result, everyone has an obligation to cultivate the appropriate
feelings within themselves. Usually when we take the trouble to communicate
our judgements of taste to others, we do in fact tend to assume that both we and
they — more or less — have this cultivation. But it would be a mistake to think
that the deduction of §21 justifies (or is intended to justify) either the assumption
that everyone has acquired the appropriate capacity for judging any object in a
'tasteful' way, or the claim that we ought to acquire it. The latter issue pertains to
the value of the beautiful, about which the argument here is silent. The argument
of §21 has shown why we are justified in considering the pleasure we take in the
beautiful to be appropriate, but not why we have an obligation to seek out and
esteem this sort of pleasure. The answer to the latter question pertains to the
Pleasure and J 145
moral interest Kant thinks we have in the beautiful, which is a topic beyond the
scope of this study.
6. Conclusions
With this chapter, the present study has been brought to completion. I have
explained the nature of the connection between free play and pleasure, analysed
the problem of the deduction, and shown that the deduction, properly
interpreted, is a successful argument. We have seen that establishing a proper
link between pleasure and free play requires us to conceive of this relation as
intentional, rather than causal. Kant's analysis of pleasure as a self-perpetuating
mental state and the feeling of life allows us, moreover, to see how pleasure in the
beautiful can be understood as identical to the consciousness of free play. This
analysis of pleasure in the beautiful in turn enables us to understand the problem
of the deduction and Kant's argument to solve this problem.
We have seen that a transcendental deduction for Kant is an argument to
vindicate the employment of an a priori principle. Such a principle is employed
whenever necessity is claimed, as it is in a judgement of taste when we require
everyone to take pleasure in an object. The 'a priori principle' of taste, however,
is a merely subjective principle, which Kant alternatively describes as the
harmony of the faculties in free play, or the consciousness thereof, and which I
have, in accordance with the results of the previous chapter, equated with the
mind's production of aesthetic ideas. Kant's arguments to vindicate this
principle are not uniformly of the same quality, but we have seen that the
argument in §21 at least can be reconstructed in such a way that it accomplishes
the task. We may thus conclude that Kant's theory of taste does indeed
accomplish its fundamental aim, which is to show how beauty can legitimately
be the object of a universal normative demand to take pleasure in it.
Notes
Introduction
1 Mary Mothersill has been perhaps the leading advocate in recent times of
this view of Kant's place in the history of philosophical aesthetics. See, e.g.,
'The Antinomy of Taste', p. 80. This view of Kant is the basis for her
extended critical dialogue with him in her own modern masterpiece of
aesthetic theory, Beauty Restored, ChapterVIII .
2 Kant and most of his commentators treat the phrases 'judgement of taste'
and 'judgement of the beautiful' as equivalent, except in those contexts in
which the judgement of the beautiful is being contrasted with the
judgement of the agreeable, in which case the phrase 'pure judgement of
taste' is often used for the former type of judgement. Some commentators,
such as Henry Allison and Christel Fricke, place more emphasis than
others on the significance of the notion of the 'purity' of taste for Kant's
analysis of beauty. While I do not wish to deny that the term is significant,
in what follows, I do not take great care constantly to emphasize this
contrast with the agreeable, preferring instead simply to refer to 'the
judgement of taste' as an alternative formulation of'the judgement of the
beautiful', where it is understood that by this I of course mean the 'pure'
variety. When contrasting the beautiful with the agreeable, I shall
generally use the terms 'beautiful' and 'agreeable' in describing the
respective types of judgement. Another potential objection to my
phraseology has been raised by Anthony Savile, who has criticized Kant's
equation as such of the judgement of the beautiful and the judgement of
taste. Savile argues that there are judgements of the beautiful that are not
judgements of taste, such as when I judge that Helen was beautiful on the
basis of what Homer tells us (see Aesthetic Reconstructions, pp. 103—9, and
Kantian Aesthetics Pursued, pp. 1—6). Such a judgement is not a judgement of
taste according to Kant, because it is not made on the basis of one's own
first-hand response to the object of appreciation (in the example, this
would be Helen's face and form), yet — according to Savile — it clearly is a
judgement of the beautiful. To avoid the potential ambiguity that Savile
points out, I note here that when I speak of the 'judgement of the
beautiful', it should be understood that I am referring to the judgement of
148 Notes
the beautiful made on the basis of one's own response (i.e., on the basis of one's
own aesthetic taste).
3 See, e.g., Henry Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste and 'Pleasure and Harmony
in Kant's Theory of Taste'; Hannah Ginsborg, 'On the Key to Kant's
Critique of Taste', 'Reflective Judgment and Taste' and The Role of Taste in
Kant's Theory of Cognition', Mary McCloskey, Kant's Aesthetic', and Miles Rind,
'What is Claimed in a Kantian Judgment of Taste?' and 'Can Kant's
Deduction of Judgments of Taste Be Saved?'
4 This definition is adapted from Stephen Darwall, Philosophical Ethics, p. 239.
5 See Ginsborg, 'Reflective Judgment and Taste'.
6 Lewis White Beck summarizes this faculty psychology tradition in his Early
German Philosophy, pp. 415—420. See especially the diagram on page 417.
7 Kant's Aesthetic, p. 85.
8 Kant's most systematic account of transcendental inquiry is his discussion of
the notion of 'transcendental logic' in the introduction to the part of the
First Critique by that name, A 50-64/B 74-88; 193-200. Kant does not use
the term 'transcendental psychology' here, but the ensuing transcendental
deduction nevertheless proceeds by reference to psychological faculties,
justifying the use of the term. For an interesting defence of the notion of
transcendental psychology (one that, nevertheless, I would for a variety of
reasons hesitate to endorse fully) see Patricia Kitcher, Kant's Transcendental
Psychology, pp. 21-29.
9 I derive the concept of a 'discursive' intellect from Henry Allison. See Kant's
Transcendental Idealism, Chapter 4.
10 Kant describes 'empirical' psychology as a 'physiology of inner sense',
which would arise from 'observations about the play of our thoughts' (A
347/B 405; 415). Given the historical context, and Kant's own frequent
references to the laws of association of ideas, it seems reasonable to conclude
that the 'play' here is association.
11 See, e.g., Donald Crawford, Kant's Aesthetic Theory, pp. 118—24 and 134—5;
Kenneth Rogerson, Kant's Aesthetics, ch. 5; and Rudolf Liithe, 'Kant's Lehre
von asthetischen Ideen' (Liithe acknowledges that aesthetic ideas may
symbolize more than just the rational ideas (see p. 72), but still emphasizes
the symbolic function over all else), p. 72.
12 Kant and the Claims of Taste, p. 10.
13 Another topic that I neglect to discuss in what follows, but which has
received considerable attention in the literature, is the significance of the
architectonic structure of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, especially that of
the Analytic of the Beautiful, with its four 'moments' derived, Kant says,
from the 'logical functions of judging' (CJ 203/43nl). While I do make
occasional remarks about the relation between the sections, I trust that my
views about the argument-structure of Kant's work are, when I consider
them to be relevant, implicit in my analysis of the various specific arguments
themselves. In general, my overall view of the four moments of the Analytic
lies somewhere in between those of, on the one hand, Guyer and Derrida (in
Notes 149
The Truth in Painting), who regard the architectonic that Kant imposes on
the structure of his argument as (to varying degrees) a distortion of the true
structure, and, on the other hand, Allison and Longuenesse (in 'Kant's
Theory of Judgment, and Judgments of Taste'), who regard this
architectonic as flowing from (again to varying degrees) the basic argument
of the Analytic itself. I would agree with Guyer and Derrida to the extent
that I do not believe that the four moments each explicate separate and
distinct features or aspects of the beautiful. Specifically, I agree with Guyer
that the supposedly separate and distinct moments of 'universality' and
'necessity' are really discussing the same thing (see Kant and the Claims of
Taste, pp. 142ff). On the other hand, I also agree with Allison that the
Analytic contains a progressive argument running throughout. Unlike
Allison, however, I would use as my model for understanding this argument
the 'regressive' argument of the Groundwork, rather than the quid factijquid
juris distinction (see Kant's Theory of Taste, Chapter 3). That is, as I see it,
Kant at first starts with the ordinary understanding of the judgement of the
beautiful as a judgement based on a subjective feeling of pleasure (First
Moment), yet claiming universal validity (Second Moment). He then asks
what principle such a pleasure could be based upon (§9 and the Third
Moment). Finally, having established what this principle could be at the
beginning of the Fourth Moment, he proceeds to give a deduction of it in
§21. This is roughly the argumentative structure, which more or less
corresponds to Kant's strategy in the Groundwork.
14 Kant and the Experience of Freedom, p. 3.
15 Both points made by John Zammito in The Genesis of Kant's Critique of
Judgment.
16 The most prominent instance of this argument is found in the 'Dialectic of
Practical Reason' in the Critique of Practical Reason, Ak. 5: 124—132. A version
is also found in the Critique of Judgment, §87.
17 Cf. Critique of Judgment §42, Ak. 300-302, and §59, Ak. 353-354.
Chapter I: What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?

1In addition to Paul Guyer, who is my prime exemplar in what follows, some
explicit instances of this tendency include Jens Kulenkampff, 'The
Objectivity of Taste: Hume and Kant', p. 93, and Malcolm Budd, Values
of Art, pp. 16—38. Many other commentators implicitly make the
assumption.
2 Commentators holding this view (or something close to it) include R. K.
Elliot, 'The Unity of Kant's "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment" '; Donald
Crawford, Kant's Aesthetic Theory, Kenneth Rogerson, Kant's Aesthetics', Salim
Kemal, Kant and Fine Art', Anthony Savile, Aesthetic Reconstructions and
Robert Pippen, 'The Significance of Taste'.
3 See Beauty Restored, p. 187.
150 Notes
4 By appealing to these rules, Hume is betraying his conventional

neoclassicist allegiance to the established principles of good taste
canonized in sources such as Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Ars Poetica and
Pope's Essay on Criticism.
5 Here I make a significant alteration in Pluhar's translation. He translates
'Anspruch' more ambiguously as 'claim'. For obvious reasons, I prefer the
more normative (and, I believe, more accurate) 'demand'. Kant's pervasive
normative language in describing the universality of the beautiful is the
major evidence I present in favour of the normative reading below.
6 The relationship between this term and the term 'universal validity' will be
discussed in Chapter V.
7 See Kant and the Claims of Taste, p. xix.
8 Ibid., p. 108.
9 Guyer believes that there need to be two distinct acts of judgement involved
when we make a judgement of taste: one involving the 'estimation' of the
object, and one attributing the pleasure one takes in an object to a
universally valid source (Kant and the Claims of Taste, pp. 97—105). The latter
judgement (of attribution) is 'justified', according to Guyer, by an appeal to
one's state of disinterestedness and the form of the object, hence they are
'justificatory criteria'. This so-called 'two acts' view has been controversial:
for two thorough discussions and criticisms of it from quite different
perspectives, see Hannah Ginsborg, 'On the Key to Kant's Critique of
Taste', and Christian Wenzel, Das Problem der subjektiven Allgemeingiiltigkeit
des Geschmacksurteils bei Kant, pp. 33^f6. Despite these criticisms, I believe
that something like Guyer's view must be correct. A distinction between the
often sub- or unconscious and private 'judging' that goes on in free play and
the self-conscious and (usually) publicly expressed verdict of taste seems to
be crucial for the very intelligibility of Kant's theory of taste. This does not,
however, commit one to Guyer's particular views about the role of the
'justifactory criteria', or his notion that one must make a 'hypothesis' from
the 'evidence' of this criteria to the existence of free play (cf. Kant and the
Claims of Taste, p. 134). In Chapter V, I shall argue that one can be directly
(if not incorrigibly) aware of free play through the aesthetic pleasure itself.
11 Ibid., pp. 142—147. Guyer supports this claim by pointing out that Kant
uses virtually the same language to describe the universality and necessity.
Allison, on the other hand, maintains that 'to claim that a liking for the
beautiful purports to be universally valid . . . is not equivalent to claiming
that a judgment of beauty places a demand on others that they agree with
one's assessment' (Kant's Theory of Taste, p. 104). On this point and for the
reasons he cites, I am in complete agreement with Guyer. This does not
explain, however, why Kant should introduce the feature of universal
validity/necessity twice, under two different names. Part of the answer, of
course, is related to his attempt to make the four moments of the beautiful
conform to the Table of Judgements. But it is also, in my view, the
Notes 151
progressive argument structure of the Analytic that makes it necessary for

the feature of universality/necessity to appear twice: once in the opening
exposition of the content of the judgement of taste, and again in the
deduction (since it is, after all, the universal validity/necessity of taste that
must be vindicated).
13 Ibid., p. xvi.
14 Major recent works emphasizing this connection include: Kenneth
Rogerson, Kant's Aesthetics] Salim Kemal, Kant and Fine Art', Anthony Savile,
Aesthetic Reconstructions and 'Kant and the Ideal of Beauty'; and Henry
Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste.
15 Ibid., 129.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p. 144.
18 Ibid., p. 123.
19 Ibid., p. 124.
20 Ibid., p. 125.
21 Ibid., p. xix.
22 Ibid., p. 66.
23 Ibid., p. 75.
24 Ibid., pp. 70-88.
25 Ibid., p. 76. This, at any rate, was Guyer's original position in his 1979
work, and apparently one that he still endorsed in 1997 when the second
edition of Kant and the Claims of Taste appeared. Very recently, however,
Guyer appears to have changed his interpretation of the harmony of the
faculties, now endorsing what he calls a 'metacognitive' approach (Values of
Beauty, p. 98). According to this approach, in free play, 'the understanding's
underlying objective or interest in unity is being satisfied in a way that goes
beyondanything required for or dictated by satisfaction of the determinate
concept or concepts on which mere identification of the object depends'
(ibid., p. 99). As its designation as an 'approach' seems to indicate, the
'metacognitive' is not so much a specific reading, as it is a type of reading. I
believe that the interpretation of free play suggested in Chapter IV is of this
type, and so my differences with Guyer on this issue may now be narrower
than I thought when I originally completed this chapter.
27 Ibid., pp. 283-284.
28 Ibid., p. 287.
29 Ibid., p. 284.
30 Kant defines an 'imperative' as the 'representation of an objective principle,
insofar as it is necessitating for a will', or, alternatively, as a 'command of
reason' (GW 413/24). Thus, technically speaking, an imperative for Kant
essentially belongs to the domain of the will or practical reason, rather than
the faculty of judgement. However, as Kant also makes clear, the basic idea
of an imperative is of a principle that presents itself as an 'ought', because
152 Notes
there is a gap between the ideal and what actually happens (ibid.). And in
this sense, it is perhaps possible for an orthodox Kantian to also speak of
'aesthetic' imperatives.
31 While 'zumuten' may be translated as 'to expect', the sense of'expectation' is
the normative, rather than the predictive sense: as when a boss says to a
perennially tardy underling whom he knows will be late again: 'I expect you
to be on time tomorrow.' The boss is not making a prediction here, but
rather imposing a requirement or issuing a demand.
33 In Kant and the Claims of Taste, pp. 312—317, Guyer criticizes the versions of
this theory put forth by Donald Crawford and R. K. Elliot.
34 Guyer is responding here specifically to the criticisms posed by Salim Kemal
and Kenneth Rogerson.
36 See my discussion in the Introduction, p. 7.
37 Cf. CJ 300/167 and 354/229 (item number four).
38 Crawford argues in this way. See Kant's Aesthetic Theory, Chapter 7.
39 See my Introduction, p. 4, for an explanation of this 'quasi' qualification.
40 This is the form of the arguments in the Critique of Practical Reason, Ak. 5:
122—126. Compare the following brief conspectus of the argument for the
existence of God: 'it was a duty for us to promote the highest good; hence
there is in us not merely the warrant but also the necessity, as a need
connected with duty, to presuppose the possibility of this highest good,
which, since it is possible only under the condition of the existence of God,
connects the presupposition of the existence of God inseparably with duty;
that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God' (CPR 125/
105).
41 Mary McCloskey puts forth a similar view. See Kant's Aesthetic, p. 91.
Chapter II: The Problem of Free Play

1 That is, the perception of objects by means of representations given through
sensation.
2 That is, into the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment proper. The notion is
previously mentioned briefly in the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment,
section VII.
3 Although it must be noted that this point is controversial. Hannah Ginsborg
critique against it in 'On the Key to Kant's Critique of Taste'. For a critique
of Ginsberg's view, see Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste, pp. 113—115. I am in
broad agreement with the arguments against Ginsborg that Allison puts
forth there.
4 This is consonant with Kant's use of the concept of judgement in the First
Critique to designate a 'relation of representations' (B 142; 252), as well as
'functions of unity among our representations' (A 69/B 94; 205).
Notes 153
5 I shall consider the relation of this terminology to Kant's more common

terminology of'universal validity' in my account of the deduction of taste in
Chapter V.
6 I shall consider Kant's basis for the notion that cognition must be a
universally communicable mental state in my account of the deduction of
taste in Chapter V. As far as I know, Kant never actually argues for the
claim that cognition or cognition-related states are the only universally
communicable mental states, as his claim (3) seems to be saying, and one
might wonder if this is compatible with what he says elsewhere about the
moral feeling of'respect' (e.g., at CJ 222/67).
7 As I suggested in my introduction, a 'transcendental' psychological theory,
as I understand it, is one that purports to describe the necessary 'epistemic
conditions' of operation of a discursive intellect in general, and is thus an a
priori, rather than empirical theory. For a further explanation and summary
defence of the notion of an 'epistemic condition', see Allison, Kant's
Transcendental Idealism (Revised and Enlarged Edition), pp. 11—19.
8 Although not published as the introduction to the Critique of Judgment, this
was the first version that Kant wrote for that work. As Rudolf Makkreel
notes, 'In a letter to Jakob Sigismund Beck, Kant explained that he had
withheld the First Introduction only because of its excessive length, and
recommended it as "containing much that will contribute to a more
complete insight into the concept of a teleology of nature" ' (Imagination and
Interpretation in Kant, p. 53—54). Makkreel cites Wilhelm Dilthey as his source
for this information, Gesammelte Schriften (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1921), vol. 4, p. 341.
9 I take the term 'judgment' to be actually redundant in this passage, where,
on my view, it simply refers to the mental state of relation between the
imagination and the understanding — as it does in §9 of the Third Critique.
The 'exhibition' of the object, as will become clear below, is wholly a
product of this harmony, rather than an additional act of a third faculty.
10 I would here like to thank Mary Domski for her help in formulating this
paragraph, and to add a remark on the (unfortunately) necessary
sketchiness of the discussion to follow. In the summary account of certain
parts of the deduction given below, I may seem to some to be irresponsibly —
even outrageously — skirting countless contentious interpretive issues. Since
it would be impossible for me to do justice here to the voluminous secondary
literature, I have chosen to avoid creating a misleading impression of
attempting to do so by not discussing it at all. I do not claim, therefore, to
offer here anything close to a complete and fully defended account of the
deduction of the categories. Seasoned readers of Kant will notice
immediately that there are crucial stages of the argument that I do not
discuss at all. An account of the argumentative structure of the deduction is
not my aim. All that I aim for in the brief account that follows is a
reasonably plausible and coherent interpretation of those aspects of the
deduction that are directly relevant to Kant's aesthetic theory.
154 Notes
11 Since their ordering is logical rather than temporal, the three syntheses
should not be considered as three distinct mental acts that occur successively
in time, but rather as three different 'logical moments' of a single act of
cognition. It may also be worth noting explicitly that the process described
below must be one that occurs without the direction of a conscious
intention.
12 I begin here with the discussion in 'B'. The parallel discussion in 'A' is found
in the third section of the deduction, A 115-124; 236-241.
13 I should acknowledge here that it is far from obvious that and how this
constitutes a problem. For my purposes, I do not believe it is crucial to
answer this question.
14 For a recent survey of the controversy, see Allison, Kant's Transcendental
Idealism (Revised and Enlarged Edition), pp. 204-218.
15 See, for example, A 220/B 267; 323.
16 My discussion of this issue is indebted to Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to
Judge (especially Chapters 5—6); Ginsborg, 'Lawfulness without a Law'; and
Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste, Chapters 1—2.
17 'Lawfulness without a Law', p. 56.
18 Essentially the same question is posed by Ginsborg, 'Lawfulness without a
Law', p. 53, and Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste, p.22.
19 This is the strategy pursued by Allison, drawing upon Longuenesse's
analysis of Kant's understanding of the act of comparison (see Kant's Theory
of Taste, p. 24).
20 In fact, precisely this sort of imaginative process of superimposition is
described by Kant in his account of how the mind constructs 'aesthetic
standard ideas' (CJ 233—234/82). In a later chapter, I shall rely on this fact
as a crucial piece of evidence in my account of how the process of empirical
reflection leading to concept formation is related to aesthetic free play.
21 Although the notorious distinction between 'judgements of experience' and
'judgements of perception' in the Prolegomena may throw some doubt on this
(cf. PFM 298-306/50-57). Again, I cannot engage in this debate and its
many complications here. Representative opposing viewpoints can be found
in Henry Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism (Revised and Enlarged
Edition), pp. 179—183, and Beatrice Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to
Judge, Chapter 7.
22 I am referring here to Ginsberg's point that we cannot perceive something
as a substance 'tout court'.
23 In Chapter III, I shall suggest that the quality of beauty does not really
'emerge' from the properties of the object, but rather that the imagination
uses those properties as the occasion for its own 'free' construction of the
schema of the beautiful, which it then 'projects' onto the object. The
account here, therefore, is intended to be merely provisional.
24 The phrase 'unique way' refers here to the 'form of purposiveness without a
purpose' and the 'expression of aesthetic ideas' that I shall discuss in the
following chapters.
Notes 155
25 Thus, I am implicitly concurring with Anthony Savile's point that, despite

the fact that aesthetic perception is supposed to take place independently of
concepts, there is no incompatibility for Kant between recognizing
something to be a rose (i.e., to fall under the concept 'rose'), and
recognizing (or sensing) it to be beautiful without a concept (see Aesthetic
Reconstructions, p. 114). As I am conceiving of it here, these are two distinct
mental acts, even though the latter depends upon the former (for without
the former, no object would be perceived in the first place).
26 The phrase 'indeterminately' is meant to indicate that the perception takes
place without a conceptual determination. This feature of the perception of
the beautiful will, of course, be further discussed in what follows.
27 Kant's Theory of Taste, p. 50.
28 Kant explains in the Second Introduction that to 'exhibit' a concept is 'to
place beside the concept an intuition corresponding to it' (CJ 192/33). The
notion of an exhibition or presentation (Darstellung) is thus closely linked
with Kant's well-known thesis that 'Thoughts without [intuitive] content
are empty' (A 51/B 75; 193). In other words, concepts without an intuition
corresponding to them in some way cannot yield a cognition. The exhibition
or presentation of a concept pertains to this provision of a necessary intuitive
content. To exhibit a concept, and thereby give it intuitive content, I must
provide an example of it in intuition — as when, for example, I draw a
triangle in order to illustrate the concept of'triangle'.
30 For this reason, Allison leans towards describing it, not as a schema per se,
but rather 'a form that one might term "schema-like" or, perhaps, as "the
schema of a schema"' (Ibid., p. 49).
31 Ibid., p. 48.
32 Ibid. Allison cites the passage from the Dohna-Wundlacken Logik, which is
preceded by this sentence: 'Production of the beautiful is in general not
science, but rather free play of imagination' (DWL 710/447). This passage
had previously been cited by Dieter Henrich for a similar purpose (see
Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World, p. 53).
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 The Amphiboly chapter is central to Longuenesse's analysis of Kant's
conception of reflective judgement (see Kant and the Capacity to Judge,
Chapter 6).
36 This use of'transcendental' is thereby consonant with Kant's explication of
the term 'transcendental cognition' as an a priori investigation of the sources
that make cognition possible (A 56/B 80; 196).
37 Or, as Kant puts it in the 'Amphiboly' chapter: 'Leibniz intellectualized
the appearances, just as Locke totally sensitivized the concepts of the
understanding' (A 271/B 327; 372).
38 For a thorough explication of this, I once again refer the reader to Beatrice
Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to Judge, Chapter 6.
156 Notes

40 This suggestion will be discussed extensively in the following two chapters.
41 Allison seems to hedge his claim a bit by using the term 'fully'. Here I will
ignore this qualification, while noting that perhaps I am not being entirely
fair to Allison. It is unclear to me, at any rate, what the force of this
qualification is, since, as far as I know, he does not explain it.
42 The denial of principles of taste is the centrepiece of Mary MothersilPs
explicitly Kant-inspired theory of the beautiful. My discussion of the notion
of an objective principle is deeply influenced by her treatment of this topic
in Beauty Restored, Chapters III—IV.
43 This, as we will see in Chapter V, is in contrast to the 'subjective' principle
on which the judgement of taste is, according to Kant, actually based.
44 The notion of the Golden Section will be familiar to anyone who has ever
taken a college course on the history of Renaissance painting. Because of its
historical significance, the Golden Section is a prime example considered by
Mary Mothersill, who also provides references to discussions of it in the art-
historical literature (see Beauty Restored, pp. 127—131).
45 One possible solution to this problem might seem to be offered by Guyer,
who (at least in his earlier work) simply redescribes the goal of the
understanding. As we saw in the last chapter, instead of the goal of bringing
the manifold under a concept, this goal for Guyer is simply to achieve the
unification of the manifold in whatever way this can be done — with or
without concepts. In this case, obviously the goal could be said to be achieved
in free play even without successful conceptualization. This move ignores,
however, the distinctiveness of the tasks (or objectives) that Kant assigns to
the particular faculties. The understanding for Kant is not simply a faculty
that seeks synthesis, but rather one that seeks synthesis under rules (i.e., a
rule-governed synthesis). Accordingly, Kant describes the understanding as
a 'faculty of rules' (A 126; 242). This designation is connected by Kant with
a conception of the act of understanding as the achievement of a certain
level of self-consciousness. The understanding strives to bring the 'blind'
synthesis of the imagination to self-consciousness by explicitly subsuming it
under a general rule. So its goal cannot be said to be satisfied by the
synthesis of the imagination alone.
46 See also §11: 'the liking that, without a concept, we judge to be universally
communicable and hence to be the basis that determines a judgment of
taste, can be nothing but the subjective purposiveness in the representation
of an object, without any purpose . . . and hence the mere form of
purposiveness' (CJ 221/66).
47 A detailed account of Kant's theory of pleasure will be given in Chapter V.
49 Both Ginsborg and Guyer have recently raised similar criticisms against
Allison's view (see Ginsborg, 'Aesthetic Judging and the Intentionality of
Pleasure', pp. 167—168, and Guyer, Values of Beauty, p. 93). Other
prominent interpretations of free play that endorse something akin to
Notes 157
Allison's view, and hence to which this line of criticism would be equally
applicable, include those of Paul Crowther (see 'The Significance of Kant's
Pure Aesthetic Judgement', p. 113), Fred Rush (see 'The Harmony of the
Faculties', p. 56) and Ted Cohen (see 'Three Problems in Kant's
Aesthetics', p. 3).
50 Allison has given a response to Ginsberg's posing of the problem ('Reply to
the Comments of Longuenesse and Ginsborg', pp. 188—189). Unfortunately,
I can only deal with his answers in the briefest terms here. First, he claims
that the understanding cannot be frustrated because it 'does not aim at
cognizing the aesthetic object' (p. 188). But this misses the point of the
objection. The objection does not presume that the understanding can only
be satisfied if it succeeds in cognizing] it supposes that it can only be satisfied by
grasping an object in a concept. An object that is purposive for the
understanding may resist being cognized; in that case, it has to be seen to
be purposive for the understanding's conceptualizing function in some
other, perhaps indirect, way. Second, Allison suggests that the under-
standing does, after all, achieve a cognitive or quasi-cognitive goal in free
play — namely, it expands its thinking about 'the supersensible', and its
pleasure is found in 'entertaining' these thoughts (p. 189). This suggestion,
however, would appear to make the connection with morality essential to
the basic aesthetic response itself, which is a moralistic interpretation
emphatically denied by Allison elsewhere (e.g., Kant's Theory of Taste, pp.
195—196). Consequently, I find it to be a puzzling response, and have
trouble believing that it is his considered view.
51 Kant claims that a concept (conceived abstractly as a rule of cognition) is
constituted by a loose collection of distinctive 'marks' (A 8/B12; 142). He
also maintains that empirical concepts can never be defined, but only
'explicated'; an empirical concept never remains within 'secure boundaries'
(A 727-732/B 755-760; 637-640). To take two typical Kantian examples,
the concept 'body' is constituted by the marks 'extended', 'impenetrable',
'having shape', etc.; and the concept 'gold' is constituted by the marks
'yellow', 'malleable', 'soluble in aqua regia', etc. The list may, and, in the
case of empirical concepts, must be open-ended — 'marks' are neither
necessary nor sufficient conditions for the application of a concept. It seems
obvious, then, that there is a concept, 'Pollock drip painting', that is likewise
constituted by certain distinctive marks (e.g., 'multicoloured', 'covered in
very many thin, curving lines of paint', 'bumpy textured', etc.). Again, none
of its marks need be either necessary or sufficient conditions for applying the
concept. Critics may, therefore, contest this concept; they can and will
disagree about whether such-and-such is truly a mark of Pollock's
achievement. But then so too might scientists contest the concept 'gold'.
It is not necessary for there being a concept of something that there is
uniformity of agreement over all its marks. There just has to be 'enough'
agreement.
52 The 'everything-is-beautifuP problem has by now become a commonplace
158 Notes
in the literature. The most influential formulation of the problem has

probably (once again) been Guyer's. See Kant and the Claims of Taste, p. 287.
Chapter III: The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness

1 Although it should be noted that related discussions of 'formal purposive-
ness' and 'subjective purposiveness' occur already in the Introductions. The
relation of these prior discussions of purposiveness to the present one is a
thorny interpretive issue that I will not take up here.
2 The connection to Kant's rationalist predecessors is noted by Werner
Pluhar in his translation (p. 73n42).
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 I am thinking here of Burke's account of 'delight' as a sensation that
accompanies the removal of pain (See A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of
Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, p. 34). This notion is critical to Burke's
explanation of why it is that we take pleasure in the 'terrible', which is
central to his theory of the sublime in Part Two of the Philosophical Inquiry.
1 While the doctrine of disinterestedness has been historically influential, and
is central to Kant's attempt to connect beauty and morality, it is not, I
would argue, fundamental to his basic account of the foundations of taste.
In fact, the importance of this doctrine to understanding what is distinctive
and significant in Kant's theory of taste has, in my view, been greatly
exaggerated. Consequently, I have chosen to mostly avoid discussing it in
the present study.
8 A similar analysis of this argument and its shortcomings is made by Allison
(Kant's Theory of Taste, pp. 125—126).
9 Interpreting Kant's Critiques, p. 290.
10 This, of course, was one of the central problems — perhaps the central
problem — considered in the last chapter.
11 Interpreting Kant's Critiques, p. 290.
12 Ibid., p. 305.
13 See §3: 'The green color of meadows belongs to objective sensation' (CJ 206/
48).
14 Interpreting Kant's Critiques, pp. 300—302.
15 Ameriks' view has been objected to on these grounds previously by
Ginsborg, 'Kant on the Subjectivity of Taste', pp. 453^4-54; and by Allison,
Kant's Theory of Taste, p. 129—130. These critics raise other considerations
against Ameriks as well, but since I regard these as less central than the
normativity of taste, I will not review them here. Ameriks has replied in
more recent papers in which he reframes and expands upon his view. His
side of the entire discussion is collected in Interpreting Kant's Critiques,
Chapters 12-14.
Notes 159
16 But it is far from obvious that pleasure in the beautiful has to be regarded as
the causal effect of anything at all. In Chapter V, I shall argue that the
pleasure in the beautiful is better regarded as identical to the consciousness of
the free play of the faculties, rather than as a separate causal effect of that play.
17 The distinction here, of course, is with the 'transcendental' sense of'reality',
or the sense in which, according to Kant's central epistemological doctrine of
transcendental idealism, nothing we experience through the senses is 'real'.
In a similar vein to this, Allison writes that the form of purposiveness 'cannot
be construed as a determinate feature of the object that is, as it were,
delivered to reflective judgment for its endorsement. Instead, the object as it
presents itself in intuition should be viewed as occasioning the form or
schema-like pattern produced by the image' (Kant's Theory of Taste, p. 50).
18 The specific way in which this happens still needs, of course, to be
determined.
19 The reason for Kant's qualification of his statement with the form 'seems' is
that he is willing to entertain the possibility that colours at least are actually
apprehended as 'vibrations of the ether in uniform temporal sequence'
(ibid.). Kant apparently changed his view about this between the 1790 and
1793 editions of the Third Critique. For a useful discussion of the background
to this change of mind, see Eckart Forster, Kant's Final Synthesis, Chapter 2.
20 Kant's Aesthetic Theory, p. 102.
22 Ibid., p. 205; Guyer cites the example of Joseph Albers' 'Homage to the
Square' series, in which different paintings have the same formal
arrangement (multi-coloured nested squares of different sizes), and differ
only in the colours of the various squares. Guyer's point is that if we find one
painting beautiful, and another, similarly patterned painting not beautiful,
this could only be due to the different colours or their arrangement.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., p. 136.
26 Cf. Crispin Sartwell, Six Names of Beauty, p. 3. Sartwell's probing
examination of the range of things that it seems appropriate to call
'beautiful' amply supports this conclusion.
27 I am here, of course, drawing upon Rawls' classic discussion of this notion in
A Theory of Justice.
28 There is a fairly extensive and growing literature on the topic of 'free' and
'adherent' (or 'dependent') beauty. Some important treatments of this topic
include: Eva Schaper, Studies in Kant's Aesthetics, Chapter 4; Paul Guyer,
Kant and the Claims of Taste, pp. 215—220; Geoffrey Scarre, 'Kant on Free and
Dependent Beauty'; Ruth Lorand, 'Free and Dependent Beauty: A
Puzzling Issue'; Denis Dutton, 'Kant and the Conditions of Artistic
Beauty'; Robert Wicks, 'Dependent Beauty as the Appreciation of
Teleological Style'; Martin Gammon, 'Kant: parerga and pulchritude
adhaerens'', and Paul Guyer, Values of Beauty, Chapter 5.
160 Notes
29 This is the general tendency of many of the commentators listed above.

Ruth Lorand, for instance, dismisses the distinction as one that is
'impossible and serves no purpose in [Kant's] or any theory' ('Free and
Dependent Beauty', p. 32).
30 Here I modify Pluhar's translation of 'anhdngende' from his 'accessory' to the
alternative translation 'adherent', following Kant's own Latin translation of
the concept. Previous translators have used 'dependent' as well, which
would be my second choice.
31 A complexity is introduced into the distinction by the fact that Kant
occasionally suggests that it hinges on whether the object is representational
(i.e, whether it depicts something). This raises the question whether the
grounds for the distinction are the same in the case of nature and art, since
nature is not obviously something that can be representational. For an
interesting discussion of this issue, see Eva Schaper, Studies in Kant's
Aesthetics, Chapter 4.
32 Cf. Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste, pp. 218-219.
33 Ibid., p. 219.
34 Guyer has recently augmented his earlier account (see Values of Beauty,
Chapter 5). In my view, his improved account (which I do not have space
to take up in detail here) still does not address the questions I raise in this
paragraph.
35 The account is found at A 567-583/B 595-661; 551-559.
36 Malcolm Budd has compared this account of how the aesthetic standard
idea is formed to the way the image in a Galtonian photograph is created
(see 'Delight in the Natural World: Kant on the Aesthetic Appreciation of
Nature', p. 16).
Chapter IV: Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas

1 There have been a few exceptions to this rule. Two significant examples are
Kenneth Rogerson (see Kant's Aesthetics, Chapter V) and Anthony Savile
(see Aesthetic Reconstructions, Chapter 6 and 'Kant and the Ideal of Beauty').
Savile is the only other commentator, to my knowledge, who takes seriously
Kant's claim in §17 that the ideal of beauty is the model for all our
judgements of taste (see 'Ideal of Beauty', p. 190). Both Rogerson and
Savile, however, emphasize the symbolic or 'expressive' function of aesthetic
ideas, and thus the connection to morality, in their accounts. Hence, their
readings depart significantly from mine.
2 It is, of course, not obvious that this must be the case. An argument for this
view could, I believe, be provided, but I shall not attempt to do so here. I
merely note that this necessity of rules for purposive action also plays a
crucial role in Groundwork III, in which Kant claims that a free will must be
'a causality in accordance with immutable laws but of a special kind' (GW
446/52).
Notes 161
3 On the other hand, I am not denying that aesthetic ideas have a symbolic
function, or that this function is extremely significant in Kant's theory.
Clearly, Kant maintains that they do have such a function, and, moreover,
that this is why beauty is interesting to us. (I shall discuss this point in more
detail later in this chapter.) Nevertheless, this function does not exhaust the
role of aesthetic ideas in Kant's theory of aesthetic response. Aesthetic ideas
for Kant are always capable of becoming symbols (in nature as well as in
fine art), and this largely accounts for his theoretical interest in them, but
this does not mean that their only function is to symbolize. Beginning in the
next section, I shall argue that, while the thought that is prompted by an
aesthetic idea may include moral thoughts of'the supersensible', it must also
— and more basically — include 'thoughts' (or images) of standardness and
originality.
4 Kant is most likely referring to the fact that a work of fine art, in contrast to
a natural beauty, is always the product of a conscious intention; hence, the
audience of art cannot help but recognize it as the communication of the
artist's (aesthetic) idea. This point is thus related to Kant's notion,
expressed in §48, that 'when we judge artistic beauty we shall have to assess
the thing's perfection as well' (CJ 311/179). A fully worked out account of
Kant's theory of fine art would have to explain this statement, as well as the
statement, in the same section, that 'A natural beauty is a beautiful thing]
artistic beauty is a beautiful representation of a thing' (ibid.). I do not intend to
provide such an account here.
5 Kant also speaks of aesthetic ideas outside the context of fine art in the
'Comment' on §57, where he basically repeats his contrast between aesthetic
and rational ideas from §49 (CJ 342-344/214-217). Although genius is
mentioned at the end of this comment, the clear implication is that genius
and fine art involve merely one kind of aesthetic idea.
6 In the following chapter, I shall discuss the significance of Kant's use of the
term 'exemplarity' to specifically describe the necessity of taste.
7 This picture of the necessary conditions of beauty is in line with the popular
eighteenth-century view that art (especially visual art) ought to represent
the central tendency, or statistical average, of the form of each biological
species. The most thorough expositor of this position, according to M. H.
Abrams, was Joshua Reynolds (see The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 38).
8 For this reason, I also endorse Pluhar's translation of Normalidee as 'standard
idea'. It could (and has) also be translated 'normal idea', of course. But this,
in my view, misses out on the (mathematical) sense of measuring that is a
central part of Kant's view of the aesthetic standard idea, and is better
captured by the term 'standard'.
9 See 'General Comment on the First Division of the Analytic' (CJ 240—244/
91-95).
10 In a different context, Kant voices his approval of English gardens — but for
their apparent 'divorce from any constraint of a rule' (CJ 242/93).
11 In at least one place, Kant suggests that it might even be possible to take
162 Notes
aesthetic pleasure in a mathematical form. This form, however, would have to

be represented aesthetically, rather than through concepts. In describing
the pleasure we take in a musical composition, Kant notes that it rests upon
'the numerical relation of air vibrations that occur in uniform intervals of
time', and that this 'can be brought under certain rules mathematically' (CJ
329/199). Kant goes on to say that the pleasure we take in this form is the
basis for 'the right to pronounce in advance upon the judgment of
everyone', although 'we do not represent [the form] through determinate
concepts' (ibid.). It is a bit tricky to reconcile this claim with Kant's
pronouncements against mathematical regularity. Perhaps we may take him
to be ruling out only simple instances of such regularity — e.g., circles and
squares, but not the more complex regularities of, say, a baroque
composition.
12 For an informative account of the contemporary 'cult of physiognomy'
which Kant is here entertaining, see Robert E. Norton, The Beautiful Soul,
Chapter Five.
13 See, for instance, §47: 'one cannot learn to write inspired poetry, however
elaborate all the precepts of this art may be and however superb its models'
(CJ 308/176).
14 Cf. §45: 'Nature, we say, is beautiful if it also looks like art' (CJ 306/174).
15 The influence of the Sturm und Drang movement on the development of the
Third Critique has been discussed by Zammito in his impressive historical
study, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment. According to Zammito,
resistance to what Kant regarded as the pernicious cultural effect of this
movement was among his primary motives for writing the Third Critique,
and especially influenced his remarks on originality (see especially pp. 136—
142).
16 Kant is always careful to be mindful of the division of labour between
aesthetic criticism and aesthetic philosophy. See, for instance, his remarks in
§34 (CJ 285-286/149-150) and in the Preface (CJ 170/7).
17 Kant does suggest, however, that colours and tones can be regular if they
are really just 'vibrations in the aether of uniform temporal sequence' — i.e.,
reducible to spatiotemporal patterns themselves — and, moreover, the mind
apprehends them as such (CJ 224/70). This claim is compatible with the
point I am making here. More puzzlingly, Kant suggests that colours and
tones can also be regular if they are 'pure' and 'unmixed' (CJ 224/71). I
confess to not understanding what the rationale is for this second answer.
18 In this connection, we should note Kant's admission that colours do 'make
the form intuitable more precisely, determinately, and completely' (CJ 225/
72). We should not, then, take Kant to be claiming that we can (ever?)
experience spatial form without colour; colour may even be said to be a
'necessary condition' of the beautiful in this sense. But it is never the
condition of the appropriateness of aesthetic response.
19 Since it is fairly obvious how a parallel account could be given for tones, I
shall not bother to do that here.
Notes 163
20 This is a problem familiar to defenders of Kant's ethical theory, who may

want to defend Kant's conception of the fundamental principle of morality
without necessarily accepting his often rather prudish applications (or
misapplications) of this principle. Kant clearly was not always the best
judge of how to apply his theories.
21 As Kant writes in §59: 'Taste enables us, as it were, to make the transition
from sensible charm to a habitual moral interest without making too violent
a leap; for taste presents the imagination as admitting, even in its freedom,
of a determination that is purposive for the understanding, and it teaches us
to like even objects of sense freely, even apart from sensible charm' (CJ 354/
230). Cf. also Metaphysics of Morals, 'The Doctrine of Virtue', §17 (MM 443/
192-193).
22 Kant believes that natural beauty is, in general, better suited than fine art
for the cultivation of moral feeling, which may explain why he does not feel
the need to issue a parallel warning in the former case. Natural beauty for
Kant also appears to have a stronger inner association with moral ideas
than does fine art. See the discussion in §42, CJ 289-303/165-170.
23 This interpretation might still seem to be contradicted by Kant's claim in
the First Introduction that aesthetic reflection takes place 'before we attend
to a comparison of the object with others' (FI 223/412). This statement can
be reconciled with the interpretation of free play being offered here if we
distinguish between: (1) the comparison of objects that results in a concept,
which is a comparison that does not presuppose the possession of the schema
of the concept in advance, and (2) the comparison of an object with one's
inner aesthetic idea, which is always already formed — although never
ultimately fixed or completed. The aesthetic idea that one projects onto a
manifold of intuition is formed from one's past experience of objects, and to
that extent, the aesthetic judgement does not take place 'before a
comparison of objects'; but on the other hand, the act of aesthetic reflection
itself K purely about comparing the given representation with an inner idea,
not with other objects.
24 With slight alterations, a similar account could be given for modes of
standardness other than that represented by the aesthetic standard idea.
25 Whether it is possible to fail in both ways simultaneously is an interesting
question, but one I need not take up here.
26 There is a running debate in the literature about whether Kant has the
ability to account for the ugly in his aesthetic theory. It has sometimes been
argued that Kant cannot account for negative judgements of taste, since
even a negative judgement would have to be universally communicable,
hence satisfy the conditions of cognition in general, and therefore should
presumably be pleasurable, rather than displeasurable. David Shier argues
along something like these lines in his article 'Why Kant Finds Nothing
Ugly'. Guyer has recently argued, in a similar vein, that Kant cannot
account for a 'purely aesthetic' response to the ugly (see Values of Beauty, p.
145). Against this line of thought, it has often been noted that Kant, in
164 Notes
several places, both within and outside the Third Critique, seems to endorse
the idea of 'negative purposiveness' in the aesthetic realm. This point is
documented by Christian Strub ('Das Hassliche') and Christian Wenzel
('Kant Finds Nothing Ugly?'), among others. Here I am implicitly siding
with those who believe that Kant can, in fact, account for a purely aesthetic
response to the ugly within the parameters of his general account of
aesthetic response. I take this to be an additional mark in favour of my
interpretation.
Chapter V: Pleasure and Justification

2 Ibid., p. 91.
3 Ibid., p. 104.
4 Allison has pointed out that Guyer omits from this passage an important
parenthetical clause that appears to restrict the claim to, at most, the
domain of the agreeable (as opposed to the beautiful) ('Pleasure and
Harmony', p. 475).
5 Ibid., p. 92.
6 Ibid., p. 94.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., p. 66.
9 Ibid., p. 70.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 This, as we saw in Chapter I, is how Guyer understands the nature of the
harmony of the faculties.
13 Ibid., p. 71.
14 Ibid., p. 72.
15 See for instance the well-known statement in the Preface to the Groundwork,
in which Kant maintains that the 'common idea of duty and of moral laws'
must be 'cleansed of everything empirical' if it is to lay claim — as it does — to
necessity (GW 389/2-3).
16 Guyer adds that this sensation is qualitatively identical in all its occurrences.
This second point, in my view, further undermines the plausibility of the
picture, but is not strictly essential to the main point, which is that the two
mental states of free play and pleasure are related to one another in a wholly
external manner.
17 'A New Look at Kant's Aesthetic Judgements', p. 95.
18 The following passages have previously been pointed out by Guyer and
Allison. Allison also reads Kant as maintaining an intentionalistic
conception of pleasure (in 'Pleasure and Harmony in Kant's Theory of
Taste' and Kant's Theory of Taste, pp. 53—54). Ginsborg has also likewise
been an advocate of the intentionistic thesis (most recently in 'Aesthetic
Notes 165
Judging and the Intentionality of Pleasure'), as has, recently, Rachel

Zuckert (see 'A New Look at Kant's Theory of Pleasure').
19 'Kant's Notion of a Deduction and the Methodological Background to the
First Critique,' p. 32.
20 Ibid., pp. 33-35.
21 Ibid., p. 35.
22 I shall return to this issue at the end of the chapter in my discussion of §22,
which points out the limitations of the deduction of taste.
23 Of course, if we conceive of concepts as rules — as I have previously
suggested Kant does at least some of the time — then the difference is really
only terminological. A principle is, after all, a sort of rule.
24 Miles Rind concurs in the (decidedly minority) view that §21 is the true
locus of the deduction (see 'Can Kant's Deduction of Judgments of Taste Be
Saved?').
25 See Andrew Chignell, 'The Problem of Particularity in Kant's Aesthetic
Theory', in which he criticizes Anthony Savile's attempt to address the
problem.
27 A similar point is also made by Allison (see Kant's Theory of Taste, p. 179).
Claude MacMillan is another commentator who rejects the particularity
condition (see 'Kant's Deduction', p. 47).
28 Including, significantly, the problematic of the 'synthetic a priori' (cf. §36).
29 A similar point is made by Rind in 'Can Kant's Deduction of Judgments of
Taste Be Saved?', pp. 38-39.
30 As Allison notes, scholars have frequently pointed out that 'mitteilen' in
eighteenth-century German usage did not refer to the notion of'communica-
tion' in the modern sense ('Pleasure and Harmony', p. 477nl2). In addition,
Rind notes passages in the Reflexionenwhich support the equating of the two
terms (see 'What is Claimed in a Kantian Judgment of Taste?', pp. 77—8).
31 It is clear from what has just been said that this 'scepticism' need not involve
actually doubting ordinary beliefs; it would be enough to be 'sceptical' in this
sense if one reduced all knowledge-claims to the status of mere opinions.
This is to say that the 'scepticism' Kant is thinking of here could be merely a
kind of global individualistic relativism or 'subjectivism'.
32 Although Allison, following a suggestion from Christel Fricke, has denied
this (see Kant's Theory of Taste, pp. 153, 371nl9). While it is true that Kant
does not mention free play by name in §21, given the context, it is hard to
believe that the 'attunement most conducive to the mutual quickening of
the cognitive powers' could refer to anything else.
33 Here we must adopt the simplifying assumption that 'cognitions' refers only
to empirical perceptions.
34 Perhaps an 'intellectual intuition' would be an example.
35 Cf. §5: 'beauty [holds] only for human beings, i.e., beings who are animal
and yet rational, though it is not enough that they be rational (e.g. spirits)
but they must be animal as well' (CJ 210/52).
166 Notes
36 We would also presumably have to assume that our sensibility and

judgement were functioning properly in giving us the manifold and
applying the rule, respectively.
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— 'Kant on the Subjectivity of Taste', in Herman Parret (ed.), Kants Asthetik,
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pp. 448-465.
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(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992).
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65-74.
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and New York: de Gruyter, 1998).
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and Art Criticism 60 (2002), 239-252.
Index
Abrams, M. H., 161n7 163n22

aesthetic ideas, 6, 8, 82, 90-1, 93-119, objective pole of, 37, 76-8
132-3, 141-2, 161n3, 161n5 phenomenology of, 66, 76—8
aesthetic judgement, 1, 2, 20, 38, 73—4, subjective pole of, 37, 76—8
118, 131 subjectivity of, 11-12, 20, 66, 73-8
aesthetic standard idea, 58, 87-9, 96, see also free play, purposiveness, taste
109-10, 154n20, 161n8, 163n24 Beck, Jakob Sigismund, 153n8
agreeable, 20, 147n2 Beck, Lewis White, 148n6
Albers, Joseph, 159n22 Bell, Clive, 5
Allison, Henry, 8, 38, 52-5, 57-8, 60-3, 80, Budd, Malcolm, 149nl, 160n36
147n2, 148n3, 148nl3, ISOnll, Burke, Edmund, 1, 70, 158n6
152n3, 153n7, 154nl4, 154nl6,
154nl8, 154nl9, 154n21, 155n30, categorical imperative, see moral law
155n32, 155n41, 156n49, 157n50, charms, 70, 79, 108-9
158n8, 158nl5, 164n4, 164nll8, Chignell, Andrew, 134, 165n25
165n27, 165n30, 165n32 classics, 97—8
Ameriks, Karl, 66, 74-5, 158nl5 cognition, 40—7, 153n6
Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection, aesthetic judgement and, 38-9
56-7, 155n35, 155n37 empirical 38-9
Analytic of the Beautiful, argument normativity and, 4, 31-2
structure of, 148nl3, ISOnll transcendental deduction of taste and,
Aquila, Richard, 124 140-2, 164n33
Aristotle, 97, 150n4 Cohen, Ted, 157n49
art, 92 colour, 74-5, 109, 159nl9, 162nl7, 162nl8
fine, 92-6, 100-1, 104, 161n4 common sense (sensus commums), 21, 138—9,
art criticism, 162nl6 144
attention-imperative, 2, 7, 10, 11, 32, 34—5 concepts, 43-4, 157n51, 164-5n23
autonomy of taste, see taste, autonomy of empirical, 47-50, 157n51
relation of the beautiful to, 58—61,
Batteux, Charles, 97 116-117
Baumgarten, Alexander, 1, 69 Crawford, Donald, 79, 148nll, 149n2,
beauty, 1, 2, 79-80, 165n35 152n32, 152n35
free and adherent 82-5, 109-11, Crowther, Paul, 157n49
159n28, 160n31
ideal of, 82, 85-9, 111-12, 160nl Darwall, Stephen, 148n4
judgement of, 1-2 deduction of taste, see transcendental
morality and, 6-7, 30, 33, 110-12, deduction of taste
174 Index
Derrida, Jacques, 148-9nl3 Humean reading of Kant's theory of taste,

Dilthey, Wilhelm, 153nlO 7, 10, 19-26
Domski, Mary, 153nlO Hutcheson, Francis, 1
Button, Denis, 159n28
ideas, rational, 85-6, 94, 110, 161n5
Elliot, R. K., 149n2, 152n32 imagination, 3, 4, 39, 40, 42-7, 103-5,
empirical deduction, 128 113-16
empirical psychology, 4, 148nlO empirical concept formation and, 48-50
emotion, 70 ideal of the beautiful and, 85—7
productive, 45-6, 49-51
formalism, 5 reproductive, 42—3, 45—6
see also purposiveness, form of schematizing function of, 46-7, 49-50
Forster, Eckart, 159nl9 see also free play, genius, originality
free play, harmony of the faculties in, 3, i imperatives, 151n30
35-65, 71-3, 79, 91, 112-119, 121, intuition, 42, 155n28
141-3
Allison's view of, 52-5, 156-7n50 Jasche, G. B., 48
Guyer's view of, 23^, 151n24, judgement, 38, 152n4
156n45 of experience 154n21
pleasure and, 121—7 of perception 154n21
as subjective principle of taste, 121, reflective, see reflection
131-3, 138-9 see also aesthetic judgement; cognition;
Fricke, Christel, 147n2, 165n32 free play; taste, judgement of
Fry, Roger, 5
Kemal, Salim, 149n2, 152n33
Gammon, Martin, 159n28 'key to the critique of taste,' 38—9
genius, 92-5, 98, 99, 103, 114 Kitcher, Patricia, 148n8
Ginsborg, Hannah, 48, 148n3, 148n5, Kulenkampff, Jens, 149nl
150n9, 152n3, 154nl6, 154nl8,
154n22, 156n50, 157nl5, 164nl8 Lessing, Gotthold, 97
God, 152n36 Longuenesse, Beatrice, 154nl6, 154nl9,
Golden Section, 59-60, 117, 156n44 154n21, 155n35, 155n38
good, 59-60, 68 Lorand, Ruth, 159n28, 160n29
see also perfection Liithe, Rudolf, 148nl 1
Greenberg, Clement, 5
grotesque, see ugly MacMillan, Claude, 165n27
Guyer, Paul, 2, 6-8, 10, 19, 21-5, Makkreel, Rudolf, 153n8
69-70, 80, 85, 122-4, 134, Maori, 84, 109-110
148-9nl3, 149nl, 150n9, ISOnll, McCloskey, Mary, 4, 148n3, 152n37
151n24, 152n32, 156n45, 156n49, Meier, G. F., 69
158n52, 159n22, 159n28, 160n34, moral law, 129, 144, 164nl5
163n26, 164n4, 164nl2, 164nl6, moralistic reading of Kant's theory of taste,
164nl8 10, 29-31
Mothersill, Mary, 12, 147nl, 156n42,
harmony of the faculties, see free play 156n44
Henrich, Dieter, 128, 155n32
highest good, 152n36 necessity of taste, see taste, necessity of
Horace, 97, 150n4 normative reading of Kant's theory of
Hume, David, 7, 9, 10-21, 149n2 taste, 7, 10, 26-7, 31-2
Index 175
Guyer's objections to, 29-30 Savile, Anthony, 147n2, 155n25, 160nl,

textual support for, 27-9 165n25
normativity, 2, 26, 31 Scarre, Geoffery, 159n28
aesthetic, 4 Schaper, Eva, 159n28, 160n31
of the faculties, 4, 32 schemata, 46-7
quasi-cognitive, 4, 31-2 of the beautiful, 51-7, 62, 66, 76-8
see also taste, normativity of empirical, 49-50
Norton, Robert E., 162nl2 transcendental, 46-7
sensibility, 3, 41-2
Ogilby-Milton Phenomenon 12, 14, 20 Shier, David, 163n26
originality, 8, 102-7, 113-14, 118 spirit 103^
in art, 103-4 standardness, 8, 96-102, 107, 113,
in nature, 104-5 117-18
see also genius, imagination in art, 100-1
in nature, 101—2
perfection, 69, 83 standard of taste, 13, 17-18
see also good Strum und Drang, 106-7, 162nl5
physiognomy, 103, 162nl2 sublime, 1, 158n6
Pippen, Robert, 149n2
pleasure, 20, 121-4, 126-7 taste
in the beautiful, 1, 9, 20, 32, 34-5, 71-3, archetype of, 58, 82
75, 120-7, 143 antinomy of, 9, 19—20
causal vs. intentional view of, 75, autonomy of, 59-60, 97-8
121-7, 159nl6 cultivation of, 144
free play and, 120-7 deduction of, see transcendental
pleasure-imperative, 2, 10, 11, 32, 34—5, deduction of taste
38 judgement of, 1, 9, 20-2, 32-5, 38^1,
justification of, see transcendental 73-4, 120-1, 147n2, 150n9
deduction of taste narrow sense of, 98-9
Pluhar, Werner, 150n5, 158n2, 159n30, necessity of, 32-3, 131, 133, 137-9,
161n8 149nl3, I S O n l l , 161n6
Pope, Alexander, 150n4 normativity of, 2, 26-36, 120-1, 131,
purposiveness, 3, 65—8 133
formal, 69, 158nl objective principles of, 59—61, 117—18,
form of, 3, 5, 8, 65-91, 112-13, 159nl7 130-3
objective, 68-9 subjective principle of, 120-1, 130-3,
subjective, 61, 69, 125, 158nl 137, 156n43
universal validity of, 1, 2, 20-3, 26-7,
reflection, 56-8, 79, 163n23 71, 120-1, 138^4, 149nl3, ISOnll,
transcendental, 56—7 153n5
Reynolds, Joshua, 161n7 Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant's
respect (moral feeling), 153n7 formalism and, 79-80
Rind, Miles, 148n3, 165n24, 165n29, transcendental deduction
165n30 of the categories, 41, 127-9, 153nlO,
Rogerson, Kenneth, 148nll, 149n2, 154nll
152n33, 160nl in the Second Critique, 129—30
Rush, Fred, 157n49 of taste, 2, 3, 8, 23-5, 37-8, 120-1,
127-45, 165n22
Sartwell, Crispin, 159n26, transcendental idealism, 159nl7
176 Index
transcendental psychology, 4, 148n8, universal validity, see taste, universal

153n7 validity of
versus empirical psychology, 4
Wenzel, Christian 150n9, 163n26
ugly, 118-19, 163n26 Wicks, Robert 159n28
understanding, 3, 4, 39, 40, 44, 47, 60-1, will, 4, 32, 123, 129, 151n30, 160n2
116
see also free play Zammito, John, 149nl5, 162nl5
universal communicability, 1, 39, 79, Zuckert, Rachel, 165nl8
140-3

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Aesthetics in Kant, James Kirwan

Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Mature, Justin Skirry

Kierkegaard's Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts

Platonism, Music and the Listener's Share, Christopher Norris

Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney

Rousseau's Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson

St Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John M. Mattox

Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala

Wittgenstein's Religious Point of View, Tim Labron

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I What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?

II The Problem of Free Play

III The Problem of the Form of Purposiveness

IV Beauty and Aesthetic Ideas

V Pleasure and Justification

Domski's expert knowledge of the First Critique for several improvements to

CJ Critique of Judgment (1790) (0.0

Immanuel Kant is widely recognized to be a seminal figure in the history of

determinatively or conceptualizing, the imagination is just the power of

whatever legitimacy it enjoys from whatever warrant for positing transcendental

What is Implied in a Judgement of Taste?

1. Overview of the Chapter

attempting to give a more adequate solution to the same problem. 1 This

attention-imperative. In my view, the attention-imperative pertains to the use

2. Hume's Problems with Taste

Modern aesthetics arguably begins in 1757 with the publication of Hume's

Critics may appear to agree in general propositions, with qualities such as

It is evident that none of the rules of composition are fixed by reasonings a

These observations lead Hume to his desired conclusion, which is that

It is not implausible to assume that the perception of beauty — especially in art —

3. The Humean Reading of Kant's

At present, a very influential reading of Kant's theory of taste understands it as

ridiculous if someone who prided himself on his taste tried to justify it by

judge as green what appears green to an average observer in average

first, since the proportion between imagination and understanding is identical

4. The Normative Reading of Kant's Judgement of Taste

Hume's project in aesthetics looks like a failure. If we view Kant as attempting

accepting such an account. But we cannot rule it out in advance of testing it —

does not postulate (postulieren) everyone's agreement . . ., it merely requires (sinnt . . .

Guyer alleges? Second, assuming that it applies to the moralistic reading, to

cognitive or epistemic notion of proper function. This notion of'proper function'

5. The Two Demands in the Judgement of Taste

If we could assume that the mere universal communicability as such of our

issue is the legitimacy of a distinct 'attention-imperative'. The demand that we

The Problem of Free Play

1. Overview of the Chapter

2. Introduction to the Harmony of the

Unfortunately, the description of free play in §9 can hardly be said to provide us

Every empirical concept requires three acts of the spontaneous cognitive

Kant is here obscurely referring to the necessary requirements for the

if the form of an object given in empirical intuition is of such a character that

3. Background to Free Play

successive layer of synthesis considered as a condition of the possibility of the

The 'reproduction' involved here is the representation of impressions that were

Kant mentions in the passage above), but also, presumably, three-dimensional

Thus the original and necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself is at

As I read this passage, Kant is asserting that a concept, which is a unified

is the static and 'reified' expression of a dynamic unifying activity of

As it stands, this account seems vulnerable to the charge of circularity. It