§ 7.: Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by means of the above characteristic - Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement [1892]
Edition used:
Kant’s Critique of Judgement, translated with Introduction and Notes by J.H. Bernard (2nd ed. revised) (London: Macmillan, 1914).
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- Editor’s Introduction
- Preface
- Introduction
- I.: Of the Division of Philosophy
- II.: Of the Realm of Philosophy In General
- III.: Of the Critique of Judgement As a Means of Combining the Two Parts of Philosophy Into a Whole.
- IV.: Of Judgement As a Faculty Legislating a Priori
- V.: The Principle of the Formal Purposiveness of Nature Is a Transcendental Principle of Judgement.
- VI.: Of the Combination of the Feeling of Pleasure With the Concept of the Purposiveness of Nature.
- VII.: Of the Aesthetical Representation of the Purposiveness of Nature.
- VIII.: Of the Logical Representation of the Purposiveness of Nature
- IX.: Of the Connexion of the Legislation of Understanding With That of Reason By Means of the Judgement
- Part I: Critique of the Aesthetical Judgement
- First Division: Analytic of the Aesthetical Judgement
- First Book: Analytic of the Beautiful
- First Moment: of the Judgement of Taste 1 According to Quality
- § 1.: The Judgement of Taste Is Aesthetical
- § 2.: The Satisfaction Which Determines the Judgement of Taste Is Disinterested
- § 3.: The Satisfaction In the Pleasant Is Bound Up With Interest
- § 4.: The Satisfaction In the Good Is Bound Up With Interest
- § 5.: Comparison of the Three Specifically Different Kinds of Satisfaction
- Explanation of the Beautiful Resulting From the First Moment
- Second Moment: of the Judgement of Taste, Viz. According to Quantity
- § 6.: The Beautiful Is That Which Apart From Concepts Is Represented As the Object of a Universal Satisfaction
- § 7.: Comparison of the Beautiful With the Pleasant and the Good By Means of the Above Characteristic
- § 8.: The Universality of the Satisfaction Is Represented In a Judgement of Taste Only As Subjective
- § 9.: Investigation of the Question Whether In the Judgement of Taste the Feeling of Pleasure Precedes Or Follows the Judging of the Object
- Explanation of the Beautiful Resulting From the Second Moment
- Third Moment: of Judgements of Taste, According to the Relation of the Purposes Which Are Brought Into Consideration Therein.
- § 10.: Of Purposiveness In General
- § 11.: The Judgement of Taste Has Nothing At Its Basis But the Form of the Purposiveness of an Object ( Or of Its Mode of Representation )
- § 12.: The Judgement of Taste Rests On a Priori Grounds
- § 13.: The Pure Judgement of Taste Is Independent of Charm and Emotion
- § 14.: Elucidation By Means of Examples
- § 15.: The Judgement of Taste Is Quite Independent of the Concept of Perfection
- § 16.: The Judgement of Taste, By Which an Object Is Declared to Be Beautiful Under the Condition of a Definite Concept, Is Not Pure
- § 17.: Of the Ideal of Beauty
- Explanation of the Beautiful Derived From This Third Moment
- Fourth Moment: of the Judgement of Taste, According to the Modality of the Satisfaction In the Object
- § 18.: What the Modality In a Judgement of Taste Is
- § 19.: The Subjective Necessity, Which We Ascribe to the Judgement of Taste, Is Conditioned
- § 20.: The Condition of Necessity Which a Judgement of Taste Asserts Is the Idea of a Common Sense
- § 21.: Have We Ground For Presupposing a Common Sense?
- § 22.: The Necessity of the Universal Agreement That Is Thought In a Judgement of Taste Is a Subjective Necessity, Which Is Represented As Objective Under the Presupposition of a Common Sense
- Explanation of the Beautiful Resulting From the Fourth Moment
- General Remark On the First Section of the Analytic
- Second Book: Analytic of the Sublime
- § 23.: Transition From the Faculty Which Judges of the Beautiful to That Which Judges of the Sublime
- § 24.: Of the Divisions of an Investigation Into the Feeling of the Sublime
- A.: — of the Mathematically Sublime
- § 25.: Explanation of the Term “ Sublime ”
- § 26.: Of That Estimation of the Magnitude of Natural Things Which Is Requisite For the Idea of the Sublime
- § 27.: Of the Quality of the Satisfaction In Our Judgements Upon the Sublime
- B.: — of the Dynamically Sublime In Nature
- § 28.: Of Nature Regarded As Might
- § 29.: Of the Modality of the Judgement Upon the Sublime In Nature
- General Remark Upon the Exposition of the Aesthetical Reflective Judgement
- Deduction of [pure 1 ] Aesthetical Judgements
- § 30.: The Deduction of Aesthetical Judgements On the Objects of Nature Must Not Be Directed to What We Call Sublime In Nature, But Only to the Beautiful.
- § 31.: Of the Method of Deduction of Judgements of Taste
- § 32.: First Peculiarity of the Judgement of Taste
- § 33.: Second Peculiarity of the Judgement of Taste
- § 34.: There Is No Objective Principle of Taste Possible
- § 35.: The Principle of Taste Is the Subjective Principle of Judgement In General
- § 36.: Of the Problem of a Deduction of Judgements of Taste
- § 37.: What Is Properly Asserted a Priori of an Object In a Judgement of Taste
- § 38.: Deduction of Judgements of Taste
- § 39.: Of the Communicability of a Sensation
- § 40.: Of Taste As a Kind of Sensus Communis
- § 41.: Of the Empirical Interest In the Beautiful
- § 42.: Of the Intellectual Interest In the Beautiful
- § 43.: Of Art In General
- § 44.: Of Beautiful Art
- § 45.: Beautiful Art Is an Art, In So Far As It Seems Like Nature
- § 46.: Beautiful Art Is the Art of Genius
- § 47.: Elucidation and Confirmation of the Above Explanation of Genius
- § 48.: Of the Relation of Genius to Taste
- § 49.: Of the Faculties of the Mind That Constitute Genius
- § 50.: Of the Combination of Taste With Genius In the Products of Beautiful Art
- § 51.: Of the Division of the Beautiful Arts
- § 52.: Of the Combination of Beautiful Arts In One and the Same Product
- § 53.: Comparison of the Respective Aesthetical Worth of the Beautiful Arts
- § 54.: Remark
- Second Division: Dialectic of the Aesthetical Judgement
- § 55: § 56.
- § 57.: Solution of the Antinomy of Taste
- § 58.: Of the Idealism of the Purposiveness of Both Nature and Art As the Unique Principle of the Aesthetical Judgement.
- § 59.: Of Beauty As the Symbol of Morality
- Appendix
- § 60.: Of the Method of Taste
- Part II: Critique of the Teleological Judgement
- § 61.: Of the Objective Purposiveness of Nature
- First Division: Analytic of the Teleological Judgement
- § 62.: Of the Objective Purposiveness Which Is Merely Formal As Distinguished From That Which Is Material
- § 63.: Of the Relative, As Distinguished From the Inner, Purposiveness of Nature
- § 64.: Of the Peculiar Character of Things As Natural Purposes
- § 65.: Things Regarded As Natural Purposes Are Organised Beings
- § 66.: Of the Principle of Judging of Internal Purposiveness In Organised Beings
- § 67.: Of the Principle of the Teleological Judging of Nature In General As a System of Purposes
- § 68.: Of the Principle of Teleology As Internal Principle of Natural Science
- Second Division
- Dialectic of the Teleological Judgement
- § 69.: What Is an Antinomy of the Judgement?
- § 70.: Representation of This Antinomy
- § 71.: Preliminary to the Solution of the Above Antinomy
- § 72.: Of the Different Systems Which Deal With the Purposiveness of Nature
- § 73.: None of the Above Systems Give What They Pretend
- § 74.: The Reason That We Cannot Treat the Concept of a Technic of Nature Dogmatically Is the Fact That a Natural Purpose Is Inexplicable
- § 75.: The Concept of an Objective Purposiveness of Nature Is a Critical Principle of Reason For the Reflective Judgement
- § 76.: Remark
- § 77.: Of the Peculiarity of the Human Understanding, By Means of Which the Concept of a Natural Purpose Is Possible
- § 78.: Of the Union of the Principle of the Universal Mechanism of Matter With the Teleological Principle In the Technic of Nature.
- § 79.: Whether Teleology Must Be Treated As If It Belonged to the Doctrine of Nature
- § 80.: Of the Necessary Subordination of the Mechanical to the Teleological Principle In the Explanation of a Thing As a Natural Purpose.
- § 81.: Of the Association of Mechanism With the Teleological Principle In the Explanation of a Natural Purpose As a Natural Product.
- § 82.: Of the Teleological System In the External Relations of Organised Beings
- § 83.: Of the Ultimate Purpose of Nature As a Teleological System
- § 84.: Of the Final Purpose of the Existence of a World, I.E. Of Creation Itself
- § 85.: Of Physico-theology
- § 86.: Of Ethico-theology
- § 87.: Of the Moral Proof of the Being of God
- § 88.: Limitation of the Validity of the Moral Proof
- § 89.: Of the Use of the Moral Argument
- § 90.: Of the Kind of Belief In a Teleological Proof of the Being of God
- § 91.: Of the Kind of Belief Produced By a Practical Faith
§ 7.
Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by means of the above characteristic
As regards the Pleasant every one is content that his judgement, which he bases upon private feeling, and by which he says of an object that it pleases him, should be limited merely to his own person. Thus he is quite contented that if he says “Canary wine is pleasant,” another man may correct his expression and remind him that he ought to say “It is pleasant to me.” And this is the case not only as regards the taste of the tongue, the palate, and the throat, but for whatever is pleasant to any one’s eyes and ears. To one violet colour is soft and lovely, to another it is faded and dead. One man likes the tone of wind instruments, another that of strings. To strive here with the design of reproving as incorrect another man’s judgement which is different from our own, as if the judgements were logically opposed, would be folly. As regards the pleasant therefore the fundamental proposition is valid, every one has his own taste (the taste of Sense).
The case is quite different with the Beautiful. It would (on the contrary) be laughable if a man who imagined anything to his own taste, thought to justify himself by saying: “This object (the house we see, the coat that person wears, the concert we hear, the poem submitted to our judgement) is beautiful for me.” For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases himself. Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness; no one troubles himself at that; but if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction—he judges not merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Hence he says “the thing is beautiful”; and he does not count on the agreement of others with this his judgement of satisfaction, because he has found this agreement several times before, but he demands it of them. He blames them if they judge otherwise and he denies them taste, which he nevertheless requires from them. Here then we cannot say that each man has his own particular taste. For this would be as much as to say that there is no taste whatever; i.e. no aesthetical judgement, which can make a rightful claim upon every one’s assent.
At the same time we find as regards the Pleasant that there is an agreement among men in their judgements upon it, in regard to which we deny Taste to some and attribute it to others; by this not meaning one of our organic senses, but a faculty of judging in respect of the pleasant generally. Thus we say of a man who knows how to entertain his guests with pleasures (of enjoyment for all the senses), so that they are all pleased, “he has taste.” But here the universality is only taken comparatively; and there emerge rules which are only general (like all empirical ones), and not universal; which latter the judgement of Taste upon the beautiful undertakes or lays claim to. It is a judgement in reference to sociability, so far as this rests on empirical rules. In respect of the Good it is true that judgements make rightful claim to validity for every one; but the Good is represented only by means of a concept as the Object of a universal satisfaction, which is the case neither with the Pleasant nor with the Beautiful.
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