The Online Library of Liberty

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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

§ 50.

Of the combination of Taste with Genius in the products of beautiful Art

To ask whether it is more important for the things of beautiful art that Genius or Taste should be displayed, is the same as to ask whether in it more depends on Imagination or on Judgement. Now, since in respect of the first an art is rather said to be full of spirit, but only deserves to be called a beautiful art on account of the second; this latter is at least, as its indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non), the most important thing to which one has to look in the judging of art as beautiful art. Abundance and originality of Ideas are less necessary to beauty than the accordance of the Imagination in its freedom with the conformity to law of the Understanding. For all the abundance of the former produces in lawless freedom nothing but nonsense; on the other hand, the Judgement is the faculty by which it is adjusted to the Understanding.

Taste, like the Judgement in general, is the discipline (or training) of Genius; it clips its wings closely, and makes it cultured and polished; but, at the same time, it gives guidance as to where and how far it may extend itself, if it is to remain purposive. And while it brings clearness and order into the multitude of the thoughts, it makes the Ideas susceptible of being permanently and, at the same time, universally assented to, and capable of being followed by others, and of an ever-progressive culture. If, then, in the conflict of these two properties in a product something must be sacrificed, it should be rather on the side of genius; and the Judgement, which in the things of beautiful art gives its decision from its own proper principles, will rather sacrifice the freedom and wealth of the Imagination than permit anything prejudicial to the Understanding.

For beautiful art, therefore, Imagination, Understanding, Spirit, and Taste are requisite.1

[1 ]The three former faculties are united in the first instance by means of the fourth. Hume gives us to understand in his History of England that although the English are inferior in their productions to no people in the world as regards the evidences they display of the three former properties, separately considered, yet they must be put after their neighbours the French as regards that which unites these properties. [In his Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime,§ iv.sub init., Kant remarks that the English have the keener sense of the sublime, the French of the beautiful.]