1. Kant 1724-1804

3. Career Köningsberg in East-Prussia Professor at the University Lutheran rationalist The categorical imperative One of the most influential philosopher of modern times

4. Writings Critique of Pure Reason –Theory of Knowledge (epistemology) Critique of Practical Reason –Ethics Critique of Judgement –Aesthetics

5. Hume’s influence Woke Kant up from his docmatic sleep Dogmatic: Does not investigate its own premisses Reason must consider its own nature, conditions, limits, possibilities

6. Conditions of experience Hume: Causality derived from experience Kant: Causality a condition of experience –Transcendental (beyond experience) –Logically prior to experience –Makes experience possible (condition of possibility)

7. Two key concepts The world of phenomena –Things as we perceive them –Possible to know them The world of the thing in itself –Things independent of our perception –Can never know anything about that

8. Kant’s system Sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) Understanding (Verstand) Reason (Vernunft)

9. Sensibility Two forms of sensibility (anschauungsformen) –Time –Space All our sensation in these forms These forms make it possible for us to sense things: conditions of sensibility

10. Understanding Twelve categories of the understanding –Thing –Cause –Etc. Directed towards the forms of sensibility Organise the impressions

11. Organisation of experience Sensations organised as objects in space and time Sensations unified within a single consciousness (as the experience of a self) Sensastions organised around concepts such as thing, cause etc. All experience of things is causal

12. Reason Three Ideas –God –The World –The Soul

13. Ideas of Reason Not given in experience Not objects of sensation Should not be thought of in the forms of sensibility

14. Regulative, not constitutive Think what is beyond experience –The world as a whole –The soul as a self –God as the creator of the world Organise the world

15. Faculty of judgement Connects different faculties of the soul Mediates between the general and the particular –Imagination and understanding –Understanding and reason

16. Kant on judgements of taste Subjective Disinterested Universal

17. Subjective Only valid for one consciousness (“me”) Logical judgement: This is a rose –Object subsumed under a concept Aesthetic judgement: The rose is beautiful –Image that appeals to the feelings of the observer –The judgement is singular (directed to one particular thing) –Demands the presence of the observer and the thing

18. Disinterested Because of the nature of the feeling they are based on The feeling does not relat to any desire or selfish motives Not related to the interests of the observer

19. Pleasure Of the convenient – selfishness Of the good – interests Of the beautiful – pure pleasure –Disinterested –Related to something common to everyone

20. Universal No private interests influence the pleasure The pleasure is related to something that everyone has (not personal but common to humanity) Therefore the aesthetic judgement is universal although it is subjective

21. Common The faculty of knowledge is common Not a separate faculty of taste But: Free play of understanding and imagination

22. Aesthetic values Independent –Not moral –Not political Not derived from other values –Moral –Practical –Scientific

23. Consequences of this Aesthetics as a special field (art and nature) Knowledge and science not included Ethics and politics not included

24. Genius Innate disposition of the mind that nature uses to regulate art Capacity to create something that it is not possible to determine by a rule

25. Qualities of genius Ability to create Originality Contrary of imitation Not possible to teach it or learn it

26. But... Only gives the materials for works of art Training and know how are needed to make the work The works are models (criteria and paradigmas)

27. Taste and genius Genius is creative –Invents aesthetic ideas Making of the work needs taste –Gives the appropriate form to the idea