The ''Critique of Judgment'' (german: Kritik der Urteilskraft), also translated as the ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', is a 1790 book by the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
. Sometimes referred to as the "third critique," the ''Critique of Judgment'' follows the ''
Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781) and the ''
Critique of Practical Reason
The ''Critique of Practical Reason'' (german: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, published in 1788. It follows on from Kant's first critique, the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' and deals with his mo ...
'' (1788).
Context
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
's ''Critique of Judgment'' is the third critique in Kant's Critical project begun in the ''Critique of Pure Reason'' and the ''Critique of Practical Reason'' (the ''First'' and ''Second Critiques'', respectively). The book is divided into two main sections: the ''Critique of Aesthetic Judgment'' and the ''Critique of Teleological Judgment'', and also includes a large overview of the entirety of Kant's Critical system, arranged in its final form. The so-called ''First Introduction'' was not published during Kant's lifetime, for Kant wrote a replacement for publication.
The Critical project, that of exploring the limits and conditions of knowledge, had already produced the ''
Critique of Pure Reason'', in which Kant argued for a
Transcendental Aesthetic, an approach to the problems of perception in which
space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
and
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
are argued not to be objects. The First Critique argues that space and time provide ways in which the observing subject's mind organizes and structures the sensory world. The end result of this inquiry in the First Critique is that there are certain fundamental
antinomies
Antinomy (Greek ἀντί, ''antí'', "against, in opposition to", and νόμος, ''nómos'', "law") refers to a real or apparent mutual incompatibility of two laws. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of I ...
in the dialectical use of Reason, most particularly that there is a complete inability to favor on the one hand the argument that all behavior and thought is determined by external causes, and on the other that there is an actual "spontaneous" causal principle at work in human behavior.
The first position, of causal determinism, is adopted, in Kant's view, by empirical scientists of all sorts; moreover, it led to the Idea (perhaps never fully to be realized) of a final science in which all empirical knowledge could be synthesized into a full and complete causal explanation of all events possible to the world.
The second position, of spontaneous causality, is implicitly adopted by all people as they engage in moral behavior; this position is explored more fully in the ''
Critique of Practical Reason
The ''Critique of Practical Reason'' (german: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, published in 1788. It follows on from Kant's first critique, the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' and deals with his mo ...
''.
The ''Critique of Judgment'' constitutes a discussion of the place of Judgment itself, which must overlap both the Understanding ("Verstand") (whichsoever operates from within a deterministic framework) and Reason ("Vernunft") (which operates on the grounds of freedom).
Introduction to the Critique of Judgement
The first part of Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement presents what Kant calls the four moments of the "Judgement of
Taste
The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...
". These are given by Kant in sequence as the (1) First Moment. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of Quality"; (2) Second Moment. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of Quantity"; (3) Third Moment: Of Judgement of Taste: Moment of the Relation of the ends brought under Review in such Judgements"; and (4) Fourth Moment: Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of the Modality of the Delight in the Object". After the presentation of the four moments of the Judgement of Taste, Kant then begins his discussion of Book 2 of the Third Critique titled ''Analytic of the Sublime''.
Aesthetic Judgement
The first part of the book discusses the four possible ''
aesthetic reflective judgments'': the agreeable, the
beautiful
Beautiful, an adjective used to describe things as possessing beauty, may refer to:
Film and theater
* ''Beautiful'' (2000 film), an American film directed by Sally Field
* ''Beautiful'' (2008 film), a South Korean film directed by Juhn Jai-h ...
, the
sublime, and the
good
In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...
. Kant makes it clear that these are the only four possible reflective judgments, as he relates them to the Table of Judgments from the ''
Critique of Pure Reason''.
"Reflective judgments" differ from determinative judgments (those of the first two critiques). In reflective judgment we seek to find unknown universals for given particulars; whereas in determinative judgment, we just subsume given particulars under universals that are already known, as Kant puts it:
The agreeable is a purely sensory judgment — judgments in the form of "This steak is good," or "This chair is soft." These are purely subjective judgments, based on inclination alone.
The good is essentially a judgment that something is
ethical
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
— the judgment that something conforms with moral law, which, in the Kantian sense, is essentially a claim of modality — a coherence with a fixed and absolute notion of reason. It is in many ways the absolute opposite of the agreeable, in that it is a purely objective judgment — things are either moral or they are not, according to Kant.
The remaining two judgments — the beautiful and the sublime — differ from both the agreeable and the good. They are what Kant refers to as "subjective universal" judgments. This apparently oxymoronic term means that, in practice, the judgments are subjective, and are not tied to any absolute and determinate concept. However, the judgment that something is beautiful or sublime is made with the belief that other people ought to agree with this judgment — even though it is known that many will not. The force of this "ought" comes from a reference to a ''
sensus communis
''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arg ...
'' — a community of taste.
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
, in her ''Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy'', suggests the possibility that this ''sensus communis'' might be the basis of a political theory that is markedly different from the one that Kant lays out in the ''
Metaphysic of Morals''.
The central concept of Kant's analysis of the judgment of beauty is what he called the ″free play″ between the cognitive powers of imagination and understanding. We call an object beautiful, because its form fits our cognitive powers and enables such a ″free play″ (§22) the experience of which is pleasurable to us. The judgment that something is beautiful is a claim that it possesses the "form of finality" — that is, that it appears to have been designed with a purpose, even though it does not have any apparent practical function. We also do not need to have a determinate concept for an object in order to find it beautiful (§9). In this regard, Kant further distinguishes between ''free'' and ''adherent'' beauty. Whereas judgments of ''free beauty'' are made without having one determinate concept for the object being judged (e.g. an ornament or well-formed line), a judgment of beauty is ''adherent'' if we do have such a determined concept in mind (e.g. a well-built horse that is recognized as such). The main difference between these two judgments is that purpose or use of the object plays no role in the case of free beauty. In contrast, adherent judgments of beauty are only possible if the object is not ill-suited for its purpose.
The judgment that something is sublime is a judgment that it is beyond the limits of comprehension — that it is an object of fear. However, Kant makes clear that the object must not actually be threatening — it merely must be recognized as deserving of fear.
Kant's view of the beautiful and the sublime is frequently read as an attempt to resolve one of the problems left following his depiction of moral law in the ''
Critique of Practical Reason
The ''Critique of Practical Reason'' (german: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, published in 1788. It follows on from Kant's first critique, the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' and deals with his mo ...
'' — namely that it is impossible to prove that we have
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
, and thus impossible to prove that we are bound under
moral law. The beautiful and the sublime both seem to refer to some external
noumenal
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', which ...
order — and thus to the possibility of a noumenal self that possesses free will.
In this section of the critique Kant also establishes a faculty of mind that is in many ways the inverse of judgment — the faculty of
genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabiliti ...
. Whereas judgment allows one to determine whether something is beautiful or sublime, genius allows one to produce what is beautiful or sublime.
Teleology
The second half of the ''Critique'' discusses
teleological
Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
judgement. This way of judging things according to their ends (''telos'':
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
for end) is logically connected to the first discussion at least regarding beauty but suggests a kind of (self-) purposiveness (that is, meaningfulness known by one's self).
Kant writes about the
biological as teleological, claiming that there are things, such as living beings, whose parts exist for the sake of their whole and their whole for the sake of their parts. This allows him to open a gap in the physical world: since these "organic" things cannot be brought under the rules that apply to all other appearances, what are we to do with them?
Kant says explicitly that while efficiently causal explanations are always best (x causes y, y is the effect of x), it is absurd to hope for "another
Newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
" who could explain a blade of grass without invoking teleology, and so the organic must be explained "as if" it were constituted as teleological. This portion of the Critique is, from some modern theories, where Kant is most radical; he posits man as the ultimate end, that is, that all other forms of nature exist for the purpose of their relation to man, directly or not, and that man is left outside of this due to his faculty of reason. Kant claims that culture becomes the expression of this, that it is the highest teleological end, as it is the only expression of human freedom outside of the laws of nature. Man also garners the place as the highest teleological end due to his capacity for morality, or practical reason, which falls in line with the ethical system that Kant proposes in the ''Critique of Practical Reason ''and the ''Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals''.
Kant attempted to legitimize purposive categories in the life sciences, without a theological commitment. He recognized the concept of purpose has epistemological value for finality, while denying its implications about creative intentions at life and the universe's source. Kant described natural purposes as organized beings, meaning that the
principle of knowledge presupposes living creatures as purposive entities. He called this supposition the finality concept as a
regulative use, which satisfies living beings specificity of knowledge. This heuristic framework claims there is a teleology principle at purpose's source and it is the mechanical devices of the individual original organism, including its heredity. Such entities appear to be
self-organizing
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suff ...
in patterns. Kant's ideas allowed
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He wa ...
and his followers to formulate the science of types (morphology) and to justify its autonomy.
Kant held that there was no purpose represented in the
aesthetic judgement
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, ...
of an object's
beauty
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
. A pure aesthetic judgement excludes the object's purpose.
Influences
Though Kant consistently maintains that the human mind is not an "
intuitive understanding
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
"—something that creates the phenomena which it cognizes—several of his readers (starting with
Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kan ...
, culminating in
Schelling Schelling is a surname. Notable persons with that name include:
* Caroline Schelling (1763–1809), German intellectual
* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), German philosopher
* Felix Emanuel Schelling (1858–1945), American educat ...
) believed that it must be (and often give Kant credit).
Kant's discussions of
schema
The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms.
Schema may refer to:
Science and technology
* SCHEMA ...
and
symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
late in the first half of the ''Critique of Judgement'' also raise questions about the way the mind represents its objects to itself, and so are foundational for an understanding of the development of much late 20th-century
continental philosophy
Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...
:
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
is known to have studied the book extensively.
In ''
Truth and Method'' (1960),
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics.
Life
Family an ...
rejects Kantian aesthetics as ahistorical in his development of a historically-grounded
hermeneutics
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
.
Schopenhauer’s comments
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
noted that Kant was concerned with the analysis of
abstract concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by sev ...
s, rather than with
perceived
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
objects.
"…he does not start from the beautiful itself, from the direct, beautiful object of perception, but from the ''judgement''
omeone’s statementconcerning the beautiful…."
['']The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition ...
'', Vol. I, Appendix, p. 531
Kant was strongly interested, in all of his critiques, with the relation between mental operations and external objects.
"His attention is specially aroused by the circumstance that such a judgement is obviously the expression of something occurring in the subject, but is nevertheless as universally valid as if it concerned a quality of the object. It is this that struck him, not the beautiful itself."
[
The book's form is the result of concluding that beauty can be explained by examining the concept of ''suitableness''. Schopenhauer stated that “Thus we have the queer combination of the knowledge of the beautiful with that of the suitableness of natural bodies into ''one'' faculty of knowledge called ''power of judgement'', and the treatment of the two heterogeneous subjects in one book.”][
Kant is inconsistent, according to Schopenhauer, because “…after it had been incessantly repeated in the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' that the understanding is the ability to judge, and after the forms of its judgements are made the foundation–stone of all philosophy, a quite peculiar power of judgement now appears which is entirely different from that ability.”
With regard to teleological judgement, Schopenhauer claimed that Kant tried to say only this: "…although organized bodies necessarily seem to us as though they were constructed according to a conception of purpose which preceded them, this still does not justify us in assuming it to be objectively the case."]['']The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition ...
'', Vol. I, Appendix, p. 532 This is in accordance with Kant's usual concern with the correspondence between subjectivity (the way that we think) and objectivity (the external world). Our minds want to think that natural bodies were made by a purposeful intelligence, like ours.
See also
;Books
* ''Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime
''Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime'' (french: Leçons sur l'Analytique du Sublime) is a 1991 book about the philosopher Immanuel Kant's '' Critique of Judgment'' (1790), focusing on Kant's description of the sublime, by the French philosoph ...
''
* ''The Differend
''The Differend: Phrases in Dispute'' (french: Le Différend) is a 1983 book by the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard.
Summary
In ''The Differend'', based on Immanuel Kant's views on the separation of Understanding, Judgment, and Reason, ...
''
;People
* Jean-François Lyotard
Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...
;Topics
* Aesthetic distance Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer's conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art. When a reader becomes fully engrossed in the illusory narrative world of a book, the author has achieved a close aesthet ...
* Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemata
* Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy
"Critique of the Kantian philosophy" (German: "Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie") is a criticism Arthur Schopenhauer appended to the first volume of his ''The World as Will and Representation'' (1818). He wanted to show Immanuel Kant's errors s ...
Notes
Bibliography
*Immanuel Kant, ''Critique of Judgment'', Translated by J. H. Bernard, New York: Hafner Publishing, 1951. (Original publication date 1892)
*Immanuel Kant, ''Critique of Judgement'', Translated by James Creed Meredith, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 (original publication date 1952), Oxford World's Classics. . Among the reprints of this translation, in volume 42 of Great Books of the Western World
''Great Books of the Western World'' is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the great books in a 54-volume set.
The original editors had three criteria for includi ...
*Immanuel Kant, ''Critique of Judgement'', Translated by Werner S. Pluhar, Hackett Publishing Co., 1987,
*Immanuel Kant, ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', Edited by Paul Guyer, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Mathews, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant.
*Immanuel Kant, ''Kritik der Urteilskraft'', ed. by Heiner F. Klemme, Felix Meiner Verlag, 2006.
*Arthur Schopenhauer, ''The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition ...
'', Volume I, Dover Publications, 1969,
Further reading
* Doran, Robert. ''The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
External links
''Critique of Judgment''
at the ''Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
''
Immanuel Kant in Italy
Chapter IX of Stephen Palmquist, ''Kant's System of Perspectives'' (1993)
Italian writings about Kant's "fourth" Critique
{{Authority control
1790 non-fiction books
Aesthetics books
Books by Immanuel Kant
German non-fiction books