On the Blank Spots in the History of Aesthetic Teachings: Did the
Tradition of Epicureanism Influence Kant&#x27;s “Critique of Taste”?
Authors: Khrenov N.A. 
Published: February 2025

The article is dedicated to the outstanding German philosopher of the
11th century Immanuel Kant and is dedicated to the 300th anniversary of his
birth. It is based on a report read at the Round Table “Reception of
I. Kant&#x27;s cultural and philosophical ideas in humanitarian
discourse”, organized within the framework of the jubilee International
Congress “The World Concept of Philosophy” in 2024 in Kaliningrad. The
assessment of the philosophy of Kant, who is one of the most famous leaders
of world philosophy, depends on how the subject of philosophy is understood
today. In other words, is philosophy a science? Kant is known as a reformer
of philosophy, for which he was called a “Copernicus” in philosophy. The
meaning of his reform is that philosophy assimilates the achievements that
took place in the natural sciences in the x111st century, i.e. in the era of
the greatest rise in these sciences. Actually, achieving this goal turned
philosophy into one of the sciences that also uses a strict methodology.
Thus, Kant&#x27;s reform of philosophy could be read as a manifesto of
positivism. This is how one can read the first of his famous “Critiques”,
namely, the “Critique of Pure Reason”. However, if you look at it this way,
it becomes not entirely clear why the same Kant makes a significant
contribution to the emergence in the x111st century and the formation of a
new humanitarian science, namely aesthetics. He outlined his ideas of this
kind in the last, i.e., in the third “Criticism”, known as the “Criticism of
the faculty of judgment”. But this work is already completely far from the
positivist spirit and is focused on understanding the phenomena that the
humanities deal with. This circumstance dictates to look at the subject of
philosophy in a different way, namely, to consider philosophy as the basis
of a worldview. Philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Schelling, Bergson,
Berdyaev and others who do not adhere to the point of view that philosophy
is a science stand on an alternative position to Kant in relation to
philosophy. But the philosophy of antiquity, starting with Socrates and
Plato, is also far from positivist attitudes. An alternative understanding
of philosophy in the twentieth century is also expressed by M. Heidegger,
who, returning to Kant, emphasizes that the subject of philosophy is man and
his existence in the world. To prove this idea, the author of the article
turns to ancient philosophy, trying to find ideas among ancient philosophers
that are close to such a worldview understanding of philosophy. The article
convincingly and, perhaps, for the first time in Russian science shows that
the tradition of hedonism, which is fundamental in Kant&#x27;s
understanding of aesthetics, is a tradition that originated in ancient
philosophy, namely, in the philosophy of Epicurus. However, Epicurus was
unlucky. Practically little of his numerous writings has been preserved,
meanwhile, the philosophical school he created in antiquity was one of the
most popular. Epicurus was forgotten and, moreover, cursed. Epicurus will be
rediscovered only during the Renaissance. But the real new birth of Epicurus
is still the X111ST century, i.e. the age of Kant, when epicureanism becomes
the spirit of this era. This could not but affect Kant, who returns the
hedonistic motifs of Epicurus&#x27; aesthetics in the forms of
aesthetics. The author of the article argues that Epicurus can be considered
the “ideologue” of all the “thaws” that took place in history. He taught how
to achieve happiness, how to value life, cultivate the natural, natural
principle in it, and avoid religious asceticism and political fanaticism, as
well as artificial needs.