Immanuel Kant

Died
 Relevant Work
*Critique of Practical Reason*
 Pages

 Biography

Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724, in Königsberg, near the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Kant was born into an artisan family. His father was a master harness maker, though she was better educated than most women of her social class. Kant was able to attend school from the ages of eight through fifteen. His education was largely religious based in Pietism. During this time, Kant was forced into regular periods of intense soul-searching which Kant strongly reacted against. He found his refuge in Latin classics. Kant's emphasis on reason and autonomy may in part reflect his reaction to Pietism during his youth.

Kant attended college at the University of Königsberg, known as the Albertina, where his early interest in classics was quickly superseded by philosophy, which all first-year students studied and which encompassed mathematics and physics as well as logic, metaphysics, ethics, and natural law.

# *The Critique of Judgement*

The ***Critique of Judgment*** (*Kritik der Urteilskraft*), also translated as the ***Critique of the Power of Judgment***, is a 1790 book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Sometimes referred to as the "third critique," the *Critique of Judgment* follows the *Critique of Pure Reason* (1781) and the *Critique of Practical Reason* (1788).

### **Background and Historical Context**

Kant's views on aesthetics and teleology are given their fullest presentation in his *Critique of Judgment.* This work is in two parts, preceded by a long introduction in which Kant explains and defends the work's importance in his critical system overall: in the first part, the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” Kant discusses aesthetic experience and judgment, in particular of the beautiful and the sublime, and also artistic creation; in the second part, the “Critique of Teleological Judgment,” he discusses the role of teleology (that is, appeal to ends, purposes or goals) in natural science and in our understanding of nature more generally. The *Critique of Judgment* was the third and last of Kant's three *Critiques*, the other two being the *Critique of Pure Reason* (1781, with a second edition in 1787), which deals with metaphysics and epistemology, and the *Critique of Practical Reason* of 1788, which, alongside his *Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals* of 1785, deals with ethics.

### **Key Words and Terms**

**Art**: is distinguished from Nature, as doing (*facere*) is distinguished from acting or working generally (*agere*), and as the product or result of the former is distinguished as work (opus) from the working (*effectus*) of the latter.

Art regarded as human skill differs from science (as can from know) as a practical faculty does from a theoretical, as Technic does from Theory (as mensuration from geometry).

Art also differs from handicraft; the first is called free, the other may be called mercenary. We regard the first as if it could only prove purposive as play, i.e. as occupation that is pleasant in itself.

**Genius**: is the talent (or natural gift) that gives the rule to Art. Since talent, as the innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to Nature, we may express the matter thus: Genius is the innate mental disposition (*ingenium*) through which Nature gives the rule to Art.

### **Key Quotations**

"On the other hand, beautiful art is a mode of representation which is purposive for itself, and which, although devoid of [definite] purpose, yet furthers the culture of the mental powers in reference to social communication."

"Nature is beautiful because it looks like Art; and Art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as Art while yet it looks like Nature."

"Therefore, beautiful art cannot itself devise the rule according to which it can bring about its product. But since at the same time a product can never be called Art without some precedent rule, Nature in the subject must (by the harmony of its faculties) give the rule to Art; i.e. beautiful Art is only possible as a product of Genius."

"If now it is a natural gift which must prescribe its rule to art (as beautiful art), of what kind is this rule? It cannot be reduced to a formula and serve [192] as a precept, for then the judgment upon the beautiful would be determinable according to concepts; but the rule must be abstracted from the fact, i.e. from the product, on which others may try their own talent by using it as a model, not to be copied but to be imitated."

“Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, so far as this is perceived in it without any representation of a purpose."

“There are two kinds of beauty; free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) or merely dependent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens).”

"“The mind feels itself moved in the representation of the Sublime in nature; whilst in aesthetical judgements about the Beautiful it is in restful contemplation.”

### **Discussion**

The ultimate source of art and beauty, according to Kant, is Nature. Nature serves as both inspiration, instructor, as well as gifter of the muse. Kant mentions on several occasions that Nature itself is above all else as the ultimate source of beauty. All else is imitation, as he claims, “natural beauty is a *beautiful thing;* artificial beauty is a *beautiful representation* of a thing” (sec 48). Kant continues to refine this distinction by claiming that even *genius* is a concept derived from Nature or having been granted *by nature*: “*Genius* is the innate mental disposition (*ingenium*) *through which* Nature gives the rule to Art” (sec 46).

Kant’s argument that true genius and beauty can only be achieved through Nature appears to hold up for even the “great” artists of our time have had to copy and imitate prior to creation. The only source of art which does not imitate or copy are structures that are found in Nature. Somewhat unexpected is Kant’s claim that “Beautiful art shows its superiority in this, that it describes as beautiful things which may be in nature ugly or displeasing. The Furies, diseases, the devastations of war, etc., may [even regarded as calamitous], be described as very beautiful, and even represented in a picture” (sec 48). Art and nature, destructive or constructive, can be beautiful when captured at the right time and moment.

## Related Works

* Critique of Pure Reason
* Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
* Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
* Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
* Critique of Practical Reason
* Critique of Judgment
* Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
* Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch
* The Metaphysics of Morals
* On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives
* Opus Postumum ‎

## References

1. ↑ Rohlf, Michael. “Immanuel Kant (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” *Stanford.Edu*, 2010, plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/
2. ↑ Ginsborg, Hannah. “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” *Stanford.Edu*, 2013, plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/.

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