Kant's Critique Of Aesthetic Judgement

KANTS CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT TRANSLATED, WITH SEVEN INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS NOTES, AND ANALYTICAL INDEX BY JAMES CREED MEREDITH M. A, N. U. I., SEN, MOD. T. C. D. Yea, what were mighty Natures self 1 Her features, could they win us, Unhelped by the poetic voice That hourly speaks within us WORDSWORTH. OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1911 PREFACE IT seems a strange fact that the works which have exerted the greatest and most permanent Influence are those of which it is most difficult to give a final and conclusive interpretation. Is it that the philosophic mind merely amuses itself looking for the answers to riddles the solution of which destroys the interest, so that it is not so much misinterpretation as explana tion that great philosophers have to fear Or is it that philosophers propose questions which depend upon higher categories than those of common understanding, with the natural result that their point of view is but imperfectly comprehended by lesser minds Or is it simply that the works that have exerted most influence are those which are most comprehensive and many-sided, and that different critics seize upon different aspects of the whole, and throw the emphasis on different points It is not necessary to attempt to answer these questions generally, or further than affects Kants Aesthetics. Certainly no work has exerted an equal influence on the subsequent history of aesthetics, and yet it has been most variously interpreted. However, while critics differ as to Kants meaning on many essential points, they seem to be mostly agreed that the chief source of strength in the work lies in its comprehensiveness and its method. How they have been able to arrive at this conclusion inthe face of their own criticisms, is a different matter. For they have for the most part attempted to show that the work as a whole involves an important modification of Kants fundamental position of critical idealism, and that in its different parts it betrays considerable hesitation and vacillation of opinion on vital questions, and, moreover, frequently falls into flagrant incon sistency. f - 9 3 O VI Preface The present volume, in seeking to give some assistance to students in so much of Kants Critique of Judgement as deals with the problems of aesthetics, aims particularly at suggesting interpretations which may help to free Kants argument from such charges without, however, in any way implying that Kant is likely to be followed entirely on all points on which, his meaning is understood. Certainty the comprehensiveness of Kants account is one of its most striking features. Its chief merit does not lie in the number of interesting and illuminating observations which are made f or i n the great majority of these Kant was anticipated but in the number of different points of view which are co ordinated, and the divergent rays of thought which are brought into a common focus. It is not so much Kants views on this or that question that are calculated to impress the reader, as their systematic connexion, and the feeling that behind each of them lies the entire strength of his whole critical philosophy. It is this that makes a sympathetic critic especially anxious to reconcile apparent inconsistency between positions of any importance. Kant is, further, frequently charged with begging the point at issue. But he neither begged the points which most of his critics suppose to be those inissue, nor did he attempt to prove them in the usual manner. The originality of his method consisted in the way in which he changed the issue from a question of fact and actuality to one of mere possibility. Thus in his aesthetics he never begged the question that there are pure aesthetic judgements in the-peculiar sense in which he uses the term. He adopted the course of formulating the conception of a pure aesthetic judgement and of proving that such a judgement is possible...