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Single Idea 18547

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude ]

Full Idea

Kant is surely right that the experience of beauty, like the judgements in which it issues, is the prerogative of rational beings.

Gist of Idea

Only rational beings can experience beauty

Source

report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 1

Book Ref

Scruton,Roger: 'Beauty: A Very Short Introduction' [OUP 2011], p.27

A Reaction

I'm not sure how Scruton can say that Kant is 'surely right'. It is an interesting speculation. Are we to dogmatically affirm that bees get no aesthetic thrill when they spot a promising flower? Something in their little brains attracts them.

The 15 ideas from 'Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic'

12157 Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel gave it content [Kant, by Scruton]
20346 The aesthetic attitude is a matter of disinterestedness [Kant, by Wollheim]
18547 Only rational beings can experience beauty [Kant, by Scruton]
24170 Kant thinks beauty ignores its objects, because it is only 'form' engaging with mind [Cochrane on Kant]
22711 The beautiful is not conceptualised as moral, but it symbolises or resembles goodness [Kant, by Murdoch]
4025 Kant saw beauty as a sort of disinterested pleasure, which has become separate from the good [Kant, by Taylor,C]
22046 The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard]
5643 Aesthetic values are not objectively valid, but we must treat them as if they are [Kant, by Scruton]
24172 It is hard to see why we would have developed Kant's 'disinterested' aesthetic attitude [Cochrane on Kant]
21458 The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner]
20410 The judgement of beauty is not cognitive, but relates, via imagination, to pleasurable feelings [Kant]
20412 Beauty is only judged in pure contemplation, and not with something else at stake [Kant]
20408 With respect to the senses, taste is an entirely personal matter [Kant]
20409 When we judge beauty, it isn't just personal; we judge on behalf of everybody [Kant]
20411 Saying everyone has their own taste destroys the very idea of taste [Kant]