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Single Idea 20412

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty ]

Full Idea

If the question is whether something is beautiful, one does not want to know whether there is something that is or that could be at stake, for us or for someone else, in the existence of the thing, but rather how we judge it in mere contemplation.

Gist of Idea

Beauty is only judged in pure contemplation, and not with something else at stake

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 2 5:204), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.3

Book Ref

'Key Thinkers in Aesthetics', ed/tr. Giovannelli,Alessandro [Continuum 2012], p.67

A Reaction

This evidently denies that function has anything to do with beauty, and seems to be a prelude to 'art for art's sake'. But a running cheetah cannot be separated from the sheer efficiencey and focus of the performance.

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]