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Single Idea 4025

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

Full Idea

Kant, in his third critique, defined beauty in terms of a certain kind of disinterested pleasure;….this is the basis for a declaration of independence of the beautiful relative to the good.

Gist of Idea

Kant saw beauty as a sort of disinterested pleasure, which has become separate from the good

Source

report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §23.1

Book Ref

Taylor,Charles: 'Sources of the Self' [CUP 1992], p.423

A Reaction

This is a rebellion against the Greeks, especially Plato, and prepares the ground for the idea of 'art for art's sake'. Personally, I'm with Plato.

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]