Week Four: Kant's Explanation of the Beautiful

Kant’s statement that “if we judge objects merely according to concepts, then all representation of beauty is lost” (106) in the Second Moment connects back to his assertion in the First Moment where he says, “In order to find anything good, I must always know what sort of a thing this object ought to be, i.e. I must have a concept of it. But there is no need of this to find a thing beautiful” (100). So, objects can be beautiful without understanding their concept; however, without understanding the concept of an object, the viewer cannot know the purpose or purposiveness of that object (whether it is “good for something” or “good in itself”), so the viewer cannot be sure of their interest or disinterestedness, meaning they cannot truly say if the object is beautiful because they cannot tell why they find it beautiful. Kant is talking himself in crazy philosophical circles!!!

I think the key word to understanding Kant’s statement is representation—he does not say that beauty is lost; he says the representation of beauty is lost. What does that mean? Kant earlier says that “The pleasant, the beautiful, and the good designate then three different relations of representations to the feeling of pleasure and pain, in reference to which we distinguish from one another objects or methods of representing them” (102). I think Kant sees the representation of beauty as kind of an avenue to understanding it, not as a “representation” in our sense. So perhaps he is saying that if people try to understand something beautiful by breaking it down into its objective components, or concepts based on “logical judgment”, then we cannot possibly find the true meaning because we lose the avenue to understanding subjective beauty. Something that is truly beautiful is universally beautiful regardless of the concepts behind it and should be appreciated for what it is on its own. I think Kant might believe that analyzing the intended meaning of a piece of art, like Freeland's second prong (content) of the three pronged-analysis, is pointless in appreciating its beauty.