Imagination in Kant

INTRODUCTION In the end of the “Second Introduction”1 of the Critique of Judgment Kant offers a hierarchical chart of all the mental powers. They are the capacity to cognize, the capacity to judge, and the capacity to desire for the morally good. Kant elaborates a complete critical system with his three Critiques in conformity with such a hierarchy: the Critique of Pure Reason (a critique of the basic capacity to cognize), the Critique of Practical Reason (a critique of the higher capacity to desire for the morally good) and the Critique of Judgment (a critique of the capacity to judge in general and in matters of aesthetics and teleology in particular). Within the critical system, judgment plays a fundamental role, for first each critique is directed at some specific kind of judgment and second the Critique of Judgment bears the mission to connect the critique of the basic capacity of cognition with the critique of the higher capacity of desire. The fundamentality of judgment to the three kinds of mental activities comes from its determining power. Such a power is a faculty of the mind that enables the mind to determine itself (its structure) and representations (its states) so that the mind itself becomes conscious and conscious of the world—Kant believes we do not obtain consciousness until the mental state satisfies the condition of the synthesis of apprehension of appearances through our senses, reproduction of intuition in imagination, and recognition of concepts in the understanding. When imagination and understanding relate to each other in ways which satisfy the condition of cognition, they allow the subject to become conscious (simultaneously of objects and of itself). Only thence cognition of appearances becomes possible. Imagination plays a crucial role in the task of the Third Critique, where the relation 1 The so-called “Second Introduction” is the one that was actually published with the Critique of Judgment. The longer so-called “First Introduction” was an earlier version, that came to public much later. 1 between our two cognitive powers, i.e., understanding and imagination, varies, and such a variation is due to the different associational mode of imagination. Following such a variation leads to differentiation among kinds of judgment. The association of imagination can either follow empirical rules of understanding (obtained from empirical mental determination) accomplishing a cognitive judgment (i.e., imagination can reproductively read experience), or associate freely (i.e., imagination can productively lead to reflection). When imagination is free of the constraints of empirical laws and particularly determined rules of understanding, it either associates with the guide of the objective principle of reason or with the guide of the subjective principle of reason. When it follows the guidance of the objective principle, it reflects upon a rational idea such as justice or a categorical imperative. Such a reflection is, significantly to Kant, the basis of a moral judgment. On the other hand, when imagination accords to the subjective principle, i.e., the principle of the pure judgment itself, it reflects upon an aesthetic idea. Such a reflection is the basis of a judgment of taste. Now regarding our mental powers qua powers causing intentional actions—cognition, judging and desire for the morally good, they must have their bases in judgments. For judgment is the power to determine the mind and from the determination arises consciousness. Only behaviors with consciousness can be counted as actions, for only thence do the subjects enjoy self-awareness and freedom, and thus be human. The qualification of actions is then the common essence to these three mental activities. The study of the relations that result in judgmental determinations, i.e., the relations between understanding and imagination, hence can of course bridge the basic and the highest capacity in the hierarchy. It may look odd to claim that an aesthetic judgment in Kant can be classified in one kind of determination, for it should be indeterminate in its nature. The basis of my claim is that an aesthetic determination is a special one that results in no particular determinations at all and thus gives no ground to any possible cognition. On the 2 contrary, it is a determination that by its special determinative structure grants the indeterminacy in cognition. It is not a determination that results from any synthesis; it is rather an inherent determination that grants the possibility of, and gives conditions to, all the syntheses. Imagination is the only variable in the system. And the three major capacities of the mind all have to do with imagination. It is then worth to work on the variation of the function of imagination. For the study of imagination will be a study of the core of Kant’s philosophical critical system. I divide my task in two parts. First I concentrate on genius and aesthetic ideas provided in the Critique of Judgment. Second I turn the focus onto imagination and its influence on mental determination. The scope of the first part will then be within the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” and the scope of the second will include the First Critique, the whole Third Critique, and the Anthropologie in pragmatische Hinsicht where Kant provides an overview of the picture how the human mind functions. Genius is a special talent that creates artificial natural beauty. In Kant’s words, it is rather nature in a genius that gives a rule to art than the artist itself. That is, genius can realize something beyond its own artificial capacity. This artificial capacity is one to make judgments determined by our cognitive disposition and to act in accordance with them. What a genius realizes can animate the mind of the appreciators of the work (including the genius himself or herself) and lead them to an indeterminate, reflective state of mind, i.e., the pleasure in beauty, which shall lead to a transcendent cognition, or in Kant’s own word cognition in general, a quasi-cognition not of an object but of the subject itself as a whole —“the whole determination of the mind” in its functioning. Such a communication requires both the genius and the animatee to have access to a specific function of imagination, a function in absolute freedom. And thus the fact that we can communicate 3 like this way, the fact that a work of genius can animate the mind of the appreciators, can serve as the justification of universality and validity of the free association and the special determination of mind. No matter in making a judgment of natural beauty or a judgment of artistic beauty, the appreciation requires a free play of imagination and understanding. That is, the artistic work and the natural objects as well are both appreciated with artificial means: concepts and rules of understanding—natural objects have already been appreciated like artificial ones. The analytic of the beautiful then could explain both the appreciation of natural objects and the appreciation of artistic objects. Yet regarding the production side, that human beings can, beside artificing nature by imposing understanding or its systems upon it, also create objects as beautiful as natural objects, provides us more substance to exhibit how the appreciation should have been made possible than the mere analytic of judgment of pure beauty. That is to say, a study of the powers of mind that constitute genius can give a counter exposition of the powers of mind that constitute the appreciator, i.e., the free play of imagination and understanding provided in the “Analytic of the Beautiful.” Thus the goal of the first part of my task is to introduce Kant’s theory on the mental powers that constitute genius, and, standing thereupon, review Kant’s analytic of the beautiful. In the second part, I will focus on the development of imagination from its cognitive use to its reflective use. The former use implies a determinate mode of association of imagination which results in cognitive determination. The latter use implies an indeterminate mode of association that can result in either a rational determination, i.e., an idea of reason, or in an aesthetic and inner perception of the indeterminate state of the subject (pleasure in beauty), or even reach a special cognition of the determination of the mind itself (the sublime). Here I attempt to use Kant’s notion of imagination within the mental system to show how the subject comes to these three kinds of determination. 4 Between these two parts I include an intermission where I offer materials that I can use to illustrate the variation of the notion of imagination in the second part. The illustration will serve as a basis to which the theories given in the second part can be applied. I use English translations of Kant’s works. For the Critique of Pure Reason, I choose Norman Kemp Smith’s translation; for the Critique of Judgment Werner S. Pluhar’s translation mainly. But I also have the German texts (the version of the Akademie Ausgabe, reprinted by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, special edition in 1998) and some other translations at my side for consultation. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood’s translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, and Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews’s and J. H. Bernard’s translations of Critique of Judgment are all consulted. I find no suitable translation of Anthropologie in pragmatische Hinsicht in English, and besides I do not quote to much from this book, so I will cite the German text (the numbering of sections or pagination follows the version of Akademie Ausgabe) when necessary, to which a translation or summary of mine shall be attached. 5 6 PAER ONE: GENIUS AND AESTHETIC IDEAS Step One: Genius Kant defines art by comparing art with nature, science and craft (Critique of Judgment, 303-04). He argues first that art is distinguished from nature for it is production through freedom while nature is production through causality. Second, art is distinguished from science for the fact that the ability of theorizing is different from the ability of making. Third, art is distinguished from craft because art serves for purpose not “on its own account” while craft does. By the above way of definition, Kant attempts to confine art within a scope of artificial beauty. I.e., objects of art must be taken as commonly belonging to the class of artificial objects (“artificial” indicating “human intent involving”) and the class of beautiful objects. The key point is then freedom, for only through freedom can one reveal beauty and only through freedom can what one has done count as human activity. We can approach Kant’s conception of freedom from various directions. I choose the approach offered in his aesthetics and I do so for several reasons. The two I can immediately grasp are: first, since our discussion is confined to art, it is reasonable to interpret the freedom therein with the freedom from which beauty arises; second, I believe the freedom of the free play is essential to all the other dimensions of freedom in Kant (and hence that the critique of judgment can serve to gap his theoretical philosophy and his practical philosophy). Free play is a special mental state, as we can read from Kant’s analytic of the beautiful. Kant thinks when our two cognitive powers, imagination and understanding, cooperate in a relation that imagination does not follow the demand of understanding, the mental state is a “free play” of these two powers. Such a mental state gives to us the feeling of pleasure and so is entitled “pleasure”; it is the sole ground of a judgment of taste. 7 Since an artistic object has to be beautiful, the work of art must be able to animate such a play. In order to illustrate the state, I should venture offering an interpretation of the state in general. However, I do not know whether Kant ever overtly specifies the mental state, and thus I can only hesitate for the time being if I want to avoid twisting Kant into something else. What is clear enough is that the mental state upon which alone one makes judgments of taste has to be a reflective indeterminate state. Owing to the indeterminacy, beauty is thus free of any constraints of the understanding and free of purposes. And these two freedoms are exactly the reasons why art is distinguished from science and from craft. If art is the result of human activities through people’s free will which are not constrained by rules of understanding and in which imagination enjoys its freedom in syntheses, such activities must be carried out by genius. For the results of these activities should not follow any rules we have had; on the contrary, the activities themselves should be the creation of rules. Activities that follow rules of understanding will be the carrying-outs of determined syntheses in which imagination would not enjoy the freedom. And genius is defined, and assigned the mission, by Kant as “the innate mental predisposition (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art” (Critique of Judgment, 307). Kant writes therefore that since “a product can never be called art unless it is preceded by a rule, it must be nature in the subject (and through the attunement of his powers) that gives the rule to art; in other words, fine art is possible only as the product of genius” (ibid.). Genius then to Kant has to possess four properties: originality, exemplarity, mysterious source of inspiration, and non-theorizablity (Critique of Judgment, 307-08). First, “genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given,” and “hence, the foremost property of genius must be originality.” Second, a 8 product of genius has to be tasteful to the others, i.e., it has to be qualified to “serve others for [imitation],” i.e., “as a standard or rule by which to judge.” Third, it would be simply self-contradictory to think on the one hand that genius is a talent that precedes rules and on the other that a genius knows how he or she has produced the work of art, for knowing requires rules, i.e., requires imagination to follow rules in the synthesis. Thus Kant writes “Genius itself cannot describe or indicate scientifically how it brings about its products, and it is rather as nature that it gives the rule.” Owing to the nature of genius, arises the forth property: “Nature, through genius, prescribes the rule not to science but to art… insofar as the art is to be fine art,” for science is the system of rules obtained through determinate judgment – and thus constrained— and art is the system of rules obtained through reflective judgment – and thus free. Step Two: Related Commentaries Henry Allison in his Kant’s Theory of Taste describes Kant’s basic concerns of the doctrine of genius as “accounting for the possibility of a pure judgment of taste regarding fine art” and this is as plausible as what he has pointed out, i.e., “Kant’s concern is with the nature of aesthetic judgment, not artistic production” and that what Kant has offered is a “reception aesthetic” rather than a “creation aesthetic.” And he thinks such a view of reception aesthetic “leads to a question concerning the possibility of a work of fine art itself, the solution to which is provided by the theory of genius.” The question is briefly how come one can appreciate a work of art with its “purposiveness without a purpose (or the mere form of purposiveness)” while being conscious of its distinction from nature (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 271-72). Presenting Kant’s argument for the necessity of genius in the creation of fine art in four steps, Allison thinks that the introduction of genius in the doctrine of fine art is a 9 theoretical need to solve the problem that art is on the one hand preceded by the rule while itself on the other hand cannot devise the rule. Allison thinks it takes four steps for Kant to argue for the claim that “fine arts must necessarily be considered arts of genius” (Critique of Judgment, 307). First, “art presupposes rules on which a product must be produced if it is to count as art” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 280), i.e., every production of art requires the purpose and the intention of producing an artistic object. Second, “in the case of fine art, a judgment about its beauty cannot be based on any rule that has a concept as its determining ground” (ibid.). These two steps lead to an argument for claiming that we have to be conscious of art’s being artificial while also recognize it as nature. Allison thinks Kant has to move to the decisive third step then: “fine art cannot itself devise the rule by which it is to bring about its product” (Critique of Judgment, 307) in order to secure the consciousness and recognition. Thus, Allison thinks Kant has to argue that “fine art is only possible as the product of genius” for “it must be nature in the subject (and through the attunement of his faculties) that gives the rule to art” (ibid.). Allison thinks the third step to be a decisive shift from “a consideration of the conditions of the judgment of artistic beauty to a consideration of the conditions of its creation” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 280) is “far from convincing” for Kant does not sketch clearly the source of the rule producing art. In order to make up the “non sequitur,” Allison spells out the source by pointing out “a crucial feature of Kant’s account,” i.e., “the reference to the attunement of the faculties of the artist as the source of the rule (with this attunement identified as the “nature in the subject”)” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 281). And this reference “suggests that what is essential to artistic creation is a powerful imagination, albeit one that spontaneously harmonizes with the requirements of the understanding” (ibid.). Allison presents his conclusion actually in the beginning of the second “chapter,” so he entitles, of his article “Fine Art and Genius” in his Kant’s Theory of Taste, where he 10 discusses with the focus on genius: if “fine art must necessarily be considered arts of genius” (Critique of Judgment, 307) and genius is defined as “the innate mental predisposition (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art” (Critique of Judgment, 307), then Kant can suggest “a direct solution to the puzzle concerning the creation of fine art” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 279), i.e., a puzzle that “such art can seem like nature, even though we are conscious of it as art” (ibid.). For a piece of fine art “is a product of nature (the nature of the artist)” (ibid., emphasis made by Allison). Rudolf A. Makkreel in his Imagination and Interpretation in Kant argues that the discussion of genius, i.e., of artificial production, is an attempt bridging the gaps between the “Critique of the Aesthetic Judgment” and the “Critique of the Teleological Judgment.” He writes, “The discussion of artistic creation occurs relatively late in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” when Kant turns to the consideration of genius. The theme of creation may serve as an interpretative bridge between the two halves of the Critique insofar as Kant concludes the first part with a discussion of artistic productivity and moves on organic productivity in the ‘Critique of Teleological Judgment.’” He puts the Critique in a context of the idea of life. To be precise, he relates “the development of the imagination’s powers that we have seen in the judgments of beauty and sublime” to the idea of life (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 88). Life here conveys “a sense of vitality” that “encompasses our mental life” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 88) and owing to such an interpretative view he thinks the two halves of the Critique are located in coherence. He quotes one passage from Goethe on the Critique of Judgment: “Here I saw my most disparate concerns brought together, artistic and natural production treated in the same way and the powers of aesthetic and teleological judgment mutually illuminating each other.”2 2 Johan Wolfgang Goethe, “Einwirkung der neuern Philosophie,” in Goethes Werke (Weimar: Herman 11 What Makkreel tries to express might be read like this: the first half of the Critique explains how a subject appreciates the pure purposive form of objects (here the subject is aware of the objects as purposive without a purpose); the second half how a subject becomes aware of the particular purposive relations of objects within a purposive system (here the subject is aware of the objects as purposive with some purposes). The former indicates that the human mind is able to reflect on the complex purposive network freely, the latter indicates that it is able to become aware, through dialectic process as of thought, of particular purposive relations within systems (of purposive relations). When the object of human awareness is natural or artificial natural, i.e., art-like, the form of purposiveness (either without a purpose or with purposes) itself animates our mental lives. The function of genius then is to produce something through freedom, however at the mean time as purposive as organic nature (thus why Kant thinks art has to have “spirit” (Critique of Judgment, 304))—i.e., not randomly or arbitrarily. This seems to direct at the section 59 of the Critique of Judgment “On Beauty as the Symbol of Morality,” where Kant comes to the issues proposed in the introductions of this Critique (i.e., the attempt to complete the former two Critiques with the present one), and puts the discussion in the context of the problems regarding morality and the question “what should we do?” while we indicates beings whose acts are according to purposes as reasons. For if Kant’s philosophical system allows for an artificial product to be as universally purposive as a natural product, it is possible for human to create a system as organicaly purposive as a natural system. To apply such creativity to art, we create works of fine art; to apply such creativity to society, we create moral systems. Donald W. Crawford is a commentator of the Third Critique who puts the issue of fine Böhlau, 1893), part 2, vol. II, 50. The translation is probably by Makkreel himself for there is no clear reference about the translation. 12 art and genius against the background of the “Aesthetic Formalism,” especially in sections 5.5 and 5.6 of his Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, which are entitled “Formal Purposiveness and Representation in Art” and “Art as the Expression of Aesthetic Ideas.” We will return to this later. Christian Helmut Wenzel in his forthcoming book An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems also holds that “beauty of art must be at the same time with and without rules” and that “Kant’s notion of genius provides the solution to this apparent contradiction” (An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics, “Genius and Taste”). He argues that an artist “almost continuously evaluates his or her work during the process of creation by making judgments of taste, although these judgments do not have to be consciously or even explicitly made” (ibid.). Genius is understood then as artist with taste who is on the one hand skilled in art so that he or she can produce artistic works and on the other can make judgments of taste according to which he or she evaluates and corrects his or her work, so that he or she can make it fine. And since the basis of these judgments is indeterminate and however involves purposive form, genius is then impossible to be aware of such a basis deliberately but is able to create works that have purposive form and gives new rules. To sum up the above discussion, genius is a talent of a combination of taste and creativity and it allows for artificially beautiful works. With such a talent an artist can make something through human intentions which people can nevertheless contemplate freely. Kant’s notion of genius, the combination of taste and creativity, accounts for such a contradiction—as Wenzel has presented it. Consequently, I would argue that since genius is crucial for fine art because it provides a basis for a work to be both artificial and beautiful, the combination of taste and creativity has to be the essence of genius in Kant’s opinion. It is an ability to act according to the pure form of purposiveness in the subject, not to the 13 objective purposive relations or one’s conceptions of objects. Kant will spell out more of this ability when he discusses around the concept “aesthetic ideas” in the forty-ninth section. Step Three: Aesthetic Ideas Kant interprets the customary opinion that fine artistic works have spirit by defining spirit as “the animating principle in the mind” (Critique of Judgment, 313) and the principle animates the soul by “impart[ing] to the mental powers a purposive momentum, i.e., impart[ing] to them a play which is such that it sustains itself on its own and even strengthens the powers for such a play” (ibid.). He further identifies the principle with “the ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas.” An aesthetic idea to Kant indicates “a presentation of imagination” as “the counterpart (pendant) of a rational idea” (Critique of Judgment, 313-14). An aesthetic idea “prompts much thought, but to which no determinate thought whatsoever, i.e., no determinate concept, can be adequate, so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it” (ibid.), while a rational idea “is, conversely, a concept to which no intuition (presentation of the imagination) can be adequate” (Critique of Judgment, 314). In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant distinguishes the categories from ideas of reason. The former relate to the possible objects of experience in a way of offering rules of understanding (i.e., the coordination of the categories) to representations, and the latter relate to the absolute totality of all possible experience which, Kant says, “is itself not experience” (Prolegomena, §40). Thus concepts about possible objects and ideas for which we can impossibly cognize are two very different kinds of representation. The difference implies two difference uses of imagination. Kant separates two different uses of imagination in the forty-ninth section of the 14 Critique of Judgment: productive use and empirical use. When the association of imagination follows the higher principles of reason (subjective or objective) and creates representations preceding experience, imagination is used productively; when the association of imagination follows empirical laws and reproduces empirical intuitions, imagination is used empirically. In his Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht he calls them exhibitio originaria and exhibitio derivativa (Anthropologie, 167). He says with exhibitio originaria, i.e., the power of original exhibition, we can create intuitions preceding experience, and with exhibitio derivativa, i.e., the power of derived exhibition, we can bring formerly experienced intuitions back to our mind (ibid.). We can also see the difference by comparing the productive use of imagination regarding aesthetic ideas with its reproductive use in the deduction of First Critique. To sum up, imagination following rules of understanding is empirical, reproductive use; imagination following higher rational principles but free from empirical rules of understanding is productive use. Such a distinction is to Kant, I think, an important part of the justification of the distinction between the categories and the ideas of reason. Because the distinction has a supportive intuitive basis: we do intuit both the cognition of sensible objects and the production of supersensible ideas. For our present purpose this distinction helps with the clarification between cognitive representations and ideas. Our productivity follows principles (objective or subjective) in the subject and results in ideas, while our reproductivity follows rules in the object and results in cognitions. In the Critique of Judgment Kant defines “ideas” as ideas that are “presentations referred to an object according to a certain principle (subjective or objective) [of reason] but are such that they can still never become cognition of an object” (Critique of Judgment, 342). This is because the cognition of an object requires the combination of the intuition and the concept of it, while ideas fail the requirement. He makes a further distinction 15 between transcendental ideas (rational ideas, or ideas of reason) and aesthetic ideas. Rational ideas are “referred to a concept according to an objective principle and are yet incapable of ever furnishing a cognition of the object” because they contain a concept “for which no adequate intuition can ever be given;” an aesthetic idea is “referred to an intuition, in accordance with a merely subjective principle of the harmony of the cognitive faculties (imagination and understanding)” and yet can never furnish a cognition of the object “because it is an intuition (of the imagination) for which an adequate concept can never be found” (Critique of Judgment, 342). To put briefly, rational ideas are conceptual products, and aesthetic ideas are intuitive products; both products are imagined nature surpassing reality and experience for they both fail the condition of cognition, i.e., they both fail the condition of possible objects. Nevertheless they are both knowable to us because they either have to satisfy the objective condition of all possible concepts and then be known as rational concepts, or have to satisfy the subjective condition of all possible intuitions and then be known as original intuitions. Kant writes “the imagination (in its role as a productive cognitive power) is very mighty when it creates, as it were, another nature out of material that actual natures gives it” (Critique of Judgment, 314). Such creativity is used by us “to entertain ourselves” while “experience strikes as overtly routine” (ibid.). The entertainment arises because in the processes when we “restructure experience … continu[ing] to follow analogical laws, yet … follow[ing] principles which reside higher up, namely, in reason (and which are just as natural to us as those which the understanding follows in apprehending empirical nature)” (ibid.), “we feel our freedom from the law of association (which attaches to the empirical use of the imagination)” (ibid.). Then we can say that when one is holding an aesthetic idea, he is using his productive imagination to create an imagined nature whose materials are analogical to its empirical employments, i.e., are from experience, while its 16 association principles reside higher in reason rather than in understanding (i.e., these association principles are required to be purposive or satisfactory to some purposive relations, rather than logical). Kant offers some examples for such purposive relations: “Jupiter’s eagle with the lightning in its claws is an attribute of the mighty king of heaven, and the peacock is an attribute of heaven’s stately queen” (Critique of Judgment, 315). These two attributions are adequate, not true, because what is required in this kind of attribution is something fit, something purposive, not something logical. He calls this type of attributes “aesthetic attributes” distinguishing them from “logical attributes” (ibid.). When the association is in accordance with subjective principle of reason, i.e., the purposiveness, the product of such an association is a multitude of related aesthetic attributes; when the association is in accordance with objective principles of reason, i.e., the condition of possible experience, the product of such an association is a construction of related logical attributes. He also explains the reason why aesthetic ideas are ideas: for, first, they “strive toward something that lies beyond the bounds of experience, and hence try to approach an exhibition of rational concepts,” i.e., try to exhibit something comparable to an intellectual idea (both are imagined natures surpassing the real one), “and thus are given a semblance of objective reality” (Critique of Judgment, 315). I think what Kant wants to say is that in producing an aesthetic idea the subject still have to restructure a nature as if he or she is restructuring a rational idea (or otherwise the subject him- or herself cannot get conscious of the form of that imagined nature). Just the guidance of the production in the case of aesthetic ideas is the purposiveness of the two cognitive faculties, not the objective principles. The second and the main reason is that “they are inner intuitions to which no concept can be completely adequate” (ibid.). In the process of “restructuring experience,” the associative guidance of imagination is not rules of understanding any more. For following such rules imagination can only 17 reproduce, i.e., represent reality—this self-contradicts the meaning of “restructuring experience.” The guidance is rather the principles of reason. Kant separates two kinds of principles of reason: objective and subjective. The objective principles of reason are introduced in the “Transcendental Doctrine of Judgment” (or “Analytic of Principles” (Critique of Pure Reason, A 149/ B 188). He presents and deduces (i.e., justifies) his logical-ontological principle by arguing “the conditions of the possible experience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience” (Critique of Pure Reason, A 158/B 197). That is to say the conditions that makes experience possible are at the same time conditions that makes the objects in experience possible. He offers the conditions in both deductions: (a) “formal conditions of a priori intuition,” i.e., space and time, (b) “the synthesis of imagination” and (c) “the necessary unity of this synthesis in a transcendental apperception” (ibid.). The necessary combination of these three conditions gives condition to our experience and enables us to constitute a coherent experience, and by stating the logical-ontological principle Kant argues that objects of experience in space and time are constituted under such conditions as well. If we follow such principles to produce a concept, e.g. “God” or “freedom,” we imagine an object as if fitted the conditions of possible experience—“God” as a real object and “freedom” as a real abstraction from experience. In the “Transcendental Dialectics,” Kant argues that “God” being paralogic for such a production contradicts reason’s own principle: God is not a real object for (a) there is no intuition adequate to such a concept, (b) since there is no intuition adequate to the concept, there is no possibility for a reproduction of it, and then (c) there is no possibility for an apperception of it. Yet “God” is a rational idea for we construct such an idea according to these conditions. We think of God as if there were an intuition of it, as if we could recall such an intuition into our mind again and as if we could be conscious of God. We also follow the conditions of possible objects of experience to imagine that there 18 is freedom. If we think freedom as a real abstraction from cases of experience, which are somehow object-like, Kant will say freedom as such is as well paralogic. But if we think of freedom as a description of a specific structure of mental determination, then it might be a valid rational idea which is deducible. He spends his second Critique, Critique of Practical Reason, entirely on this deduction. On the contrary, the subjective principle of reason for the production of aesthetic ideas is simply the “purposiveness.” To put it briefly, that we restructure nature with the subjective principle of reason means that we put together elements of a structure according to the harmonious relation of our two cognitive powers (imagination and understanding). In the “Third Moment” of the “Analytic of the Beautiful” in the Critique of Judgment, Kant introduces his conception of purposiveness (forma finalis): “the causality that a concept has with regard to its object” (Critique of Judgment, 220). This has to do with the mental power of desire. When one desires something, one does not merely think of one’s cognition of the object, but “instead of the object itself (its form, or its existence)” one thinks of it “as an effect that is possible only through a concept of that effect” (ibid.). For instance, if I desire to type the word “imagination” on an empty sheet and then I do it, the idea of “I want to type the word “imagination” on this empty sheet” is the cause of the fact of my typing the word “imagination” on this empty sheet. The idea is then the purpose of my typing, and the fact is the effect of the idea. And if it happens that the word “imagination” simply occurs on the sheet and I had no idea where it come from, the fact that there was a word “imagination” on this empty sheet is not the effect of the idea, and the occurrence of such a word has no causal relation to my mental power of desire. When we produce an idea and we pay attention to whether the form of the construction (i.e., how it is constructed) fits my desire but not to whether the object of the construction (i.e., what is constructed) fits my desire, the production is merely according to the subjective principle 19 of reason, i.e., the purposiveness itself. I.e., I would say, purposiveness is a subjective principle of, as well as a subjective criterion in the power of judgment for, judging proper reciprocal relationships within a system. We use this principle to judge whether an object is purposive (good for something else) if we regard the object as a part of a system, and to judge whether an object possesses a beautiful form if we regard the object itself as a system. Kant spells out that purposiveness and a harmonious state of mind indicate each other. A harmonious state of mind is a state where our two cognitive powers cooperate in a harmonious relation. “Consciousness of a presentation’s causality directed at the subject’s state so as to keep him in that state, may here designate generally what we call pleasure” (Critique of Judgment, 220). When one produces an idea according to our feeling of pleasure so that such an idea becomes pleasurable to oneself, such an idea is an aesthetic idea. A genius is required to be capable of producing aesthetic ideas. That is the meaning of what I have mentioned earlier that a genius must have taste. But the productivity of aesthetic ideas is not sufficient for genius; a genius has to be capable of “express aesthetic ideas” and the ideas a genius has expressed has to contribute new standards. Step Four: Related Commentaries Henry Allison in Kant’s Theory of Taste writes “Kant’s focus on form in the Analytic of the Beautiful is perfectly compatible with his later characterization of beauty in terms of the expression of aesthetic ideas” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 132). In the beginning of the third chapter of the twelfth article “Fine Art and Genius” in this book, he presents his concern “with two important issues regarding aesthetic ideas that arise as a result of their connection with genius.” First, “natural (as well as artistic) beauty is to be understood as the expression of aesthetic ideas;” second and consequently, there is a “reconciliation of 20 this general thesis about beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas with the formalism of the third moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 286). Allison thinks “there is no contradiction between [Kant’s] account of genius and the conception of natural beauty as expressing aesthetic ideas” (ibid.). For “A contradiction would arise only if genius were taken to be a necessary condition for the production of aesthetic ideas, but Kant is not committed to any such thesis” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 287-87). That is, Allison thinks to Kant producing aesthetic ideas does not require genius, albeit a genius requires the ability to produce and to realize aesthetic ideas. Allison says, although Kant shows his admiration for Frederick the Great, “it is doubtful that Kant regarded him as a poetic genius!” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 287) Allison even claims that “Indeed… at one point Kant even denies that a work of art need be rich in such ideas in order to be beautiful” (ibid.). Moreover, Allison gives some theoretical reason against any possibility of the above contradiction. He thinks an aesthetic idea is defined “as much by what it does (“prompt much thought,” albeit of an indeterminate kind) as by what it is (an intuition of the imagination to which no determinate concept can be adequate)” (ibid.). Allison argues that “in the case of beautiful art, the idea is prompted by a concept of the object, whereas in the case of natural beauty, “mere reflection on a given intuition… is sufficient for arousing and communicating the idea of which that object is regarded as the expression” (Critique of Judgment, 320)” (ibid.). I think Allison means that the production of an aesthetic idea is already required in the circumstances of appreciation. It is just when one is aware of the object as a production of art that the production of that aesthetic idea is prompted by a concept of the object, i.e., the concept art which entails the intentional content from the artist; in the meantime, when one regards the object as nature, the given intuition itself is enough to arouse an aesthetic idea. That is, we may infer, the production of aesthetic ideas about an object is required so that the appreciator can make a judgment 21 of taste about the object. But in order to appreciate an object as a work of art, we have to get animated not only by the natural form of it, but by the artificial form of it. By “artificial form” I mean the concept for us to recognize the object as it is has to include the content of the concept of art, i.e., has to include the intentional content of the artist. Then the representation of the object with such conceptualization has to have a different form than one with natural conceptualization. The production of a work of art is different from the appreciation of it, however. The former entails the later, but not the vise versa. That is to say, a genius is required to have taste and thus required to be able to produce aesthetic ideas with his or her imagination, but such an ability is not sufficient for the owner of the ability to be a genius. To rephrase Allison’s first part of the discussion about aesthetic ideas, we may want to recall Allison’s account of Kant’s theory of art and genius: such a doctrine of Kant within his aesthetic theory is a solution to the puzzle whether artistic beauty is possible. Allison wants to infer that by introducing the idea of aesthetic ideas in the discussion of art and genius Kant shows that “beauty is understood as the expression of aesthetic ideas”—natural “as well as” artistic beauty (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 286)! Regarding the aesthetic idea as what it is, i.e., an intuition of imagination to which no determinate concept can be adequate, as long as the production of such ideas is based on given objects (no mater merely by nature or through human activities), there is always a possibility to reflect upon the given object as intuition. But regarding it as what it does, i.e., prompting much thought, as long as the production can prompt much thought, even albeit of an indeterminate kind, there is as well a possibility to reflect upon the object under, or even as, a concept. Now to Kant, work of art has to be appreciated as artificial as well as natural; that is, one has to be aware of the object as a work of art, i.e., possessing artificial form, while being also aware of its form as natural. Since the concept by which we come to 22 recognize an object as a work of art can on the one hand direct our mind to the referred intuitions (the object as in space and time, or even the related intuitions to the words or sentences given in a literary work) and on the other hand can prompt much thought, the restructured nature of our productive imagination is an aesthetic idea. And since genius is the one who creates artificial beauty, the ability to express aesthetic ideas has to be constituted in his or her mental powers. It is just however that the ability to express aesthetic ideas is not sufficient, though necessary, for a genius. What a genius expresses has to be new, original and potential for imitation. But the reason why Kant spends most of the section “On the Powers of the Mind which Constitute Genius” on aesthetic ideas is that the expression of aesthetics serves to justify and explain how genius can ensure the possibility of artificial beauty. Although the requirement that “in the case of beautiful art the aesthetic idea is prompted by a concept of the object” “obviously does not apply to natural beauty,” “nevertheless, this does not prevent the intuitive representation of a natural object (or scene) from having a comparable effect on the play of our cognitive faculties in mere reflection, thereby “prompting much thought”” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 287). Then Allison can go on and argue for the second thesis: “the expression of aesthetic ideas with the formalism of the third moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 286). He writes, the former thesis in fact just indicates “what is meant by the claim that the object is subjectively purposive for judgment, or equivalently, that it exhibits the “form of purposiveness”” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 287). The leading clue of this “reconciliation” is briefly to take the notion that the object appears as if designed for our cognitive faculties (regarding the form of purposiveness of the object) to be equivalent to the claim that it seems like art (ibid.). Allison noted in the sixth chapter of the book “Beauty, Purposiveness, and Form”, in 23 agreement with Paul Guyer, that “there is indeed a slide in §13 [of Critique of Judgment] from an understanding of the beautiful as exhibiting the form of the purposiveness to an understanding of it as consisting merely in the purposiveness of the form of an object” (Kant’s Theory of Taste, 288). Guyer, presented by Allison, makes a distinciton between a restrictive formalism “where “form” refers merely to spatiotemporal structure” and a broader, nonrestrictive sense “which includes things like the arrangement of colors in painting or instrumentation in music” (ibid.). But Allison argues that “Kant’s conception of the harmony of the faculties in free play does entail a formalism of the latter sort” (ibid.). For he thinks: “Since the harmony of the faculties must be one in “mere reflection,” the sensible data must provide something on which to reflect, and this can only consist in a certain order or arrangement, which counts as “form” in Kant’s sense. For only such an order or arrangement of the sense data (qua apprehended by the imagination) could be suitable for the exhibition of a concept (though no concept in particular). Consequently, only an engagement with form could occasion a free harmony of the faculties” (ibid.). “Furthermore,” he argues, “it seems clear that there is no conflict between a formalism in this broad, non-restrictive (yet nontrivial) sense and the expression of aesthetic ideas. On the contrary, given the preceding analysis of these ideas, it is apparent that they themselves require a form as a necessary condition of their expression and communication” (ibid.). He thinks that a genius is required to express communicable aesthetic ideas so that the work can be distinguished from “original nonsense,” and such a communicability requires the potentiality of apprehending the ideas. Such an apprehension presupposes, to Allison, a communicable form in the subject. He writes “the form serves as the necessary vehicle for the expression” (ibid.). To sum up Allison’s account, the production of aesthetic ideas essentially belongs to the process of appreciation and is for the reference of an artist when he or she is creating a 24 work. Furthermore, producing an aesthetic idea is forming a peculiar way of arranging spatiotemporal elements merely according to the purposive relation of our two cognitive faculties. Because the possession of the ability to autonomously (i.e., freely—and “freely” implies the free play) form ways of arrangement of spatiotemporal elements is universal to all human beings, aesthetic ideas are for sure to be communicable. Following Allison’s account, a genius is required by Kant to possess the power of expressing aesthetic ideas because such an ability enables a genius on the one hand to produce artificial beauty and to make the indeterminate representations (the ideas) communicable on the other. Donald W. Crawford writes a chapter offering a modest introduction to Kant’s account of aesthetic ideas in his Kant’s Aesthetic Theory. He thinks that “Genius shows itself … through Geist, roughly translated as “spirit,” the animating principle of the mind; it is the faculty of presenting aesthetic ideas” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 120). He interprets “aesthetic ideas” as “representations of the imagination which lie beyond the bounds of sense experience and for which, consequently, no concept is ever fully adequate” (ibid.). He demonstrates how Kant distinguishes aesthetic ideas from its counterpart, rational ideas: an aesthetic idea “is a sensible representation of that for which no concept is or can be adequate,” while a rational idea “is a concept for which no sensible intuition or representation of imagination is or can be adequate” (ibid.). He introduces “ideas” as “a representation of imagination… (as opposed to intuitions or concepts)” (ibid.). (By “ideas” above Crawford should not want to include “rational ideas,” for to him, as I have previously quoted, a rational idea is a concept for which no representation of imagination is or can be adequate and it is self-contradictory for ideas as representations of imagination to be something for which no representation of imagination is or can be adequate.) He writes, “Empirically the imagination, so to speak, creates a surrogate for nature out of the 25 material nature provides the imagination to work with, but its activities exceed the creation of new materials by means of the mere association of ideas, since its products—imaginings—can surpass existing nature” (ibid). He interprets Kant’s argument for these representations to be ideas: (1) “like rational or intellectual ideas such as Freedom, God, and Immortality, they strive after something which lies beyond the bounds of possible experience and thereby seek to present a concept of reason (a rational or intellectual idea) to sense and give it the appearance of objective reality; and (2) no concept can be fully adequate to them as intuitions—whatever we are aware of apprehending cannot be fully conceptualized” (ibid.). He also claims that we should be aware of aesthetic ideas— “as expressed by the beautiful in art or nature”– as related to formal purposiveness (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 121). He thinks Kant has defined aesthetic ideas as “representations referred to an intuition according to a merely subjective principle of the mutual harmony of the cognitive powers… but in a way that they can never become a cognition of an object” (ibid.). He describes a genius’s expressing and communication of aesthetic ideas as a process of “do[ing] the impossible”—i.e., “make real and, hence, objective an idea of reason” (ibid.). Yet he clarifies that a genius does not present the aesthetic ideas themselves. “What he does present to sense is a specific image or representation of the manifestations of the idea” (ibid.). E.g., a poet may use a rose to present the idea of love, the flame for the idea of envy, Jupiter’s eagle with lightning claws for the mighty king of heaven, or a peacock for the queen of heaven. The “specific image or representation of the manifestations of the idea” is to Kant, as Crawford introduces, entitled an aesthetic attribute. He writes “Aesthetic attributes allow the imagination to spread itself over a number of kindred representations that arouse more thought than can be expressed in a determinate concept” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 122). Consequently, he argues, “in this way the artist gets the 26 mental powers of his audience into full, imaginative activity centering around what has been presented and leading to the reflection on ideas” (ibid.). I think Crawford’s clarification is good. The expression of an aesthetic idea is by its very nature different from its presentation for so long as an idea is represented, it is no longer an aesthetic idea. Crawford invites Gotshalk’s opinion to expose Kant’s interest of his discussion on aesthetic ideas as “in discovering evidence of an a priori congruence between Nature and moral aspiration,” since the first two Critiques “had interpreted each realm in terms of a priori or universal and necessary principles absolutely distinct and independent” (Gotshalk, “Form and Expression,” 256-57). Crawford argues that “Something more natural than the obviously artificial and man-made forms in the fine arts must be found to furnish a priori evidence for a harmony between nature and moral aspiration” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 122). Crawford also invites R. K. Elliott’s point that “Kant’s attempt to establish the validity of judgments of taste cannot end with the deduction or the postulation of a Common Sense, but is only achieved through linking the experience of art with moral feeling” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 123). Common Sense, to Kant, indicates the public sense, a “sense shared by all of us, i.e., a power to judge that in reflecting takes account (a priori), in our thought, of everyone else’s way of presenting something, in order as it were to compare our own judgment with human reason in general and thus escape the illusion that arises from the ease of mistaking subjective and private conditions for objective ones” (Critique of Judgment, 293). I think what Elliott wants to say, so far as I can recognize from Crawford’s summary, is that the doctrine of common sense, i.e., the collective principle, or function, of human reason that that which can animate my mental powers shall be able to animate others, can only give a theoretical ground for the possibility of the universal communicability of the experience of the beautiful. With the mediation of genius, Kant can 27 demonstrate how the universal communication of feelings becomes possible: we are all in possession of Common Sense, and we have genius to express ideas so that we can communicate these ideas by being animated by the form of their expressions. The demonstration not only establishes the validity of the possibility of our making pure judgment about artificial objects. The demonstration in a backhand fashion gives supports to the universality of aesthetic sensibility, which shall include the moral feeling. Crawford quotes Kant: “We may describe beauty in general (whether natural or artificial) as the expression of aesthetic ideas” (J. H. Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 320). He argues “it cannot be literally true that nature, through its beautiful products, expresses aesthetic ideas in the same sense that the artist though his products, expresses them” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 134). The sentence “Nature itself expresses aesthetic ideas” indicates to Crawford that our contemplation of a beautiful natural object “is sufficient for the awakening and communicating of the idea of which that object is regarded as the expression” (Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 320), i.e., “ the contemplation of the beautiful brings about certain ideas in us” (ibid.). However, he argues, nature would not give us ideas such as “hell,” “death,” “envy” and the like. What the aesthetic ideas that natural beauties express really are is, as Crawford believes, “the indeterminate idea of the supersensible in general” (ibid.). It is the “concept of the general ground of the subjective purposiveness of nature for the judgment” (Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 340), and in Crawford’s interpretation it is “the idea that nature was designed for our power of cognition” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 134). Crawford also thinks that “Artistic beauty also symbolically expresses the supersensible in this sense because it presents in a microcosm the harmony between a formal ordering of nature as intelligible to us and our cognitive faculties” (ibid.). He concludes “The supersensible idea expressed by all beautiful objects, natural and artistic the like, is the idea o the 28 purposiveness of forms in the phenomenal world being adapted to our powers of cognition and judgment” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 135). I interpret Crawford’s argument in a way that our making judgment of taste about natural objects wakens, practices and reminds us of the function of pure judgment, which, I would say, gives the (pure) form to all aesthetic ideas. And our making judgment of taste about artistic objects practices the powers for communication—comprehension and even expression. If “moral feeling is, for Kant, the feeling of respect for law or conformity to law” (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 146) and “a feeling that satisfies independently of any interest, desire, or inclination of the agent” (ibid.), then “The aesthetic experience disposes us to the moral feeling since it, too, is a totally disinterested pleasure and “cultivates us, in that it teaches us to attend to the purposiveness in the feeling of pleasure” (Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 107)” (ibid.). However this transition to Crawford is a way of moral disposition, not itself a necessary instrument in the establishment of a morally good disposition. Crawford argues then that Kant has to offer “an immediate interest in the beautiful in nature” as “a symptom of a morally good person” (ibid.). Crawford interprets Kant, “an individual “who by himself (and without any design of communicating his observations to others) regards the beautiful figure of a wild flower, a bird, an insect, etc., with admiration and love” (Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 299), who takes an immediate delight not merely in the form but also in the presence of the object—and hence an interest in its existence” is always the mark of a good soul (Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, 146). That is, as I understand, even though such a person is not clearly aware of the form, such admiration and love implies good function of judgment. The lack of awareness of the form only blinds the person from the court in his or her mind; it does not mean that the court dose not exist! Before Rudolf A. Makkreel talks about aesthetic ideas, he reminds his reader of Kant’s revision of ideal of imagination in the Critique of Judgment from the one in the 29 Critique of Pure Reason. As he divides ideas into rational and aesthetic ones, Kant also divides ideals into two kinds: ideals of reason and ideals of imagination (or ideal of sensibility). An ideal is a perfect representation of the form of an idea. An ideal of reason “serves as the archetype for the complete determination of the copy [of the idea]” (Critique of Pure Reason, A 569/B 597). E.g., the Stoic ideal of a wise man can give us an expression in conformity with the idea of virtue and the idea of wisdom. However, such perfect individuals can only exist in thought; they can never be sensed. On the other hand, an ideal of imagination, which is a representation of the perfect form of an aesthetic idea, is “an entirely different nature” (Critique of Pure Reason, A 570/B 598) from the former. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant thinks that any attempt of an artist “to realize the ideal in an example, that is, in the field of appearance, as … to depict the character of the perfectly wise man in a romance, is impracticable” (ibid.). That is, Kant in the First Critique believes an artist cannot use his or her imagination to create an image, or a model, that represents the perfect form of an idea. The ideals of imagination that artists “profess to carry in their heads” can only be treated “as being incommunicable shadowy images” (ibid.). Makkreel notices that in the Critique of Judgment, Kant has changed his mind compared to his account of the possibility of ideals of imagination in the First Critique. In the Third Critique, Kant thinks there are normal aesthetic ideas.3 A normal aesthetic idea is “the image for the entire kind, hovering between all the singular and multiply varied intuitions and individuals” (Critique of Judgment, 234). It serves, to Kant, a standard for judging a case to be a member of some particular species. This is indicated in the sentence “it is in accordance with [the normal idea] that rules for judging become possible in the 3 Makkreel uses J. H. Bernard’s translation. Pluhar translates “Normalidee” in “standard idea.” Since Makkreel uses Bernard’s translation, and it preserves the etymological form, I follow Bernard’s translation in my writing. But I still quote Kant with Pluhar’s translation. 30 first place” (Critique of Judgment, 234). The ability to produce such an idea is understood by Makkreel as the ability that “allows images to be superimposed on each other” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 114) and serves as “an aesthetic estimate of the imagination” (ibid.). He explains that such an estimate refers to a potentiality of the idea that “projects the purposiveness of the species” (ibid.). He argues that such purposiveness solely belongs to the idea of the judging subject and forms the image of the entire kind as if designed by nature in producing the species as a whole (ibid.). Makkreel writes “Kant claims that the aesthetic normal idea, as one of the components of the ideal of beauty, can be completely presented in concreto in a model image” (Imagination and Interpetation, 117). Such an image is no longer “shadowy” and “incommunicable.” It is now a concrete image that we can use to communicate. Now, like we can find an ideal adequate to a rational idea in thinking, we can intuit an ideal adequate to a normal aesthetic idea. Makkreel writes, “Whereas the ideal of reason is a completely determinate archetype, the ideal of imagination contains a model image that makes possible reflection about an archetype” (ibid.). That is, the ideals of reason are determined a priori and we just have them, but we imagined a perfect intuition for all members of a race in order to reflect about its archetype which we tend to believe as designed by nature. At this point, imagination seems to develop itself from mere reproductive use, i.e., reading experience, to a rather productive use (produce something surpassing experience). Makkreel then moves to the topic of aesthetic ideas. He thinks “With the aesthetic idea the interrelation of imagination and reason is carried a step further” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 118). Both of the normal aesthetic ideas and the aesthetic ideas are “interpretive in approximating the archetypes” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 121), but the former are for the archetypes of natural species while the latter are for the archetypes of rational ideas. In the former case, imagination produces an idea by 31 attributing general features to the species; in the latter case, imagination produces an idea by attaching attributes that please the subject to a rational idea. Makkreel’s main concern of the book is to consider the role of imagination in Kant as related to the idea of life. He claims that the sublime involves “a subjective movement of the imagination, … which … does violence to inner sense” (Bernad’s translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, 258-59). He thinks Kant presents the violence as a force that “collapses [the inner sense’s] temporal progression into an instantaneous or momentary glance (Augenblick)” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 96-97). He argues that the “violence” done to inner sense in the sublime could be said to transform the sense into an “interior sense”(Imagination and Interpretation in Kant 97). Makkreel thinks the inner sense, through which we apprehend the objects of experience serially as part of a time line, gives way to an interior sense. He believes that through such an interior sense we instantaneously feel the vitality of the “whole determination of the mind” (Bernard’s translation of the Critique of Judgment, 259). Then he brings in genius. “Genius involves not only the general harmony between the imagination and understanding that is required for cognition, but also a special relation among the mental faculties, which allows some individuals to think the unknowable and express the ineffable” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 97). I take the connection made above (between the feeling of sublime and genius) to be an attempt that Makkreel wants to identify the “whole determination of the mind” as the source of the highest vital sense, and the special relation among the mental faculties allows some individuals to intuit that determination. For one can only perceive the vital sense through reflection—only in one’s awareness of something can one get awareness about the functioning of the capacity of awareness. It is easy for us to be aware of an object determined, but it is difficult for us to get aware of the subject that determines. The usual relation in our cognizing mind is to relate the mental eye, the 32 capacity to get aware, to certain particular determination of the mind, e.g., a logical unit (such as a concept, a relation or a proposition) or an intuition analyzed with certain logical structure. By reflecting, yet remaining focus on the object (e.g., the reflection in the deduction of the First Critique), one broadens the scope of the determination from the conceptual analysis upon certain given intuition to our intuition itself. But if one reflects beautifully, actually one is trying to return the focus on the determining subject itself and feels the whole determination of the mind, a determination as a reconciliation of all faculties, and hence all possibilities of experience. Makkreel thinks that this special relation requires “spirit” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 97). “Spirit” is required to intuit that specific determination. Not only introduces he Kant’s definition of spirit in The Third Critique, he also borrows Kant’s explanations about the spirit in the Reflexionen zur Anthropologie: “Spirit is what is truly creative, what enlivens because it is the unity (swing) from which all movement of the mind is derived” (Reflexionen zur Anthropologie, 1509; XV, 826; 1780-84); “The spirit of an art is a whole, a systematic method, which contains a comprehensive (zusammenhängende) idea” (Reflexionen zur Anthropologie, 1510; XV, 828; 1780-84). Makkreel interprets the quotations as a claim that “spirit is not a special talent, but that which activates all talents” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 97). The term “zusammentenhängend” should be understood, he suggested, “inherently unified” as distinguished from something “synthetisch” which requires “special acts of synthesis to combine or connect its manifold” (ibid.). Thus he claims “Sprit for Kant is a heightened mode of mental life which has a unifying power” (ibid.). I believe Makkreel attempts to equate the “whole determination of mind” and the form of aesthetic ideas. The whole determination of mind comes from the demand of reason and there is by nature no possible adequate conceptual determination to it. 33 (Makkreel does not provide a reason for the incompatibility between the whole determination of the mind and the conceptual determinations of the mind4. Conceptual determinations are always the parts of the mental determinations of conceptual-intuitive reconciliation. The fact that the mind always fails to understand itself gives a justification to the incompatibility, for failure indicates that there can be no determination of conceptual-intuitive reconciliation of the determining subject itself.) The feeling of sublime ensures us and lets us have an instantaneous feeling of the fact that there does exist such a “whole determination of mind.” Hence the determination should be an idea (which surpasses experience) and be an aesthetic determination, since we do feel the sublime. The determination is different from cognition for it is not synthetic: a synthetic determination is a unity of an intuition and a concept. The determination is rather the inherent relation among the faculties. Geniuses are individuals who know the specific determination through ideas and express them in some way. The only cognitive approach to the expressions of such ideas (expression to oneself as well as to others) other than the instantaneous feeling of the sublime is through aesthetical reflection, i.e., the play of imagination and understanding. Makkreel argues, mentioned earlier already, that the ability to produce an idea of imagination is understood as an ability that “allows images to be superimposed on each other” (Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, 114) and serves as “an aesthetic estimate of the imagination” (ibid.). He explains that such an estimate refers to a potentiality of the idea that “projects the purposiveness of the species” (ibid.). He argues that such 4 The phrase “conceptual determination of the mind” seems ambiguous. It can be read as a determination to conceptualize the mind; it can also read as a determination made by the mind. At first sight they seems contradictory to each other. However, I believe, they are not. I believe any conceptual determination belongs to the class of determinations of the mind. Just conceptual determinations are particular. Universality requires “whole” determination. But we can achieve that by reflection qua thinking, a position the Kant in the First Critique might take. But reflection to the Kant in the Third Critique may have different meaning from the former. 34 purposiveness solely belongs to the idea of the judging subject and forms the image of the entire kind as if designed by nature in producing the species as a whole (ibid.). If we follow his arguments from those on the sublime, normal ideas to those on aesthetic ideas while paying attention to his main attempt of the book, namely the equation between the function of imagination and vital sense, we can see that these arguments are trying to build up a system of imagination from its reproductive use to its free use. However I fail to find that he further attempts to depict the “special relation among all our mental faculties” which only some individuals have and which enables them to sense that specific determination of mind (the whole determination of the mind). Christian Helmut Wenzel in his forthcoming book, An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems, gives a chapter on “Genius and Aesthetic Ideas.” There he writes “An aesthetic idea works… by means of supplementary representations and aesthetic attributes.” He thinks an artist directs his or her audience to a relation between a rational idea and some representations of sense and such representations “make the idea more vivid in our mind.” He quotes Kant’s words to give an explanatory account for the function of these representations: they give the imagination cause “to spread itself over a multitude of related presentations, which let one think more than one can express in a concept determined by words” (Guyer and Matthews’s translation of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, 315). He illustrates how Kant’s example of Jupiter’s eagle with the lightning in its claws works, i.e., how it serves as a “supplementary presentation” and an “aesthetic attribute” of an abstract rational idea “powerful king of heaven.” Many characteristics we usually associate with an eagle, such as “overlooking his territory from above” or “being able to strike at any moment,” are “carried over” by the animatees of the metaphor to the concept of the “powerful king of heaven.” And an aesthetic attribute’s causing of spreading its function over a multitude of related presentations to imagination is 35 actually the animating effect of a genius’s products. Wenzel describes the indeterminate nature of the spreading of representations with Wittgenstein’s idea of “family resemblances:” such a multitude of related representations grows in a way that they create new ones but do not follow any rules. Wenzel thinks an aesthetic attribute provides an intuition which we can hold on to. There is a reason for the fact that we can hold on to the intuition: it animates and arises pleasure. Such an intuition is one for which we can never find any adequate concept in the end, but since it possesses the spirit that let us hold on to itself, it can keep us continuously reflecting and searching for possible adequate concepts. For it is itself incomplete and make us strive for completeness, just like how a rational idea awaits its completion. Wenzel also mentions the significant role of the introduction of aesthetic ideas in Kant’s putting beauty and genius into a context of the external task of the Third Critique: bridging the former two Critiques. He describes: “The first Critique showed us the supersensible substratum of all appearances, the second the supersensible substratum of humanity and the indeterminate idea of the supersensible in us and the idea of transcendental freedom. Now, in the third Critique, we see that a genius creates a work of art that goes beyond mere physical nature and that can make us realize the supersensible in us.” Since the aesthetic idea can function as a counterpart to the ideas of reason, it can assist us in “entertaining” such ideas of reason. By making rational ideas vivid in our mind, 36