WEEK 8: QUESTIONS ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT

Book 1: "Analytic of the Beautiful"

First Moment: Of the Judgment of Taste, According to Quality:

1. What is a "logical" (376) judgment (or judgment of "cognition" [376])? 
   1. What exactly is the "cognition" (376) produced thereby?  What is an alternative term for 'cognition'?
   2. What part of the mind do such judgments affect?
   3. In what mental act do such judgments engage and with the aid of what mental entities?
2. What is an "aesthetical" (376) judgment (or judgment of "taste" [376])?
   1. What exactly is the "satisfaction" (376) produced thereby?  What is an alternative term for 'satisfaction'? 
   2. What part of the mind do such judgments affect?
   3. In what mental act do such judgments engage and with the aid of what mental entities?  Are concepts involved at all in this process?
3. Kant argues that, qualitatively, aesthetical judgments produce in us three kinds of 'satisfaction' that correspond to three different qualities that may inhere in an object: whether something is good, pleasant or beautiful:
   1. What is the difference between an object that is good, an object that is pleasant, and one that is beautiful?
   2. What are the different satisfactions produced in us by the good, the pleasant, and the beautiful, respectively?  (Kant describes these in several different ways -- try to list them in each case.)
4. What does Kant mean when he argues that a judgment that something is beautiful is based on "pure disinterested satisfaction" (377) while a judgment that something is good is based on a "pure practical satisfaction" (377)?

Second Moment: Of the Judgment of Taste, According to Quantity:

1. Kant argues here that, quantitatively, the three different aesthetical judgments produce in us three contrasting assumptions concerning the universality of one's perspective:
   1. What do persons who claim that something is good assume about the agreement of others?  Why?
   2. What do persons who claim that something is pleasant assume about the agreement of others?  Why?
   3. What do persons who claim that something is beautiful assume about the agreement of others?  Why?
2. Why are all aesthetical judgments in and of themselves "singular judgments" (379)? 
3. In order to postulate that something is beautiful and claim universal validity for this view, what kind of judgment must one also engage in?
4. What two mental faculties are thereby united?

Third Moment: Of Judgments of Taste, According to the Relation of the Purposes Which are Brought Into Consideration in Them:

1. What are the two kinds of aesthetical judgments which are possible? 
2. How is the 'charm' of an object different from its 'beauty'?  Give three examples of the charms which an object may have.
3. What does Kant mean when he writes that the “determining ground of the judgment of taste” (380) is, rather, the “mere form of purposiveness in the representation of an object without any purpose (either objective or subjective), and thus it is the mere form of purposiveness in the representation by which an object is given to us . . . which constitutes the satisfaction that we without a concept judge to be universally communicable” (380)?
4. In the light of your answer to the previous question, what is the source of beauty in painting, sculpture, architecture and horticulture?
5. What is the source of beauty in pantomime and dancing?
6. What is the source of beauty in music?
7. How does Kant define 'emotion'?  Is emotion linked to beauty?  If not, to what is it linked?
8. How does Kant define beauty?
   1. What is the difference between "qualitative perfection" (382) and "quantitative perfection" (382)?
   2. What sort of judgment is applied in determining perfection?
   3. Is beauty the same thing as perfection, according to Kant?
9. What is the difference between "free" (383) and "dependent" (383) beauty?  Give examples of each.
10. What is an "a priori" (384) criterion of taste?  Why does Kant argue that it is “fruitless trouble” (384) to “seek for a principle of taste which shall furnish, by means of definite concepts, a universal criterion of the beautiful” (384)?
11. What, by contrast, is an "empirical criterion" (384) of taste?  Does Kant support this view?
12. What is a "normal idea" (385) of beauty? 
    1. What is the source of 'normal ideas'? 
    2. What faculty is responsible for this?
    3. What is the normal idea of beauty in a human being?
13. What is a "rational idea" (385) of beauty? 
    1. What is the source of 'rational ideas'? 
    2. What faculty is responsible for this?
    3. What is the rational idea of beauty in a human being?