The Origins of Kant's Aesthetics

Description

Organized around eight themes central to aesthetic theory today, this book examines the sources and development of Kant's aesthetics by mining his publications, correspondence, handwritten notes, and university lectures. Each chapter explores one of eight themes: aesthetic judgment and normativity, formal beauty, partly conceptual beauty, artistic creativity or genius, the fine arts, the sublime, ugliness and disgust, and humor. Robert R. Clewis considers how Kant's thought was shaped by authors such as Christian Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten, Georg Meier, Moses Mendelssohn, Johann Sulzer, Johann Herder, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Henry Home, Charles Batteux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire. His resulting study uncovers and illuminates the complex development of Kant's aesthetic theory and will be useful to advanced students and scholars in fields across the humanities and studies of the arts. Cover Half-title Title page Copyright information Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments A Note on Citations List of Abbreviations Introduction Part I Aesthetic Judgment and Beauty 1 On Rules of Taste The Third Critique on Aesthetic Normativity Some Modern Authors Shaping Kant's Views Kant's Development: A Synthesis, Then a Discovery The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remark 2 Beauty Free The Modern Context: Unity amidst Variety Formalism and the Third Critique on Free Beauty The Development of Kant's Aesthetic Formalism(s) Concluding Remark 3 Beauty Grounded Some Ideas Shaping Kant's Views of Adherent Beauty The Third Critique on Adherent Beauty The Development of Kant's Views of Purpose-Based Beauty The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks Part II Genius and the Fine Arts 4 Genius, Thick and Thin The Third Critique on Genius Some Ideas Shaping Kant's Views The Development of Kant's Views of Genius The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks 5 Classifying the Fine Arts The Third Critique on Classifying the Fine Arts The Modern Tradition Shaping Kant's Views The Development of Kant's Views of the Fine Arts The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks Part III Negative and Positive States 6 Meet the Sublime Now: It's a Negative Pleasure Feeling Oneself Free: The Sublime in the Third Critique Ideas about the Sublime Shaping Kant's Views The Development of Kant's Views of the Sublime The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks 7 Ugliness and Disgust: Disagreeable Sensations Are Aesthetic Judgments of Ugliness Even Possible? Forming Kant's Views: Ideas about Deformity Kant's Evolving Views of the Ugly The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks 8 Playing with Humor The Principal Theories Shaping Kant's Views of Humor The Critical Account of Humor The Critical View of the Arts of Laughter: Wit, Naiveté, and Whim The Development of Kant's Views of Humor The Third Critique Reconsidered Concluding Remarks Closing Reflections Bibliography index