SUBJECTIVITY: OBJECTIVELY SPEAKINGModern Concepts in Taste and Aesthetics

MODERNITY

Us or Them?

1. Foundations

2. The objective nature

of the subject

3. Objectivity/Subjectivi

ty

4. Natural Philosophy

to Science

5. Static to Dynamic

Empiricism

RationalismDescartes

1596-1650

Hume

1711-1776

Berkeley

1685-1753

Leibniz

1646-1716

Galileo

1564-1642

Newton

1642-1727

Linneaus

1707-1778

Lavoisier

1743-1794

Darwin

1809-1882

1. Foundations

2. The objective nature

of the subject

3. Objectivity/Subjectivi

ty

Empiricism

RationalismDescartes

1596-1650

Hume

1711-1776

HUME

Taste and the Critic

HUME

All knowledge comes from experience

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HUME

All knowledge comes from experience

Gold

HUME

All knowledge comes from experience

Mountain

HUME

All knowledge comes from experience

+

HUME

All knowledge comes from experience Gold Mountain

“On a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it

is the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property.”

Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Practice loving kindness: do not do utno others as you would not have

them do to you

Confucius, The Confucian Analects

I have set before you life and

death, blessing and cursing:

therefore choose life, that both

thou and thy seed may live

Moses, Deuteronomy 30:19

But with love, we are creative.

With it, we march tirelessly.

With it, and with it alone, we

are able to sacrifice for others.

Chief Dan George

'You shall love your neighbor as

yourself.'

Jesus, Mark 12:28-31

Is beauty merely in the

eye of the beholder?

Milton: Paradise Lost

Ogilby

Mount Teneriffe

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25

50

75

100

125

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Homer’s Popularity Over Time

Athens

The Standard of Taste and

The Test of Time

Paris

London

Rome

0

25

50

75

100

125

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Bach’s Popularity Over Time

The Critic

The Character of the Critic

1.Strong Sense

2.Delicate Sentiment

3.Practice

4.Comparison

5.Free from Prejudice

Rachmaninov:

Symphony No. 2 in E Minor,

Op. 27: III. Adagio

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra &

David Zinman

Rachmaninov:

Symphony No. 2 in E Minor,

Op. 27: III. Adagio

Mikhail Pletnev &

Russian National Orchestra

Like a Virgin

Madonna

Like a Virgin

Marylin Manson

KANT

The Aesthetic and the Free Play of the Imagination

logic

aesthetic

Phenoumenallogic

aesthetic

Phenoumenallogic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

Phenoumenallogic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

The analytic + the aesthetic constitutes an object. Both

are needed, neither by itself is enough.

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Part of the concept of

an object is that it is a

thing in itself— a Ding

an Sich that exists

outside the

phenoumenal, in the

noumenal

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Noumenal

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Noumenal

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Noumenal

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

In this technical sense

judgements about

beauty are intuitive,

aesthetic, and non-

conceptual

Noumenal

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Noumenal

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuitionJudgements about

facts, by contrast, are

conceptual

Noumenal

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Such judgements are

objective in that they

have four conceptual

vectors: quality,

quantity, relation, and

modality

Noumenal

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Noumenal

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Judgements about

beauty have

analogous vectors but

without conceptual or

objective grounding

Noumenal

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Noumenal

Definition of the Beautiful derived from

the First Moment: Taste is the faculty

of estimating an object or a mode of

representation by means of a delight or

aversion apart from any interest. The

object of such a delight is called

beautiful.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

The judgement of taste is

aesthetic.

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

concept

intuition

Noumenal

In order to distinguish whether anything is

beautiful or not, we refer the

representation, not by the understanding

to the object for cognition, but by the

imagination (perhaps in conjunction with

the understanding) to the subject and its

feeling of pleasure or pain.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

The judgement of taste is

aesthetic.

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

existence

intuition

NoumenalWe wish only to know if this mere

representation of the object is

accompanied in me with satisfaction,

however indifferent I may be as regards

the existence of the object of this

representation. We easily see that, in

saying it is beautiful and in showing that I

have taste, I am concerned, not with that

in which I depend on the existence of the

object, but with that which I make out of

this representation in myself.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

The judgement of taste is

aesthetic.

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

representation

as sensation/

existence

feeling/

desire

NoumenalIf a determination of the feeling of

pleasure or pain is called sensation, this

expression signifies something quite

different from what I mean when I call the

representation of a thing sensation. For in

the latter case the representation is

referred to the object, in the former simply

to the subject.

The green color of the meadows belongs

to objective sensation; the pleasantness

of this belongs to subjective sensation.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

The judgement of taste is

aesthetic.

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

utility

feeling/

desire

Noumenal

That which pleases only as a means we

call good for something (the useful), but

that which pleases for itself is good in

itself. In both there is always involved the

concept of a purpose, and consequently

the relation of reason to the (at least

possible) volition, and thus a satisfaction

in the presence of an object or an action,

i.e. some kind of interest.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

The judgement of taste is

aesthetic.

you

object

is pleasing to

you

object

is good for

purpose

youobject

purpose

Pleasant

Good

Beautiful

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

…Noumenal

Taste is the faculty of estimating an object

or a mode of representation by means of

a delight or aversion apart from any

interest.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quality.

the beautiful is disinterested

beautiful

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

…Noumenal

Definition of the Beautiful drawn from the

Second Moment:

The beautiful is that which, apart from a

concept, pleases universally.

SECOND MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quantity.

The beautiful is that which, apart

from concepts, is represented as the

Object of a universal delight.

beautiful

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

…Noumenal

For since it does not rest on any

inclination of the subject (nor upon any

other premeditated interest), but since the

person who judges feels himself quite

free as regards the satisfaction which he

attaches to the object, he cannot find the

ground of this satisfaction in any private

conditions connected with his own

subject, and hence it must be regarded as

grounded on what he can presuppose in

every other person.

SECOND MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of

Quantity.

feeling/

desire

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

finalityNoumenal

Definition of the Beautiful drawn from the

Third Moment:

Beauty is the form of finality in an object,

so far as perceived in it apart from the

representation of an end.

THIRD MOMENT. Of Judgements of Taste: Moment of the

relation of the Ends brought under Review in such Judgements.

beautiful

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

finalityNoumenalthe causality of a concept in respect of its

object is its purposiveness (forma finalis).

Where then not merely the cognition of an

object but the object itself (its form and

existence) is thought as an effect only

possible by means of the concept of this

latter, there we think a purpose. The

representation of the effect is here the

determining ground of its cause and

precedes it.

THIRD MOMENT. Of Judgements of Taste: Moment of the

relation of the Ends brought under Review in such Judgements.

beautifulpurposiveness/

purpose

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

finalityNoumenal

Therefore it can be nothing else than the

subjective 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 by

which an object is given to us, so far as

we are conscious of it, which constitutes

the satisfaction that we without a concept

judge to be universally communicable;

and, consequently, this is the determining

ground of the judgment of taste.

THIRD MOMENT. Of Judgements of Taste: Moment of the

relation of the Ends brought under Review in such Judgements.

beautiful

purposiveness/

purposefeeling/

desire

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

finalityNoumenal

Objective purposiveness can only be

cognized by means of the reference of the

manifold to a definite purpose, and

therefore only through a concept. From

this alone it is plain that the beautiful, the

judging of which has at its basis a merely

formal purposiveness, i.e. a

purposiveness without purpose, is quite

independent of the concept of the good,

because the latter presupposes an

objective purposiveness, i.e. the

reference of the object to a definite

purpose. Objective purposiveness is

either external, i.e. the utility,

THIRD MOMENT. Of Judgements of Taste: Moment of the

relation of the Ends brought under Review in such Judgements.

beautiful

purposiveness/

purposefeeling/

desire

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

finalityNoumenal

an aesthetical judgment is unique of its

kind and gives absolutely no cognition of

the object. On the contrary, it simply

refers the representation, by which an

object is given, to the subject, and brings

to our notice no characteristic of the

object, but only the purposive form in the

determination of the representative

powers which are occupying themselves

therewith. The judgment is called

aesthetical just because its determining

ground is not a concept, but the feeling (of

internal sense) of that harmony in the play

of the mental powers, so far as it can be

felt in sensation.

THIRD MOMENT. Of Judgements of Taste: Moment of the

relation of the Ends brought under Review in such Judgements.

beautiful

purposiveness/

purposefeeling/

desire

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

…NoumenalThe judgment of taste requires the

agreement of everyone, and he who

describes anything as beautiful claims

that everyone ought to give his approval

to the object in question and also

describe it as beautiful. The ought in the

aesthetical judgment is therefore

pronounced in accordance with all the

data which are required for judging, and

yet is only conditioned.

FOURTH MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of the

Modality of the Delight in the Object.

beautiful/

ought

Phenoumenal

logic

aesthetic

concept

intuition

object

Ding an

Sich

…Noumenal

But such a principle could only be

regarded as a common sense, which is

essentially different from common

understanding which people sometimes

call common sense (sensus communis );

for the latter does not judge by feeling but

always by concepts, although ordinarily

only as by obscurely represented

principles. Hence it is only under the

presupposition that there is a common

sense (by which we do not understand an

external sense, but the effect resulting

from the free play of our cognitive

powers)—it is only under this

presupposition, I say, that the judgment of

taste can be laid down.

FOURTH MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of the

Modality of the Delight in the Object.

beautiful/

sensus communis

QualityQuantity

Relations Modality

Necessary

delightFree

play

Universal

delight

Aesthetics/

disinterested

GENERAL REMARK ON THE FIRST SECTION OF THE ANALYTIC

If we seek the result of the preceding analysis, we find that everything

runs up into this concept of taste—that it is a faculty for judging an

object in reference to the imagination’s free conformity to law.

REFLECTIONS

What aesthetic terms did people in the film use to describe the artwork? The

environment? What aesthetic terms would you use to describe the artwork or the

environment?

What aesthetic terms would you use to describe Running Fence, the film (including

the soundtrack and the plot)?

Look up some critic’s views on either the film or the artwork—how do they compare

with Hume’s Ideal Critic? Will either the film or the artwork stand the test of time?

Which aesthetic terms you’ve noted above fit Kant’s First Moment

(disinterestedness)? Which don’t?

Which aesthetic terms you’ve noted above fit Kant’s Third Moment (free play)?

Which don’t?