Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant s Critical Philosophy This volume explores the relationship between Kant s aesthetic theory and his critical epistemology as articulated in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The essays, written for this volume, revise our understanding of core elements of Kant s epistemology, such as his notions of discursive understanding, experience, and objective judgment. They also demonstrate a rich grasp of Kant s critical epistemology that enables a deeper understanding of his aesthetics. Collectively, the essays reveal that Kant s critical project, and the dialectics of aesthetics and cognition within it, are still relevant to contemporary debates in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and the nature of experience and objectivity. The book also yields important lessons about the ineliminable yet problematic place of imagination, sensibility, and aesthetic experience in perception and cognition. Rebecca Kukla is an associate professor of philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa and has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University, The Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Victoria. The author of Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers Bodies, she has published articles on epistemology, aesthetics, eighteenth-century philosophy, philosophy of medicine, and bioethics, in Philosophical Studies, Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, Inquiry, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Hypatia, among other journals.
Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant s Critical Philosophy Edited by REBECCA KUKLA Carleton University
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521862011 c Cambridge University Press 2006 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2006 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Aesthetics and cognition in Kant s critical philosophy / edited by Rebecca Kukla. 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. isbn 0-521-86201-9 (hardcover) 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724 1804. 2. Aesthetics. 3. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Kukla, Rebecca, 1969 II. Title. b2799.a4a33 2006 111.85 092 dc22 2005023710 isbn-13 978-0-521-86201-1 hardback isbn-10 0-521-86201-9 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For André Kukla, Philosopher-King
Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments page ix xiii 1 Introduction: Placing the Aesthetic in Kant s Critical Epistemology 1 Rebecca Kukla part i: sensible particulars and discursive judgment 2 Thinking the Particular as Contained under the Universal 35 Hannah Ginsborg 3 The Necessity of Receptivity: Exploring a Unified Account of Kantian Sensibility and Understanding 61 Richard N. Manning 4 Acquaintance and Cognition 85 Mark Okrent part ii: the cognitive structure of aesthetic judgment 5 Dialogue: Paul Guyer and Henry Allison on Allison s Kant s Theory of Taste 111 Paul Guyer and Henry E. Allison 6 Intensive Magnitudes and the Normativity of Taste 138 Melissa Zinkin 7 The Harmony of the Faculties Revisited 162 Paul Guyer 8 Kant s Leading Thread in the Analytic of the Beautiful 194 Béatrice Longuenesse vii
viii Contents part iii: creativity, community, and reflective judgment 9 Reflection, Reflective Judgment, and Aesthetic Exemplarity 223 Rudolf A. Makkreel 10 Understanding Aestheticized 245 Kirk Pillow 11 Unearthing the Wonder: A Post-Kantian Paradigm in Kant s Critique of Judgment 266 John McCumber Bibliography 291 Index 297
Notes on Contributors Henry E. Allison is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis, and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, and Boston University. His books include Kant s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (Yale University Press 1983, revised and expanded 2004), Kant s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge University Press 1990), and Kant s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Cambridge University Press 2001), as well as other works on the history of philosophy. Hannah Ginsborg is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Role of Taste in Kant s Theory of Cognition (Garland 1990), and she has written various articles on Kant and on issues in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of mind. Paul Guyer is Florence R. C. Murray Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. His books published by Cambridge University Press include Kant and the Claims of Taste (1979, rev. 1997); Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (1987); Kant and the Experience of Freedom (1993); Kant on Freedom,Law,and Happiness (2000); and Values of Beauty: Historical Essays in Aesthetics (2005). He is also the author of Kant s System of Nature and Beauty (Oxford University Press 2005). He has edited the Cambridge Companion to Kant (1992), the Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy (2006), and other anthologies. He has also cotranslated Kant s Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of the Power of Judgment, and Notes and Fragments for the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, of which he is General Coeditor. His Kant, a survey of Kant s thought, will be published by Routledge in 2006. ix
x Notes on Contributors Rebecca Kukla is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers Bodies (Rowman and Littlefield 2005). Her articles on eighteenth-century philosophy, epistemology, and aesthetics have appeared in journals such as Inquiry and Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. She is currently completing a book manuscript coauthored with Mark Lance entitled Yo! vs. Lo! : Explorations in Pragmatism and Metaphysics. Béatrice Longuenesse is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. Her books include Hegel et la Critique de la Métaphysique (Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin 1981, expanded English version, Hegel s Critique of Metaphysics, in preparation with Cambridge University Press), Kant and the Capacity to Judge (Princeton University Press 1998), and Kant on the Human Standpoint (Cambridge University Press 2005). She has coedited Hegel: Notes et Fragments, Jena 1801 1804 (Aubier-Montaigne 1991) and is coediting, with Dan Garber, a volume entitled Kant and the Early Moderns to be published by Princeton University Press. Rudolf A. Makkreel is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. He is the author of Dilthey, Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton University Press 1975/1992) and Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the Critique of Judgment (Chicago University Press 1990) and coeditor of The Ethics of History (Northwestern University Press 2004) and several volumes of Dilthey s Selected Works (Princeton University Press 1989 2002). From 1983 to 1998 he was the editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. Richard N. Manning is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. His articles on early modern rationalism, epistemology, and aesthetics have appeared in books and journals including A Companion to Rationalism (Blackwell 2005), the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes (Oxford University Press 2002). He is completing a book manuscript entitled The Ontology of Interpretation. John McCumber is Professor of Germanic Languages at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Greek from the University of Toronto. His books include Poetic Interaction: Language Freedom Reason (University of Chicago Press 1989); The Company of Words: Hegel, Language and Systematic Philosophy (Northwestern University Press 1993), Metaphysics and Oppression (Indiana University Press 1999); Time in the Ditch:
Notes on Contributors xi American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era (Northwestern University Press 2000); and Reshaping Reason: Toward a New Philosophy (Indiana University Press 2005). Mark Okrent is Professor of Philosophy at Bates College. He is the author of Heidegger s Pragmatism: Understanding, Being, and the Critique of Metaphysics (Cornell University Press 1988), as well as articles on transcendental philosophy, pragmatism, and intentionality. Kirk Pillow is Associate Dean of the Faculty and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He is the author of Sublime Understanding: Aesthetic Reflection in Kant and Hegel (MIT Press 2000). Melissa Zinkin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Binghamton and codirector of the program in Philosophy, Literature, and Criticism. She is the author of articles on Kant, aesthetics, and critical theory, which have appeared in such journals as the European Journal of the History of Philosophy and the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. She recently finished a book manuscript entitled Degree, Intensity and Force: Kant s Ontology of Value.
Acknowledgments This book took several years and the kind and intelligent help of many people in order to come to fruition. My first debt is to the late Terence Moore, former philosophy editor at Cambridge University Press, who accepted my book proposal and helped shape the manuscript. His untimely death is a great loss for the scholarly world. And three cheers for Beatrice Rehl for ably taking up the project in his place. I offer my deep thanks to the contributing authors for letting me publish their wonderful work and for their patience with the project and especially to Richard Manning, who helped with every stage of the project, and did so with his usual immense philosophical insight and generosity. I owe an enormous dept to Timothy Brownlee for his tireless and exceptionally able work on the index and on manuscript corrections. Many thanks also to the students in my 2000 Kant seminar at Carleton University, especially Jamie Kelly, as well as to Amy Lund, John Reuscher, Timothy Rosenkoetter, Suma Rajiva, and Sergio Tenenbaum, for generous help and invaluable conversation and guidance. xiii