The "Aesthetic Idea"

Paper Summary:

In Kant's "Critique of Judgment," he expressed his thoughts on judging something as beautiful. Kant believed that an object should not be brought under a concept. For example, if a flower is considered beautiful, it is not a pure beauty since it is part of a basic judgment that it is a flower. The paper shows that Kant asserted that part of the miracle of nature is that it should be so well colored and formed, and in thinking of it as beautiful, individuals think of their interests and their luck in living in such a world. For something to be purely beautiful, according to Kant, it should be designed in such a way that cognition gives way to imagination.

From the Paper:

"According to Kant, while ones taste cannot describe beauty on its own, it is still useful in finding beauty. Kant observed that within any discussion of aesthetics, there is a general agreement of taste on what is beautiful and what is not. For example, a group of people may agree that orchids are beautiful. However, Kant asserts that this agreement on beauty is not a universal. However, he states, it is still a useful indicator of a universal beauty as it is not based on individual taste.
When the judgment is no longer dependent upon subjectivity, it shifts to include a collective reason. However, Kant clearly states that while this shift leads toward a definition of beauty, leaning too far towards the cognitive can be as misleading as finding beauty as being too subjective."

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