Introduction
In Kant’s analysis of aesthetic judgment, he claims aesthetic judgments can be divided into two kinds: empirical and pure (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §14). The aesthetic judgments are grounded on the feeling of Subject (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §17). It is the pure aesthetic judgment that can judge beauty. The reason behind why pure aesthetic judgment can judge beauty can be found in his first two moments (key properties) of beauty: disinterested and universally subjective (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §1-§9). Here the discussion will focus on his third moment of beauty — the relation between beauty and the end. He uses the term “judgment of taste” to describe the judgment that pronounces beauty. So, I might use “judgment of taste” and “judging beauty” interchangeably.
Form of finality
Kant says the form of finality is the only criteria of judging beauty (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §11). So, it is important to understand what the form of finality is. Kant defines finality as a concept coupled with causality, where finality is a property of the Object, and causality is a property of the concept that can be identified as the cause of the Object (Kearney 2001, vol. 12).
In terms of his claim of “a concept being the cause of an object”, my understanding is that
1) In most cases, before we create anything, we first have a concept of it. For example, you cannot create a chair without knowing a chair is something that allows people to sit and rest. The concept of a chair must exist in our mind before the object of a chair actually exists.
2) We understand all objects via concepts and there seems to be no way that an object can be available to our consciousness without a concept, although this statement is arguable.
Kant then extracts the concept of finality from its origin — pairs of concepts and objects — and claims that finality can exist without an object caused by a concept, where the object is called an end by him. My understanding of “finality without an end” is that things are spatially and temporally getting to somewhere or becoming something that is not defined. So, “finality without an end” does not have any pre-assumed concepts. The so-called “finality without an end” lays a foundation for the future definition of free beauty. One thing to note here is that although finality without an end doesn’t have an end, which could be an object or state of mind or an action, it can be presented to us via an object or an action. The presentation here is not direct, rather, it leads or guides us to finality.
The term “finality without an end” might mislead people into thinking beauty must not have an end. However, whether finality has an end or not is not the key to the judgment of taste. It is only the form of finality that is the determining ground of judgment of taste (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §11).
Allen Wood did a good job explaining the form of finality: the shapes, regularities, symmetries, contrasts and their development through time make something beautiful in terms of a purposive/final relation or coherence, for example, the notes in a melody, words in a poem, the composition of a painting. These are the “form of finality/purposiveness” and they are grasped by us without any “concepts specifying a determinate end” (Wood 2005, 153–59).
Kant’s claims of color and emotions in beauty
Kant dismisses color in beauty because he thinks the color only makes the form clearer and only adds charm to the beauty, which in fact impures the beauty of the form (Kearney 2001, vol. 12). This thesis doesn’t hold in my experience.
Let’s take a look at Rothko’s paintings. They are just blocks of colors, but viewers can always feel something from them and in my personal experience, those feelings could be pleasant, or they could be upset or angry. In Kant’s words, it is the compositions, for example the size of the color blocks and their relative positions, that constitute the form of finality.
However, if we wipe out all the colors and make his painting black-and-white, the feeling it conveys will disappear or change dramatically. So, we could argue that, in opposition to Kant, it is the composition and the color together that create the form of finality, not just the composition, although the color does have an agreeable property, and can gratify our senses. The same can apply to the tones of instruments. The same piece of music, the same melody, can convey different feelings via different instruments.
Interestingly, I found Kant himself also said “… color and tone would not be mere sensation” (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §14), which somehow contradicts his own claim discussed above.
Also, I disagree with the argument that only simple colors are regarded as beautiful. Kant’s argument is that only simple colors are pure, and the purity belongs merely to the form (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §14), so they are beautiful because they are pure.
If by the simple colors he meant primary colors, the purity of simple color should be “a priori” since our cognition is only capable of recognizing colors constituted with the three primary colors. However, purity or “a priori” doesn’t automatically result in beautiful, and pure doesn’t mean it definitely pleases human beings. The problem here is that, the ground of judging beauty is the form, but it doesn’t mean anything that is formal is beautiful.
What’s more, why cannot composite colors be a priori? Using the primary colors in light as an example (there are other sets of primary colors in pigment or painting) — blue, red and green — the color orange is not a simple color but the cheerfulness and warmness it brings to human beings are the same. That is not something we learn as a posteriori since no one tells us that we should feel warm or cheerful when we see the color orange. The same as how knowledge comes to us (we know the world in a special, temporal, casual way and those properties are a priori), we feel the colors when we see them. The feelings of colors are triggered by experiencing the colors, not from experience.
Kant dismisses emotions in beauty too, but I am not sure if I agree with it or not.
His argument is that emotions are momentary (Kearney 2001, vol. 12, vol. 12). Does momentariness contradict beauty? Must beauty be permanent? I don’t have the answer right now, but I think the emotions and feelings are co-related and, given that the aesthetic judgments are completely grounded in the feeling of the subject, there might be some unavoidable relation between emotions and beauty. I didn’t have much time to investigate this further, so it’s still an open question for me.
Two types of beauty
Kant then divides beauty into free beauty and dependent beauty. Free beauty does not presuppose any concepts of what the object should be whereas dependent beauty does (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §16). Regarding the term “finality without an end”, it is free beauty that has finality without an end, but he does not explicitly say, at least I did not find, that dependent beauty has an end or not, although I think dependent beauty may have an end since it does presuppose concepts.
Kant did not explicitly say whether free beauty is superior to dependent beauty although he spent larger chunks of the texts on free beauty and relates dependent beauty to the unavoidable disputes we have about beauty (Kearney 2001, 12: Kant, §16). No matter what, I disagree that dependent beauty is inferior.
I originally thought the free beauty and dependent beauty is a pair of concepts that is related to the energizing beauty and melting beauty that Schiller discusses (Moland 2017) but it turns out that both energizing beauty and melting beauty have presupposed concepts.
If we take this perspective that energizing beauty and melting beauty are different kinds of dependent beauty, we will get to the conclusion that dependent beauty will lead us to the freedom to choose between rationality and sensation, since energizing beauty and melting beauty can do so (Moland 2017).
I have experienced the feeling of free mind from energizing beauty, when viewing Baroque artworks such as David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio, and David by Bernini. The feeling they express eases my feeling of emptiness and makes me feel free with peace of mind. Even for people, who unlike me, love more rational artworks, there is a concept of perfection in the rational artworks, which is melting beauty, and they may bring emotional people to freedom in a different way.
So, dependent beauty is not inferior to free beauty, and they are not in a hierarchy or opposite positions either.
My first impression of his definition of free beauty reminds me of Lyotard’s “unpresentable”. Although Leotard uses “unpresentable” to describe the Sublime, the idea behind it looks similar to free beauty — allusions to the conceivable, which cannot be presented (Kearney 2001, 12:363–70). To me, the concept “finality without an end” is very similar to “allusions of unpresentable conceivable” because both don’t have a concept that specifies an end.
However, if we review those two terms in their own contexts, the conclusion seems to be the opposite. Lyotard demands the unpresentable in postmodern art for humanity and differences against totality, which is the opposite of free beauty, because free beauty is completely subjectively universal and aligned with totality.
Is there real free beauty that can give us totality in aesthetic? I am leaning towards yes, since there are some forms that can please human beings in different cultures. For example, it’s not rare that people can appreciate songs without knowing the meaning of the lyrics.
Bibliography
Kearney, Richard. 2001. Continental Aesthetics. Vol. 12. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies 12. Malden, Mass. [u.a.]: Blackwell.
Moland, Lydia L. 2017. “Friedrich Schiller.” Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schiller/.
Wood, Allen. 2005. Kant. Blackwell Pub.
