The Critique of Judgement [103]
antinomy incident to the employment of judgement in conformity with the demand of reason, and the solution of it here given, we may say that to avoid facing it there are but the following alternatives. It is open to us to deny that any a priori principle lies at the basis of the aesthetic judgement of taste, with the result that all claim to the necessity of a universal consensus of opinion is an idle and empty delusion, and that a judgement of taste only deserves to be considered to this extent correct, that it so happens that a number share the same opinion, and even this, not, in truth, because an a priori principle is presumed to lie at the back of this agreement, but rather (as with the taste of the palate) because of the contingently resembling organization of the individuals. Or else, in the alternative, we should have to suppose that the judgement of taste is in fact a disguised judgement of reason on the perfection discovered in a thing and the reference of the manifold in it to an end, and that it is consequently only called aesthetic on account of the confusion that here besets our reflection, although fundamentally it is teleological. In this latter case the solution of the antinomy with the assistance of transcendental ideas might be declared otiose and nugatory, and the above laws of taste thus reconciled with the objects of sense, not as mere phenomena, but even as things-in-themselves. How unsatisfactory both of those alternatives alike are as a means of escape has been shown in several places in our exposition of judgements of taste. If, however, our deduction is at least credited with having been worked out on correct lines, even though it may not have been sufficiently clear in all its details, three ideas then stand out in evidence. Firstly, there is the supersensible in general, without further determination, as substrate of nature; secondly, this same supersensible as principle of the subjective finality of nature for our cognitive faculties; thirdly, the same supersensible again, as principle of the ends of freedom, and principle of the common accord of these ends with freedom in the moral sphere.
SS 58. The idealism of the finality alike of nature and of art, as the unique principle of the aesthetic judgement.
The principle of taste may, to begin with, be placed on either of two footings. For taste may be said invariably to judge on empirical grounds of determination and such, therefore, as are only given a posteriori through sense, or else it may be allowed to judge on an a priori ground. The former would be the empiricism of the critique of taste, the latter its rationalism. The first would obliterate the distinction that marks off the object of our delight from the agreeable; the second, supposing the judgement rested upon determinate concepts, would obliterate its distinction from the good. In this way beauty would have its locus standi in the world completely denied, and nothing but the dignity of a separate name, betokening, maybe, a certain blend of both the above-named kinds of delight, would be left in its stead. But we have shown the existence of grounds of delight which are a priori, and which therefore, can consist with the principle of rationalism, and which are yet incapable of being grasped by definite concepts. As against the above, we may say that the rationalism of the principle of taste may take the form either of the realism of finality or of its idealism. Now, as a judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement, and as beauty is not a property of the object considered in its own account, the rationalism of the principle of taste can never be placed in the fact that the finality in this judgement is regarded in thought as objective. In other words, the judgement is not directed theoretically, nor, therefore, logically, either (no matter if only in a confused estimate), to the perfection of the object, but only aesthetically to the harmonizing of its representation in the imagination with the essential principles of judgement generally
SS 58. The idealism of the finality alike of nature and of art, as the unique principle of the aesthetic judgement.
The principle of taste may, to begin with, be placed on either of two footings. For taste may be said invariably to judge on empirical grounds of determination and such, therefore, as are only given a posteriori through sense, or else it may be allowed to judge on an a priori ground. The former would be the empiricism of the critique of taste, the latter its rationalism. The first would obliterate the distinction that marks off the object of our delight from the agreeable; the second, supposing the judgement rested upon determinate concepts, would obliterate its distinction from the good. In this way beauty would have its locus standi in the world completely denied, and nothing but the dignity of a separate name, betokening, maybe, a certain blend of both the above-named kinds of delight, would be left in its stead. But we have shown the existence of grounds of delight which are a priori, and which therefore, can consist with the principle of rationalism, and which are yet incapable of being grasped by definite concepts. As against the above, we may say that the rationalism of the principle of taste may take the form either of the realism of finality or of its idealism. Now, as a judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement, and as beauty is not a property of the object considered in its own account, the rationalism of the principle of taste can never be placed in the fact that the finality in this judgement is regarded in thought as objective. In other words, the judgement is not directed theoretically, nor, therefore, logically, either (no matter if only in a confused estimate), to the perfection of the object, but only aesthetically to the harmonizing of its representation in the imagination with the essential principles of judgement generally