The Critique of Judgement [73]
We may say: The first of these is the maxim of understanding, the second that of judgement, the third of that reason.
*We readily see that enlightenment, while easy, no doubt, in thesi, in hypothesis is difficult and slow of realization. For not to be passive with one's reason, but always to be self-legislative, is doubtless quite an easy matter for a man who only desires to be adapted to his essential end, and does not seek to know what is beyond his understanding. But as the tendency in the latter direction is hardly avoidable, and others are always coming and promising with full assurance that they are able to satisfy one's curiosity, it must be very difficult to preserve or restore in the mind (and particularly in the public mind) that merely negative attitude (which constitutes enlightenment proper).
I resume the thread of the discussion interrupted by the above digression, and I say that taste can with more justice be called a sensus communis than can sound understanding; and that the aesthetic, rather than the intellectual, judgement can bear the name of a public sense,* i.e., taking it that we are prepared to use the word sense of an effect that mere reflection has upon the mind; for then by sense we mean the feeling of pleasure. We might even define taste as the faculty of estimating what makes our feeling in a given representation universally communicable without the mediation of a concept.
*Taste may be designated a sensus communis aestheticus, common human understanding a sensus communis logicus.
The aptitude of men for communicating their thoughts requires, also, a relation between the imagination and the understanding, in order to connect intuitions with concepts, and concepts, in turn, with intuitions, which both unite in cognition. But there the agreement of both mental powers is according to law, and under the constraint of definite concepts. Only when the imagination in its freedom stirs the understanding, and the understanding apart from concepts puts the imagination into regular play, does the representation communicate itself not as thought, but as an internal feeling of a final state of the mind. Taste is, therefore, the faculty of forming an a priori estimate of the communicability of the feeling that, without the mediation of a concept, are connected with a given representation. Supposing, now, that we could assume that the mere universal communicability of our feeling must of itself carry with it an interest for us (an assumption, however, which we are not entitled to draw as a conclusion from the character of a merely reflective judgement), we should then be in a position to explain how the feeling in the judgement of taste comes to be exacted from everyone as a sort of duty.
SS 41. The empirical interest in the beautiful.
Abundant proof bas been given above to show that the judgement of taste by which something is declared beautiful must have no interest as its determining ground. But it does not follow from this that, after it has once been posited as a pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter into combination with it. This combination, however, can never be anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say, first of all be represented in conjunction with something else, if the delight attending the mere reflection upon an object is to admit of having further conjoined with it a pleasure in the real existence of the object (as that wherein all interest consists). For the saying, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia,* which is applied to cognitive judgements, holds good here in the case of aesthetic judgements. Now this "something else" may be something empirical, such as an inclination proper to the nature of human beings, or it may be something intellectual, as a property of the will whereby it admits of rational determination a priori. Both of these involve a delight in the existence of the object, and so can lay the foundation for an interest in what has already pleased of itself and without regard to any interest whatsoever.
*["From
*We readily see that enlightenment, while easy, no doubt, in thesi, in hypothesis is difficult and slow of realization. For not to be passive with one's reason, but always to be self-legislative, is doubtless quite an easy matter for a man who only desires to be adapted to his essential end, and does not seek to know what is beyond his understanding. But as the tendency in the latter direction is hardly avoidable, and others are always coming and promising with full assurance that they are able to satisfy one's curiosity, it must be very difficult to preserve or restore in the mind (and particularly in the public mind) that merely negative attitude (which constitutes enlightenment proper).
I resume the thread of the discussion interrupted by the above digression, and I say that taste can with more justice be called a sensus communis than can sound understanding; and that the aesthetic, rather than the intellectual, judgement can bear the name of a public sense,* i.e., taking it that we are prepared to use the word sense of an effect that mere reflection has upon the mind; for then by sense we mean the feeling of pleasure. We might even define taste as the faculty of estimating what makes our feeling in a given representation universally communicable without the mediation of a concept.
*Taste may be designated a sensus communis aestheticus, common human understanding a sensus communis logicus.
The aptitude of men for communicating their thoughts requires, also, a relation between the imagination and the understanding, in order to connect intuitions with concepts, and concepts, in turn, with intuitions, which both unite in cognition. But there the agreement of both mental powers is according to law, and under the constraint of definite concepts. Only when the imagination in its freedom stirs the understanding, and the understanding apart from concepts puts the imagination into regular play, does the representation communicate itself not as thought, but as an internal feeling of a final state of the mind. Taste is, therefore, the faculty of forming an a priori estimate of the communicability of the feeling that, without the mediation of a concept, are connected with a given representation. Supposing, now, that we could assume that the mere universal communicability of our feeling must of itself carry with it an interest for us (an assumption, however, which we are not entitled to draw as a conclusion from the character of a merely reflective judgement), we should then be in a position to explain how the feeling in the judgement of taste comes to be exacted from everyone as a sort of duty.
SS 41. The empirical interest in the beautiful.
Abundant proof bas been given above to show that the judgement of taste by which something is declared beautiful must have no interest as its determining ground. But it does not follow from this that, after it has once been posited as a pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter into combination with it. This combination, however, can never be anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say, first of all be represented in conjunction with something else, if the delight attending the mere reflection upon an object is to admit of having further conjoined with it a pleasure in the real existence of the object (as that wherein all interest consists). For the saying, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia,* which is applied to cognitive judgements, holds good here in the case of aesthetic judgements. Now this "something else" may be something empirical, such as an inclination proper to the nature of human beings, or it may be something intellectual, as a property of the will whereby it admits of rational determination a priori. Both of these involve a delight in the existence of the object, and so can lay the foundation for an interest in what has already pleased of itself and without regard to any interest whatsoever.
*["From