Chapter 6: Beauty and Design Summary and Analysis

The topic of the third "Critique", the "Critique of Judgment," is considered with providing a transcendental groundwork for aesthetics. Though the work is disorganized and unclear and the arguments are generally weak, the conclusions Kant drew have had an enormous influence on the study of aesthetics ever since. The notion of beauty represents a difficulty for Kant, for he wants to classify it along with the judgments of understanding and practical reason. However, it would seem that beauty differs from these faculties in the fact that it is subjective. It should be noted, though, that this subjectivity is not total. People tend to think of their aesthetic judgments as at least somewhat objective, and for that reason they look for a way to justify them to others. Kant explained this seeming paradox away by analyzing...