Kant on beauty and biology : an interpretation of the 'Critique of judgment' / Rachel Zuckert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zuckert, Rachel.

Series:

Modern European philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Kritik der Urteilskraft--English.

Kant, Immanuel.

Judgment (Aesthetics).

Physical Description:

xiii, 409 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

Kant's Critique of Judgment has often been interpreted by scholars as comprising separate treatments of three uneasily connected topics: beauty, biology, and empirical knowledge. Rachel Zuckert's book is the first to interpret the Critique as a unified argument concerning all three domains. She argues that, on Kant's view, human beings demonstrate a distinctive cognitive ability in appreciating beauty and understanding organic life: an ability to anticipate a whole that we do not completely understand according to preconceived categories. This ability is necessary, moreover, for human beings to gain knowledge of nature in its empirical character as it is, not as we might assume it to be. Her wide-ranging and original study will be valuable for readers in all areas of Kant's philosophy.

Contents:

1 The problem: The unity of the diverse 23

2 Reflective judgment and its principle: Preliminary remarks 64

Part I Teleological judgment 87

3 The analytic of teleological judgment: Purposive unity is the "highest formal unity" 89

4 A merely subjective principle: Time and the "peculiarities" of our intellects 130

Part II Aesthetic judgment 171

5 Beautiful objects: Subjectively purposive form 181

6 Aesthetic pleasure: The feeling of subjective, projective temporality 231

7 The free harmony of the faculties: Purposiveness as the principle of aesthetic Beurteilung 279

8 The justification of aesthetic judgment: Purposiveness as the principle of reflective judging 321.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780521865890

0521865891

OCLC:

137222326