what does Kant mean by a Pure Aesthetic judgement?

What Does Kant Mean by Pure Aesthetic Judgment

The philosophical works of Immanuel Kant contain ideas related to aesthetic judgment that have greatly , though with varying degrees of subtly , influenced art historians and artists (Cheetham 1998 : 6 . Kant describes aesthetic judgment as a higher faculty ' something innate and universal (Kant as cited in Cheetham 1998 : 8 , Lyas 1997 : 33 . While this view of aesthetic judgment , or taste , has been critiqued as absolutist and Eurocentric , it has also been incorporated widely into theoretical discussions regarding the value of art (Kant 1952 : 206

Davies 2006 : 71 , Cheetham 1998 : 7 . The complex ideas involved in Immanuel Kant 's vision of aesthetic judgment must be positioned within the context of his work . The ideas of Kant have influenced many artists , and art historians and theorists have debated the validity relevance and utility of his ideas extensively

In to understand what Kant means by pure aesthetic judgment the meaning of his terms a priori and a posteriori must be established The term a priori refers to a method of attaining knowledge without the use of experience , establishing transcendental and logical truths (Palmquist n .d . In contrast , a posteriori refers to the attainment of knowledge through experience in to establish empirical and hypothetical truths (Palmquist n .d . For Kant , the term aesthetic relates to sensory perception , which interacts with a system of judgment that is a priori (Kant 1952 : 173-174 , Palmquist n .d , Burnham 2004 Because this judgment is a priori , or prior to ' experience , aesthetic judgment is considered by Kant to be pure ' a higher faculty independent from sense perception (Kant 1952 : 208-209 , Cheetham 1998 : 8 Burnham 2004

Kant defines realms of perception related to aesthetic judgment as empirical and transcendental . Empirical refers to perception through experience , while transcendental refers to a type of knowledge that is synthetic , or based on intuition (Lyas 1997 : 33 , Palmquist n .d Transcendental knowledge is connected directly to the concept of a priori it is beyond ordinary experience (Cheetham 1998 : 10 , Burnham 2004 . While an item of synthetic knowledge is established through intuition , an analytic item or statement is considered true as it conforms to logical laws (Cheetham 1998 : 8 , Palmquist n .d . Kantian distinctions discussed thus far can be organized as dichotomous sets including a priori /a posteriori , empirical /transcendental , pure /impure and analytic /synthetic

These distinctions were important in the discussion of early Cubism (Cheetham 1998 : 8 . In the early twentieth century , ideas derived from the distinction between analytic and synthetic , and Kant 's concepts of the noumenal , or thing-in-itself ' disinterestedness , and formal autonomy were used to conceptualize Cubism (Figure 1 , Cheetham 1998 : 8 Noumenon is the name given to an object that is transcendent in nature as according to Kant , the thing-in-itself ' is unknowable (Palmquist n .d . Phenomenon , in contrast , refers to an object that is knowable empirically (Palmquist n .d

In the nineteenth century , the idea of the sublime , found in Critique of Judgment , became important to romantic landscape painting (Figure 2 Cheetham...