Here we pass to the consideration of art, for in our judgments of beauty
Kant holds that we similarly disregard the relation of the beautiful
object to any particular purpose, and seem to be concerned with general
purposiveness. The judgment of beauty is, for Kant, the supreme act of
the faculty of judgment. It is reflection on an individual for its own
sake, without attempting to fit it to our desires or see it as an
instance of our concepts or rules. Kant therefore proceeds to examine
our judgments of beauty, which show how reflection on individual objects
may display general rules, and then proceeds, in the last part of the
_Critique_, to discuss the part played by the concept of purposiveness
in our understanding of nature.
It would seem at first sight that Kant is not interested in art for its
own sake, but for the light which it throws upon the nature of our
intellectual faculties. Nevertheless he is careful to insist on the
distinction between artistic and scientific judgments. The judgment of
beauty, he insists, is free, is not determined by a concept. We are not
concerned, in such judgments, with asking what an object is. In so far
as, in our appreciation of beauty, we bring in such considerations we
are wrong. He therefore rules out any theory that beauty is concerned
with faithful representation. Beauty consists in the form of an object,
and in nothing else. The judgment of beauty, besides being free, is
also disinterested. The relation of the beautiful object to our
purposes is irrelevant to its beauty. The judgment of beauty cannot,
therefore, be determined by rules of any kind. It is always individual
and immediate, and the immediate feeling of beauty counts for more than
any rules or canons of taste. Kant therefore vindicates art as
independent of either science or morality. Yet, once we realise its
independence, the nature of art throws light upon both science and
morality; for the judgment of beauty, although free and not determined
by concepts, claims universal validity. We might put Kant’s point in
another way by saying that art is significant, and yet is not
significant of anything _in particular_. Its meaning cannot be reduced
to scientific statement nor abstracted from its form, and yet art has
meaning. Kant finds the explanation of the fact that the judgment of
beauty is free, and yet claims universal validity, in the suggestion
that a beautiful object is one the contemplation of which arouses and
enlivens the two faculties of the intelligence, the imagination and the
understanding, in their proper proportion or harmony. All knowledge
needs imagination, the power of seeing resemblances and differences in
objects, and understanding which by concepts gives unity and rules to
the imagination. In science the imagination is subordinate to the
understanding, for the aim of science is definiteness and precision. In
art the imagination is free, and yet art is not the mere seeing of