Nicholas J. Robinson
Philosophy of Art Essay #3
“In painting, in sculpture, indeed in all the visual arts, design is what is essential… emotion does not belong to beauty at all.” Why does Kant take this position? What problems arise from it?
In Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, the philosopher attempts to understand and define beauty. One of his bold positions is that "...in all the visual arts...emotion does not belong to beauty at all." Kant sets this conclusion up from the very beginning of his Critique of Judgment, making the anti emotion thesis an inevitable result from the previous premises. Kant fails to encapsulate all aspects of beauty in this premise, however, with one of his biggest blunders being to deny emotion the weight it deserves in the definition and construction of beauty.
Kant launches an early assault on emotion by setting up his soldiers in the beginning paragraphs of his work. In paragraph three Kant claims that aesthetic and physical pleasures are separate and aesthetic pleasure can not be physical. Over the next eleven paragraphs Kant continues to setup the difference between the physical and the aesthetic. According to Kant, physical pleasure is pleasure of the agreeable, in that it appeals to the senses and is liked because of how it feels. Further, physical tastes are personal since each person may have a different idea about what is physically good. This is not the case with aesthetic judgments, which are disinterested. Aesthetic judgment, which arises from experiencing art, has no need and is free from all demands of sense and morality. Aesthetic judgments, Kant posits, are enjoyed for their own sake, and not out of necessity. What does matter, Kant informs us, is that the experience is pleasing.
Paragraphs thirteen and fourteen contain the epic battle of emotion versus aesthetic. This two part war begins with Kant's claim that "All interest ruins a judgment of taste and deprives it of its impartiality"... (Kant, line 223). He continues his attack by claiming that if "...interest bases the purposiveness on the feeling of pleasure..." (Kant, line 223) the judgment is ruined. It is ruined when the piece of art "...gratifies or pains us" (Kant, line 223). Emotional response, then, is the ruination of art. Aesthetic judgment, in Kant's view, is suspect if its foundation is emotional, whether that emotion is pleasurable or painful. Kant goes as far as to state that "...any taste remains barbaric if its liking requires that charms and emotions be mingled in, let alone if it makes these the standard of its approval" (Kant, line 224). Emotion, according to Kant, has no domain in art because its essential nature, deriving as it does from physicality, makes it imperfect.
Kant does not, however, totally discount emotion. He states that emotion "... may be connected with a liking for the beautiful" but it does not influence the judgment of aesthetic taste (Kant, line 224). Kant remains steadfast in his belief that emotion is not a vital component. In his view, what is vital is design. Kant believes that what people find pleasing is form, hence the birth of formalism, another offense to the purity of aesthetic judgment. Kant proposes that "...only pure aesthetic judgments are properly judgments of taste" (Kant, line 224). Such purity can exist only in a realm uninfected by charm or emotion. Kant warns that art forms considered beautiful because of an associated emotion, such as a note from a violin, can not be pure because they are concerned with the agreeable. Art, and the appreciation of it, is pure when the beauty arises from the form.
Kant methodically prepared for his assault on emotion in the first twelve chapters, slowly building up his infantry of "facts" until he could launch a full blown attack. Yet there are problems with some of his claims, and chinks in the armor of his front line troops.
One of Kant's opening arguments is the assertion that aesthetic and physical pleasures are practically polar opposites. At first glance his claim appears to be at least somewhat logical; there are physical pleasures, and there are non-physical pleasures. They problem is this is not a binary issue. Kant offers two possibilities and claims that all experience must fall neatly into one of these two categories. In Kant's view, the experience of art is a black or white proposition. Art is either experienced in a physical, and therefore tarnished, fashion or in a non-physical, pure fashion. But what in life falls so neatly into separate compartments? Art is, after all, a human expression, and humans are notoriously neither neat nor pure.
Next, Kant states that the only kind of judgment that can define beauty, and thus art, is one that is disinterested, and non physical. There is no middle ground, nor any gray area. If that which is agreeable is involved, according to Kant, then the emotional aspects cloud judgments. Physical judgments are always interested and subject to personal opinion. That which is personal, according to Kant, can not be universal, and therefore can not be clearly defined. What is left when all that is emotional is burned away is form and only form.
Can form stand alone, as Kant would claim? Following Kant's logic, the claim seems logical. But in this equation, what claim can the artist, who tempers his emotion and transforms it into his work, make? If emotion is part of the artistic process, and if the artist seeks to evoke an emotional response from the viewer, can "judgment" be stripped of it? Kant would rebut that the emotion may be part of the pleasure, but it does not influence the judgment of aesthetic taste. Does it not, however, boil down to a personal opinion?
It appears that Kant does not have a disinterested perspective in his analysis. Even if one were to agree that emotion is physical, it does not follow that the physical does not have an influence. Kant's logic can be followed up until the point that he claims the physical has no place in aesthetic judgment. At that point, it is impossible to prove. The result is an opinion, of which there are two choices; emotion is involved, or it is not.
The unfortunate reality of Kant's Critique of Judgment is that at some point, it all comes down to opinion. It is not possible to prove beyond doubt that emotion is not involved in aesthetic judgment. The best course of action, therefore, is to propose that judgment be tempered by both choices. Perhaps combining one part emotion with one part form results in aesthetic judgment. Kant hoped to move art and the judgment of it out of the realm of the imperfect. In his attempt to defend form and design as essential and overriding components of the experience of art, Kant tried to move art beyond its most basic connection. Design is, after all, a totally human construction. Kant was successful in providing a framework in which to consider art, but he failed to convince me that the definition is correct and complete. As it seems in all matters of philosophy, however, in the end it comes down to what you believe. The great philosophers of our time can only present their thoughts on important matters for personal interpretation. Doesn't that mean that at the end of the day it is something emotional that sways us? The battle is within, and despite Kant's best effort, there may never be a cease fire.