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In the third of his great Critiques, Kant examines two kinds of judgement that seem to fall between knowledge and morality. The first is aesthetic: when we…
In the third of his great Critiques, Kant examines two kinds of judgement that seem to fall between knowledge and morality. The first is aesthetic: when we call something beautiful we expect everyone to agree, although we cannot prove it by concepts, and beauty pleases us without any interest in possessing it; he also analyses the sublime, the feeling of awe before vast mountains or storms. The second is our judgement of living things and of nature as if it had purposes, which science cannot prove but cannot do without.
Context and significance
Published in 1790, the book completes Kant's critical system, founded modern aesthetics and deeply influenced the Romantic poets and philosophers. This translation is by J. H. Bernard. Read first his Critique of Practical Reason, and see Kant's life.
About the author
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) spent his whole life in and around Königsberg in East Prussia, where he taught at the university for decades and kept such regular habits that, according to legend, neighbours set their clocks by his afternoon walk. He was fifty-seven when he published the Critique of Pure Reason, which changed philosophy.
Answering David Hume, who he said woke him from his dogmatic slumber, Kant asked what we can know, what we ought to do and what we may hope, and gave the world the categorical imperative and the motto of the Enlightenment, 'Dare to know'. His short essay Perpetual Peace is his most accessible work.