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Chapter 6 - Genius, Ugliness, and Nonsense

Kant on the Purity of the Ugly and the Failure of the Artist’s Power of Judgment

from Part II - Aesthetic Judgment and the “Moral Image”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2023

Lara Ostaric
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
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Summary

In this chapter, I argue that Kant’s conception of aesthetic judgment in the third Critique, a conception according to which aesthetic judgment has its own a priori principle, left open the possibility for a pure aesthetic judgment of ugliness. This judgment however could not arise in response to a quality in the object of nature, but instead could only be limited to works of art. More specifically, the origin of ugliness as a pure aesthetic category for Kant is epistemic, that is, in the failure of the artist’s power of judgment, a failure of the artist to find the appropriate form or concept for the manifold content of her imagination. In the third Critique, Kant calls these works of art “original nonsense.” I conclude that, once limited to works of art, pure judgments of ugliness cannot represent a threat to Kant’s more general project of moral teleology.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Genius, Ugliness, and Nonsense
  • Lara Ostaric, Temple University, Philadelphia
  • Book: The <i>Critique of Judgment</i> and the Unity of Kant's Critical System
  • Online publication: 15 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009336833.009
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  • Genius, Ugliness, and Nonsense
  • Lara Ostaric, Temple University, Philadelphia
  • Book: The <i>Critique of Judgment</i> and the Unity of Kant's Critical System
  • Online publication: 15 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009336833.009
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Genius, Ugliness, and Nonsense
  • Lara Ostaric, Temple University, Philadelphia
  • Book: The <i>Critique of Judgment</i> and the Unity of Kant's Critical System
  • Online publication: 15 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009336833.009
Available formats
×