Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:23:20.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Kant’s Theory of the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure (II)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2024

Alexander Rueger
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Get access

Summary

In this chapter I present my reconstruction of Kant’s theory in more detail. One important aspect is Kant’s insistence that the feeling of pleasure is not to be understood as a sensation, occasioned or caused by the representation of an object and separate from the sensations that are involved in the representation. I analyze Kant’s often neglected argument for this claim in § 3 of the Critique and conclude that his view is best understood as an ‘attitudinal’ theory: if a representation satisfies the a priori principle or interest of a faculty, we adopt an attitude of preferring or desiring to have that representation in our mind; equivalently, we say that the representation is purposive for the faculty. In this way the transcendental definition of pleasure, which characterizes the feeling as the tendency of a representation to be maintained in the mind, and the theory of pleasure as interest satisfaction are combined.

Type
Chapter
Information
Kant on Pleasure and Judgment
A Developmental and Interpretive Account
, pp. 62 - 84
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

Available formats
×

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.

Available formats
×