For millennia, people have debated merit of various artworks, whether it be criticism of Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgement’ (1541) or Robert Mapplethorpe’s ‘The Perfect Moment’ (1989). For millennia, philosophers have sought to explain the source of this disagreement, as it seems something most would agree to be subjective, as ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’? Immanuel Kant has his own explanation for why what he calls ‘judgements of taste’ (judgements of beauty) create disagreement, where judgements of the agreeable (judgements of sensual pleasures) apparently do not create such conflict. He claims that judgements of taste are ‘subjectively universal’; that when one asserts something to be beautiful, one is asserting that everyone must derive pleasure from this thing.
One of the first key premises Kant establishes is that judgements of taste are not based upon properties; pleasure in beauty is derived from ‘intuitions’, not concepts. For example, to find beauty in a sharp knife would be to find beauty in the design of the knife; pleasure would arise from how well the knife is designed, not in the intuitions one attracts from looking at the knife. Beauty itself is not a property, as for it to be a property it would have to have an aligning concept; beauty is in perception alone. Because judgements of taste are based …show more content…
The example provided by Kant is that of a palace; if I asked someone if it were beautiful and they responded that they cannot find pleasure in it because they believe it is a waste of resources, this does not answer whether they find it beautiful, just that its existence is unpleasant to them. Consequently, to make a true judgement of taste, one must be ‘disinterested’, one must not derive their pleasure from their desire to see a thing
One of the first key premises Kant establishes is that judgements of taste are not based upon properties; pleasure in beauty is derived from ‘intuitions’, not concepts. For example, to find beauty in a sharp knife would be to find beauty in the design of the knife; pleasure would arise from how well the knife is designed, not in the intuitions one attracts from looking at the knife. Beauty itself is not a property, as for it to be a property it would have to have an aligning concept; beauty is in perception alone. Because judgements of taste are based …show more content…
The example provided by Kant is that of a palace; if I asked someone if it were beautiful and they responded that they cannot find pleasure in it because they believe it is a waste of resources, this does not answer whether they find it beautiful, just that its existence is unpleasant to them. Consequently, to make a true judgement of taste, one must be ‘disinterested’, one must not derive their pleasure from their desire to see a thing