Kant’s Critique of Judgement: Lecture 2

1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:07,650
So today, we're going to continue with the critique of judgement,

2
00:00:07,650 --> 00:00:19,440
and in particular we're going to look at cance solution or explanation of the puzzle or the problematic feature of judgements of taste.

3
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:24,130
That was identified last week in The Analytic of the Beautiful.

4
00:00:24,130 --> 00:00:35,530
So remember, the strategy is that in the analytic certain features, the judgements of taste have are identified and least supposedly in the deduction.

5
00:00:35,530 --> 00:00:42,990
An explanation of how it's possible for them to have those apparently problematic features is given.

6
00:00:42,990 --> 00:00:50,130
As I say, it's just supposedly in this because material relevant to both of these projects is

7
00:00:50,130 --> 00:00:58,470
scattered throughout the critique in both sections entitled The Analytic and the Deduction.

8
00:00:58,470 --> 00:01:10,530
So the big problem or problematic feature of judgements of taste is what Kant describes as their subjective universality,

9
00:01:10,530 --> 00:01:16,210
or as he sometimes puts it, that subjective universalist validity,

10
00:01:16,210 --> 00:01:27,450
their subjective in his sense, in that they're not based on concepts and the perception of a property in the object,

11
00:01:27,450 --> 00:01:32,850
but rather they're based on some fact about the judge. Some feature of the judge.

12
00:01:32,850 --> 00:01:43,710
And in the case of judgements of taste, it's based on pleasure. And the points very much emphasised last week was that it's based only on pleasure.

13
00:01:43,710 --> 00:01:48,960
The pleasure itself is not based on concepts. The judgement is not based on concepts.

14
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:54,150
Judgement is based only on the pleasure. And the pleasure is a pleasure.

15
00:01:54,150 --> 00:02:04,470
Connected with an intuition of the object, which, remember in his vocabulary, is a sense perception of the object,

16
00:02:04,470 --> 00:02:13,380
which is a representation of a particular rather than a general representation, which is what a concept would be.

17
00:02:13,380 --> 00:02:23,400
So judgements of taste are subjective in this sense, and they also have this feature of universality.

18
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:39,440
And what that amounts to is that when you make a judgement of taste, you believe that everyone else ought to agree with you.

19
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:50,810
Universal in the sense of everyone ought to agree.

20
00:02:50,810 --> 00:02:59,750
And as we discussed at the end last time, he get he appears to give at least two reasons why judgements of taste have this feature.

21
00:02:59,750 --> 00:03:12,260
The first is that they're based on disinterested pleasure. And so it seems to you as if your pleasure in it doesn't result from some desire

22
00:03:12,260 --> 00:03:20,960
for the existence or non-existence of the object that might be unique to you.

23
00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:26,120
And second is this point that we argue over whether things are beautiful.

24
00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:32,330
So, as he puts it, we blame others who we just have bad taste.

25
00:03:32,330 --> 00:03:41,630
That implies that we think they ought to agree that everybody ought to agree.

26
00:03:41,630 --> 00:03:50,360
Now, as Kant clarifies in this first quotation on the handout, he says,

27
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:57,500
the assertion is not that everyone will fall in with our judgement, but rather that everyone ought to agree with it.

28
00:03:57,500 --> 00:04:06,860
Here I put forward my judgement of taste as an example of the judgement of common sense and a tribute to it on that account, exemplary validity.

29
00:04:06,860 --> 00:04:12,830
So that's important. It's not a prediction that everybody who looks at the object will agree with you.

30
00:04:12,830 --> 00:04:22,100
It's a claim that everybody ought to. And in fact, we persist in claiming this, Kant notes, even when we see that other people don't agree.

31
00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:30,620
That's the hope. That's what makes argument possible. We think everybody ought to agree, even though we see they don't.

32
00:04:30,620 --> 00:04:39,020
He thinks this is an interesting contrast of judgements of the agreeable in which even when we see everybody agrees that something's agreeable,

33
00:04:39,020 --> 00:04:42,530
we don't require that everybody ought to agree.

34
00:04:42,530 --> 00:04:50,810
So that he puts it in that somewhat paradoxical seeming way to bring to highlight this feature the judgements of taste.

35
00:04:50,810 --> 00:04:59,210
At one point we didn't mention last week is that Kant thinks this explains this feature of universality,

36
00:04:59,210 --> 00:05:07,400
explains why we talk as though beauty is a property of objects, even though it's not.

37
00:05:07,400 --> 00:05:14,290
So the word beautiful is an adjective, which at least normally is grammatically an adjective,

38
00:05:14,290 --> 00:05:22,460
which at least normally is used to attribute properties to objects in various ways.

39
00:05:22,460 --> 00:05:31,130
We speak as if beauty is the property of the object, and he thinks the reason for this is this feature of thinking.

40
00:05:31,130 --> 00:05:38,720
Everybody ought to agree because this is going to be very important as we go along.

41
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:47,000
When you judge that something has a property, you also think everybody ought to agree.

42
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:54,020
So if you're looking at an object and you judge that it is square, you also think everybody ought to agree.

43
00:05:54,020 --> 00:06:00,200
Everybody sees the object. That is odd to agree that the object is square.

44
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:05,660
So cognitive judgements and not just judgements of taste or whether sometimes self logical

45
00:06:05,660 --> 00:06:14,000
judgements also have this feature of expecting or believing everybody ought to agree.

46
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:20,390
And that he thinks it's that analogy in virtue of which we talk about beauty as if it's a property of objects,

47
00:06:20,390 --> 00:06:23,900
that what that's what makes that way of speaking appropriate,

48
00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:30,950
because there's that similarity between judgements of taste and judgements attributing a property to the object.

49
00:06:30,950 --> 00:06:39,530
Now, as an interesting aside here, Kant uses this also to defend a kind of formalism about beauty.

50
00:06:39,530 --> 00:06:47,840
So he thinks it follows from this that colours and tones can't be beautiful.

51
00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:53,840
They can only be agreeable. And he has a kind of a funny reason for this.

52
00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:59,910
He thinks it's because we can't be sure that everybody sees the same colours as we do.

53
00:06:59,910 --> 00:07:08,210
The colours look the same way to everybody. So this is a very venerable philosophical question.

54
00:07:08,210 --> 00:07:17,000
How do I know that when I see red, I have the same experience as you do when you see Red Cat?

55
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:21,260
Thanks. We can't be sure that we do have that same experience.

56
00:07:21,260 --> 00:07:35,310
And so if the redness gives me pleasure, I can't expect you to agree because I can't be sure that you're having the same experience of redness.

57
00:07:35,310 --> 00:07:44,100
So it's a funny worry to kind of insist on as a reason why you're not justified in judging colours to be beautiful.

58
00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:52,380
You can find them agreeable. That's no problem because you're not claiming with judgements to be agreeable that everyone ought to agree.

59
00:07:52,380 --> 00:07:56,580
And he also says that the purity of a colour can be beautiful.

60
00:07:56,580 --> 00:08:01,650
That's OK, because that's a formal feature of the colour.

61
00:08:01,650 --> 00:08:09,220
It's not the quality of redness, but the undifferentiated nature of the redness or the purity of the redness.

62
00:08:09,220 --> 00:08:13,800
And he thinks all colours, insofar as they're pure, are beautiful.

63
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:24,940
But it's not in virtue of the qualitative character of the colour, but rather in virtue of the purity.

64
00:08:24,940 --> 00:08:33,540
OK. So universality, very important and very puzzling because it seems difficult to explain how you could be

65
00:08:33,540 --> 00:08:41,070
justified going nearly on your own pleasure in believing that everybody ought to agree.

66
00:08:41,070 --> 00:08:48,060
So, for example, you can't be justified by having perceived beauty in the object.

67
00:08:48,060 --> 00:08:58,800
It's not like the judgement that a thing is square. It's not on that basis that you are justified in believing.

68
00:08:58,800 --> 00:09:05,400
Everybody ought to agree because beauty is not a property of the object and you can't be justified in believing.

69
00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:09,930
Everybody ought to agree by having a proof that the thing is beautiful.

70
00:09:09,930 --> 00:09:17,730
Obviously that would would do that would justify you in believing everybody ought to agree.

71
00:09:17,730 --> 00:09:22,240
But as we saw last week, judgements of taste not based on concepts.

72
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:29,160
And it follows from that, that you can't get a proof showing that something's beautiful.

73
00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:36,990
So that way of justifying the expectation of agreement is not available.

74
00:09:36,990 --> 00:09:45,930
And moreover, you don't make this claim based on evidence that the objects can please everyone.

75
00:09:45,930 --> 00:09:51,330
Empirical evidence, I should say. That's an important qualification.

76
00:09:51,330 --> 00:09:59,220
It's not as a result of checking doing a survey to see if the object pleases everyone.

77
00:09:59,220 --> 00:10:11,250
It's not on that basis that you make this claim that everyone ought to agree.

78
00:10:11,250 --> 00:10:15,630
And once again, we mentioned this last week that one reason why that's so.

79
00:10:15,630 --> 00:10:26,820
Is that that would also base your judgement on concepts, the concepts of being liked by others as one reason.

80
00:10:26,820 --> 00:10:35,960
So cance very typical of his approach to a lot of problems.

81
00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:45,350
Points out a number of features that seem to suggest that some phenomenon or some kind of judgement, some form of knowledge is not possible.

82
00:10:45,350 --> 00:10:55,190
And then he goes on to try and explain how, in fact, it is possible, despite these apparent obstacles to its possibility.

83
00:10:55,190 --> 00:11:04,280
And I think you can understand what he goes on to do as being based on an attempt to show that we are justified,

84
00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:11,930
though not empirically, in believing that everyone can take pleasure in an object that we judged to be beautiful.

85
00:11:11,930 --> 00:11:19,160
So remember, I said that the problematic feature was that we believe everybody ought to agree with our judgement.

86
00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:26,120
Well, connected with that is the belief that everybody can take pleasure in the object.

87
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:35,090
It's a well-known principle of cance mainly in his moral philosophy that if you ought to do something, then you're capable of doing it.

88
00:11:35,090 --> 00:11:40,280
So this is the principle sometimes summarised as ought implies can.

89
00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:48,650
So if you ought to agree with our judgement of taste, then we are committed to the claim that you're capable of great.

90
00:11:48,650 --> 00:11:57,890
Of agreeing with that judgement of taste.

91
00:11:57,890 --> 00:12:06,470
And if you are capable of agreeing with the judgement of taste, since judgements of taste are based on pleasure,

92
00:12:06,470 --> 00:12:21,110
we're also committed to the view that you are capable of taking pleasure in the object that we are taking pleasure in.

93
00:12:21,110 --> 00:12:28,990
And what he goes on to argue, in effect. Or when he goes on to explain,

94
00:12:28,990 --> 00:12:43,300
is how it's possible to be justified in believing that everybody else is capable of taking pleasure in the object that we are taking pleasure in.

95
00:12:43,300 --> 00:12:50,450
But once again, as I mentioned, if we're justified in believing everybody's capable of taking pleasure in the object,

96
00:12:50,450 --> 00:13:02,190
that can't be based on experience. We have to be to use the term I mentioned last week a priori,

97
00:13:02,190 --> 00:13:15,130
I justified in believing that everyone is capable of taking pleasure in the object that pleases us a priori justified.

98
00:13:15,130 --> 00:13:25,970
Remember, just means justified, but not based on experience.

99
00:13:25,970 --> 00:13:38,340
And I think the reason for this is to go back again to something I mentioned last week, that this is a claim about what is always the case.

100
00:13:38,340 --> 00:13:45,240
So, again, everyone can take pleasure in the object without exception.

101
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:53,400
The claim is not just so far as we've seen, everyone can take pleasure in the object.

102
00:13:53,400 --> 00:14:01,570
It's a claim that everyone, without exception, can. And one of the marks of a priori judgements, right.

103
00:14:01,570 --> 00:14:07,170
Prior knowledge is that they are in this sense about what is always the case.

104
00:14:07,170 --> 00:14:15,570
Without exception, they have to be a priori justified if they're justified at all.

105
00:14:15,570 --> 00:14:25,680
Because experience only tells you can't tell you what is the case without exception, because it is limited.

106
00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,770
So if we're justified at all in believing that everybody, without exception,

107
00:14:28,770 --> 00:14:35,850
can take pleasure in the object, we've got to be a priori justified in believing that.

108
00:14:35,850 --> 00:14:41,400
And since he likes to assimilate various different concepts,

109
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:47,080
he also thinks you can argue this on the grounds that there's an element of necessity to our judgement.

110
00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:51,660
The necessity comes in and the claim that everyone ought to agree.

111
00:14:51,660 --> 00:14:58,740
This is again typical of Kant of using the very same word as applies to mathematical necessity.

112
00:14:58,740 --> 00:15:05,490
So the claim the two plus two must must equal four to the notion of an obligation or a duty.

113
00:15:05,490 --> 00:15:12,540
He does this in his ethics as well, where it compares moral laws to laws of nature.

114
00:15:12,540 --> 00:15:22,980
Typical of him. But he thinks that the key point here for this is that because necessity is involved in the sense of we ought to agree.

115
00:15:22,980 --> 00:15:27,420
Experience can't justify that belief that everybody ought to agree,

116
00:15:27,420 --> 00:15:32,580
because experience only tells us about what is the case, not about what must be the case.

117
00:15:32,580 --> 00:15:37,180
But here, the must, as I say, is a moral must.

118
00:15:37,180 --> 00:15:46,290
Well, not the case of agreement, but it's certainly not a natural or mathematical must.

119
00:15:46,290 --> 00:15:55,920
OK, so I've summarised this at the bottom there by saying Point D.

120
00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:59,610
We can be justified in believing everyone ought to agree with our judgement of taste.

121
00:15:59,610 --> 00:16:07,470
If and only if we can be a priori justified in believing everyone can take pleasure in the object.

122
00:16:07,470 --> 00:16:16,410
So the question is going to be, how can we be a priori justified in believing everyone can take pleasure in the object?

123
00:16:16,410 --> 00:16:24,780
And this is in quotation number three, the way Kant puts it. It's from Section 36 of the critique of judgement.

124
00:16:24,780 --> 00:16:33,870
How is the judgement possible, which going nearly upon the individual's own feeling of pleasure and an object independent of the concept of it.

125
00:16:33,870 --> 00:16:40,020
Judges this as a pleasure attached to the representation of the same object in every other individual.

126
00:16:40,020 --> 00:16:48,960
And so a priori, i.e. without being allowed to wait and see if other people will be of the same mind.

127
00:16:48,960 --> 00:17:00,430
This is the principle question that the critique of judgement is going to try and answer.

128
00:17:00,430 --> 00:17:05,650
OK, so his answer is incredibly obscure.

129
00:17:05,650 --> 00:17:13,000
And a lot of people have a great deal of difficulty making sense of what he says.

130
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:17,830
I'm going to present one reading. I don't know if it's right.

131
00:17:17,830 --> 00:17:24,250
And it's worth taking a look at that of the secondary literature on this to get a sense of.

132
00:17:24,250 --> 00:17:30,910
Well, A, the difficulty that even the very best cat scholars have in figuring out what he means, but B,

133
00:17:30,910 --> 00:17:46,010
also the diversity of interpretations offered major work on Kentz Theory of Taste is by Paul Guire, called Kant and the claims of Taste.

134
00:17:46,010 --> 00:17:52,690
Another major work is by Henry Allicin called Cance Theory of Taste.

135
00:17:52,690 --> 00:18:03,250
Gaia has also written an interesting paper on this topic, which surveys a lot of the literature on it called Harmony of the Faculties Revisited.

136
00:18:03,250 --> 00:18:12,550
And that's in a book of his essays called Values of Beauty.

137
00:18:12,550 --> 00:18:23,800
But basically, Kant's answer is that we can be a priori justified in thinking that everyone else can agree

138
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:31,540
with us or rather a priori justified and thing everyone else can take pleasure in the object.

139
00:18:31,540 --> 00:18:36,100
If and only if we can be justified in believing that our own pleasure arises

140
00:18:36,100 --> 00:18:42,850
from what he calls the harmonious freeplay of imagination and understanding.

141
00:18:42,850 --> 00:18:50,380
That's the bottom line. That's the answer. That's the explanation of how it's possible to be a priori justified,

142
00:18:50,380 --> 00:18:58,720
based only on your own pleasure in believing that everybody else can take pleasure in the object.

143
00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:04,330
Only if you can be justified in thinking that your own pleasure comes from the harmony of the faculties,

144
00:19:04,330 --> 00:19:13,350
the harmonious freeplay of imagination and understanding.

145
00:19:13,350 --> 00:19:14,910
So how does he get there?

146
00:19:14,910 --> 00:19:27,990
Well, one step seems to be that we can only be have this apro or justified belief that everybody else can take pleasure in the object.

147
00:19:27,990 --> 00:19:34,710
If we can be justified in believing that our own pleasure arises from some mental state mental condition,

148
00:19:34,710 --> 00:19:44,060
mental activity, which we can know a priori, Ibe, that everyone else can be in when they perceive what we perceive.

149
00:19:44,060 --> 00:19:46,740
That's the claim about the source of our pleasure.

150
00:19:46,740 --> 00:19:53,190
We can just be justified in believing that our pleasure arises from some source, some mental condition,

151
00:19:53,190 --> 00:19:59,700
which we can also know a priori I everybody else can be in when they're perceiving the object.

152
00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:05,310
Then we can be justified in thinking they will get pleasure to. Our pleasure comes from that source.

153
00:20:05,310 --> 00:20:15,700
They all share that source, that mental condition. Therefore, we can be justified in thinking that they can take pleasure as well.

154
00:20:15,700 --> 00:20:20,790
It seems clear enough. That's one step along the way.

155
00:20:20,790 --> 00:20:25,650
And this also recalled some remarks he made about its disinterest in this last

156
00:20:25,650 --> 00:20:33,900
week regarding our belief that the source of our pleasure can't be unique to us.

157
00:20:33,900 --> 00:20:45,660
The next step is the claim that the only mental condition or kind of mental condition,

158
00:20:45,660 --> 00:20:51,450
which we can know a priori that everyone else can be in when they perceive the thing,

159
00:20:51,450 --> 00:21:00,270
we perceive our mental conditions that enable us to apply concepts to what we perceive.

160
00:21:00,270 --> 00:21:09,330
So two kinds of mental states activities, conditions that enable us to make cognitive judgements.

161
00:21:09,330 --> 00:21:20,040
Those are the only ones we can know a priori. Everyone else can be in when they perceive what we perceive.

162
00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:24,570
And that also seems to be a claim along the way.

163
00:21:24,570 --> 00:21:34,530
And so, again, like I mentioned before, when we do apply a concept to what we perceive, we believe everybody else ought to agree with our judgement.

164
00:21:34,530 --> 00:21:40,980
But moreover, I provided our judgements justified at least.

165
00:21:40,980 --> 00:21:44,910
We're also a priori justified in believing everyone else can be in the same

166
00:21:44,910 --> 00:21:51,270
mental condition that enabled us to apply that concepts to what we perceive.

167
00:21:51,270 --> 00:22:00,000
So there's a parallel here in two respects between cognitive judgements and what's true of judgements of taste.

168
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:05,640
We expect everybody to agree. We think everybody ought to agree with our judgement when it's a cognitive judgement.

169
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:09,870
And we can also be a priori justified in believing that everybody can be in the

170
00:22:09,870 --> 00:22:15,100
same mental condition that enabled us to apply the concept to what we perceive.

171
00:22:15,100 --> 00:22:25,100
This is the case of cognitive judgements. The additional step is that these are the only mental conditions that we can be a priori justified

172
00:22:25,100 --> 00:22:37,530
in knowing everybody else can be in when they proceed with the things that we perceive.

173
00:22:37,530 --> 00:22:48,360
And once you have that step, it follows that it's got to be the case, that our pleasure comes in,

174
00:22:48,360 --> 00:23:01,410
beauty comes from some mental state activity condition that enables us to apply concepts to what we perceive as in a cognitive judgement.

175
00:23:01,410 --> 00:23:09,320
I mean, that is a cognitive judgement to apply concepts to what you perceive.

176
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:21,170
Now, Kent has a theory also very obscure in its own right about what these mental conditions are that he presents in the critique of pure reason.

177
00:23:21,170 --> 00:23:32,300
The first of his three critiques. And just going to go through this a bit.

178
00:23:32,300 --> 00:23:43,580
So in order for us to apply concepts to what we perceive there, to faculty's that for our purposes that are very important.

179
00:23:43,580 --> 00:23:58,760
First is what he calls the imagination. He seems to mean something rather similar to what we mean by imagination, but also rather different.

180
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:09,710
So he defines the imagination as the faculty of representing an intuition that which is not itself present.

181
00:24:09,710 --> 00:24:16,460
And remembering what he means by intuition is not so different from what we might mean.

182
00:24:16,460 --> 00:24:29,490
But it's also very important for Kant that the imagination has an absolutely fundamental central role in sense experience.

183
00:24:29,490 --> 00:24:35,280
In particular, in order for us to apply concepts to what we perceive in a sense,

184
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:48,440
experience, the imagination, as he puts it, has to combine or synthesise intuitions.

185
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:57,800
That's a key point. Imagination combines different perceptual representations in order.

186
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:08,100
And that's one of the things that is one of the things that makes possible to apply concepts to what we perceive.

187
00:25:08,100 --> 00:25:12,460
So take a look at quotation for on the handout.

188
00:25:12,460 --> 00:25:21,430
This is from the critique of Pure Reason, where he's describing an activity that he calls the synthesis of reproduction in imagination.

189
00:25:21,430 --> 00:25:26,860
And he thinks this is necessary in order for us to be able to apply concepts to what we perceive.

190
00:25:26,860 --> 00:25:34,090
So he says experience as such necessarily presupposes the reproducibility of appearances.

191
00:25:34,090 --> 00:25:44,770
When I seek to draw a line in thought or to think of the time from one noon to another, or even to represents to myself some particular number,

192
00:25:44,770 --> 00:25:50,200
obviously the various manifold representations that are involved must be apprehended by me in thought.

193
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,510
One after the other.

194
00:25:52,510 --> 00:26:00,790
But if I was always to drop out of thought, the preceding representations, the first parts of the line, the antecedent parts of the time period,

195
00:26:00,790 --> 00:26:05,230
or the units in the order represented and did not reproduce them while advancing

196
00:26:05,230 --> 00:26:11,080
to those that follow a complete representation would never be obtained.

197
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:15,550
Now that's actually reasonably clear. I think what he's talking about,

198
00:26:15,550 --> 00:26:25,570
if in your mind you're drawing a line you can't forget about or delete the first parts of the line as you're going on to the next parts.

199
00:26:25,570 --> 00:26:33,430
You've got to keep them there or as in his vocabulary, reproduce them a moment later when you're drawing the later parts of the line.

200
00:26:33,430 --> 00:26:38,230
Otherwise, you won't be able to represent the whole line.

201
00:26:38,230 --> 00:26:47,350
Imagination has to keep in this picture of things reproducing the earlier parts of the line that you drew in order to complete it,

202
00:26:47,350 --> 00:26:52,240
in order to represent a whole line. It's in this sense,

203
00:26:52,240 --> 00:27:01,030
this is one of the ways an example of one of the ways in which imagination has to combine representations to the

204
00:27:01,030 --> 00:27:08,020
representations of the earlier parts of the line that you drew with representations of the later parts of the line.

205
00:27:08,020 --> 00:27:14,680
Imagination combines these in part by reproducing the earlier ones.

206
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:20,830
And that's how you get a representation in your mind of one line.

207
00:27:20,830 --> 00:27:31,450
Now, this is an example of drawing something in your head, but he thinks this also happens in sense perception.

208
00:27:31,450 --> 00:27:43,730
You have to remember what you're looking at and that it's the same thing as what you saw before across time as well.

209
00:27:43,730 --> 00:27:49,940
OK. So that's part of what goes on in our experience.

210
00:27:49,940 --> 00:27:57,740
In order for us to be able to apply concepts to what we perceive now, this is by no means.

211
00:27:57,740 --> 00:28:01,820
The suggestion is by no means that this is a conscious thing we're doing all the time.

212
00:28:01,820 --> 00:28:08,330
This is something the mind just naturally does when it receives sensory input.

213
00:28:08,330 --> 00:28:09,620
It combines these things.

214
00:28:09,620 --> 00:28:19,790
The imagination combines the different bits of the input that he puts in the manifold of intuition that we're getting combined.

215
00:28:19,790 --> 00:28:24,410
Certain parts in certain ways. This is one example.

216
00:28:24,410 --> 00:28:32,540
Next thing that happens in ordinary judgements, according to the first edition of a particular reason,

217
00:28:32,540 --> 00:28:37,130
is what he calls the synthesis of recognition in a concept.

218
00:28:37,130 --> 00:28:44,150
So he goes on to say, if we were not conscious that what we think is the same as what we thought a moment before,

219
00:28:44,150 --> 00:28:48,020
all reproduction in the series of representations would be useless.

220
00:28:48,020 --> 00:28:55,310
So that synthesis of reproduction mentioned earlier for it would in its present state be a new representation,

221
00:28:55,310 --> 00:29:00,180
which would not in any way belong to the act whereby it was to be gradually generated.

222
00:29:00,180 --> 00:29:06,680
The manifold of the representation would never therefore form a hole. And he gives an example.

223
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:14,210
If in counting I forget that the units which now hover before me have been added to one another in succession.

224
00:29:14,210 --> 00:29:19,460
I should never know that its total is being produced through this successive edition of units to unit.

225
00:29:19,460 --> 00:29:29,180
And so I would remain ignorant of the number for the concept of the number is nothing but the consciousness of this unity of synthesis.

226
00:29:29,180 --> 00:29:35,780
So the thought is it's fine for the imagination to combine together various representations,

227
00:29:35,780 --> 00:29:41,270
but you've got to know what unites them before in order to apply concepts to what you're looking at.

228
00:29:41,270 --> 00:29:50,210
Indeed, that's what it is to apply concept to. What you're looking at is to group together the say, the five units as five.

229
00:29:50,210 --> 00:29:57,920
What unites them is that they are a group of five. The thought seems to be into the consciousness of what unites them.

230
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:09,640
That is what the understanding enables you to do by supplying you with a concept that represents what unites them.

231
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:21,370
That's the thought in the first Katik. That's what goes on normally in order to be able to apply a concept to what you're perceiving.

232
00:30:21,370 --> 00:30:24,420
Imagination combines different representations.

233
00:30:24,420 --> 00:30:35,020
The understanding supplies a concept that represents the unity that those combined representations possess.

234
00:30:35,020 --> 00:30:45,910
Now, complexity here. One of many is that the imagination and the understanding are working very closely together.

235
00:30:45,910 --> 00:30:52,930
So the imagination combines representing certain representations with these rather than those,

236
00:30:52,930 --> 00:30:58,900
because the imagination is guided by a concept of the understanding.

237
00:30:58,900 --> 00:31:04,810
So it's not as though, although reading out these examples like that might suggested,

238
00:31:04,810 --> 00:31:10,690
the combination happens first and then you just notice, oh, that's what it has in common.

239
00:31:10,690 --> 00:31:22,120
The imagination is guided by concepts in order to make the combinations that it makes.

240
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:29,460
So this is just an analysis of what's going on. Not a sort of temporal.

241
00:31:29,460 --> 00:31:41,410
Series of stages. OK, this needs to happen in order for experience to be possible.

242
00:31:41,410 --> 00:31:51,730
Kat says, certainly needs to happen in order for us to be able to apply a concept to what we perceive.

243
00:31:51,730 --> 00:31:59,740
So it's going to be some mental condition like that that our pleasure comes from the beauty.

244
00:31:59,740 --> 00:32:05,800
But of course, and this is point D under number two,

245
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:18,010
it can't actually be a matter of applying a concept to what we perceive because our pleasure is not based on concepts very important for him.

246
00:32:18,010 --> 00:32:23,530
So it's got to be something like I just described.

247
00:32:23,530 --> 00:32:32,600
But delete the bit where you apply the concept to it.

248
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:43,070
The implication seems to be that it's just the imagination, combining particulars, grouping stuff together,

249
00:32:43,070 --> 00:32:53,080
but without then applying a concept that represents what those things grouped together have in common.

250
00:32:53,080 --> 00:33:03,610
Now, that, as I say, is a bit obscure, but.

251
00:33:03,610 --> 00:33:12,310
Paul Guya, who I mentioned, thinks he's found a passage where I can't actually gives an example of this happening.

252
00:33:12,310 --> 00:33:16,510
Can't hardly ever gives examples to illustrate any of the things he says.

253
00:33:16,510 --> 00:33:28,180
So if this is right, that would be very helpful. And this is the fifth passage on your handout, and it's from Section 53 of the critique of judgement.

254
00:33:28,180 --> 00:33:37,120
So remember, I said, see, the implication seems to be that we get pleasure from the imagination combining perceptual representations together.

255
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:44,770
Well, in this passage, Cantor's talking about music and our experience of melody and harmony.

256
00:33:44,770 --> 00:33:49,180
And he says, although this mathematical form.

257
00:33:49,180 --> 00:33:50,650
So the mathematical,

258
00:33:50,650 --> 00:33:59,410
mathematically describable relationships between tones arranged in harmonies and melodies is not represented by means of determinate concepts.

259
00:33:59,410 --> 00:34:08,200
As we listen to music to it alone belongs the delight which the mere reflection upon such a number of concomitant or consecutive sensations.

260
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:14,560
Couples with this their play as the universally valid condition of its beauty.

261
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:22,450
And it is wet with reference to it alone that tastes can lay claim to a right to anticipate the judgement of every human being.

262
00:34:22,450 --> 00:34:28,870
But mathematics certainly plays not the slightest part in the charm and movement of the mind produced by music.

263
00:34:28,870 --> 00:34:36,070
Rather, is it only the indispensable condition of that proportion of the combining as well as changing impressions,

264
00:34:36,070 --> 00:34:39,190
which makes it possible to grasp them all in one.

265
00:34:39,190 --> 00:34:48,670
And to let them conspire towards the production of a continuous movement and quickening of the mind by affections that are in unison with it.

266
00:34:48,670 --> 00:35:01,900
The basic thought there seems to be that in just the way that when you're listening to a melody, you group certain certain notes together.

267
00:35:01,900 --> 00:35:05,050
That is the sort of thing that's happening whenever we perceive beauty.

268
00:35:05,050 --> 00:35:16,890
The thought seems to be it's that kind of grouping, but without a concept representing what unites them from which our pleasure in beauty arises,

269
00:35:16,890 --> 00:35:26,590
that the fact that there's no concept representing what these combined representations have in common is what counts,

270
00:35:26,590 --> 00:35:30,280
trying to show by talking about mathematics here.

271
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:37,990
So these things that you grouped together, the tones that you grouped together when you're listening to a melody,

272
00:35:37,990 --> 00:35:42,880
they do stand in certain relations to one another. That can be described.

273
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:48,970
But his point here is that you're not representing them with a concept as standing in those relations,

274
00:35:48,970 --> 00:35:55,630
as you're listening to the music, or if you are, at least that's not where the pleasure comes from.

275
00:35:55,630 --> 00:36:11,730
Your imagination is grouping them together independently of the concepts that could be applied to it to represent the unity they have.

276
00:36:11,730 --> 00:36:22,350
That seems to be supported by his general model of what goes on when you perceive stuff is that you group things together,

277
00:36:22,350 --> 00:36:29,700
intuitions together with the imagination. And when you perceive something as beautiful, you do that, too.

278
00:36:29,700 --> 00:36:46,160
But you don't apply a concept or at the very least, you don't get pleasure from having a plot, a concept to the intuitions you group together.

279
00:36:46,160 --> 00:37:01,230
As I say, whether this is what Kant means is kind of anyone's guess, but this seems to be as reasonable a reconstruction as many others.

280
00:37:01,230 --> 00:37:08,900
This, it seems to be, is what the harmonious freeplay of imagination and understanding amounts to.

281
00:37:08,900 --> 00:37:21,540
It's play in the first place because you're not using imagination and just understanding to acquire knowledge, as you would if you had a a concept.

282
00:37:21,540 --> 00:37:30,930
So their cognitive faculties, faculties, whose function is to get your knowledge, but you're not using them for that purpose.

283
00:37:30,930 --> 00:37:43,660
You're using them in a kind of play. That's why he describes it as play seems clear enough.

284
00:37:43,660 --> 00:37:55,120
It's free play because the just the imagination is combining various representations but is not guided by concepts.

285
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:59,410
In so doing so, it's free of concepts.

286
00:37:59,410 --> 00:38:11,050
It's combining these together not because some concept of an object is guiding it to combine them in the way it does.

287
00:38:11,050 --> 00:38:22,660
But it's doing so independently of that. Furthermore, why is it a harmony between imagination and sanding?

288
00:38:22,660 --> 00:38:23,560
Well, guys,

289
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:37,450
take on this is that it's a harmony because the imagination here satisfies the understanding's usual demand for some combined representations.

290
00:38:37,450 --> 00:38:55,800
Even though the understanding doesn't apply a concept, and it's in that sense that they're in harmony.

291
00:38:55,800 --> 00:39:03,150
So that's what the Bahaman harmonious freeplay of imagination and understanding is.

292
00:39:03,150 --> 00:39:11,040
And we can know that this is a state of mind that anybody can be in when faced with an object, which we can.

293
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:19,530
The thought seems to be because this is a state of mind that is required in order to apply concepts to the thing.

294
00:39:19,530 --> 00:39:30,180
These are acts of the mind that are required in order to apply a concept to the thing.

295
00:39:30,180 --> 00:39:42,420
Or at least they're of the same kind as those acts, then we can be confident that everybody else can take pleasure in the object.

296
00:39:42,420 --> 00:39:48,150
We're justified thinking. Our pleasure comes from harmonious Freeplay, a priori justified thinking.

297
00:39:48,150 --> 00:39:53,640
Everybody else can be in a state of harmonious Freeplay when they perceive the object.

298
00:39:53,640 --> 00:40:03,720
Therefore, aper are justified in believing that everybody else can take pleasure from the object.

299
00:40:03,720 --> 00:40:18,160
That's how justified judgements of taste are possible. Or rather, how it's possible to be justified in believing everybody ought to agree.

300
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:25,730
Or maybe not because it's so obscure. But that's one possible way of going.

301
00:40:25,730 --> 00:40:31,730
Now, a number of points here that might arise often in Canada.

302
00:40:31,730 --> 00:40:38,900
At least my experience of reading Kant. It's not always clear whether when he is trying to explain how something's possible,

303
00:40:38,900 --> 00:40:45,170
if his goal is to establish that it is possible or if he's assuming it's possible.

304
00:40:45,170 --> 00:40:50,720
And just explaining how so we know it's possible is one reading a lot of the time.

305
00:40:50,720 --> 00:40:53,690
And he's just trying to explain how.

306
00:40:53,690 --> 00:41:00,950
So when he asks how is synthetic a priori knowledge possible, for example, how is mathematical knowledge possible?

307
00:41:00,950 --> 00:41:12,470
He clearly thinks it is possible. And the goal is just to explain how it's not to establish that it is possible.

308
00:41:12,470 --> 00:41:22,810
Maybe when you get that explanation, you also get considerations that establish that it is possible here to we might ask that same question.

309
00:41:22,810 --> 00:41:30,560
Is he assuming that it is possible to be justified in believing everybody ought to agree?

310
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:34,340
And he's just trying to explain how that's possible.

311
00:41:34,340 --> 00:41:45,410
Or is he trying to establish as well that it is possible to be justified in believing everybody ought to agree with your judgement of taste.

312
00:41:45,410 --> 00:41:50,090
That's often something that's rather obscure here.

313
00:41:50,090 --> 00:41:54,830
I think at the very least, we can say he's trying to explain how it's possible.

314
00:41:54,830 --> 00:42:01,790
Second issue that arises from this is so I mentioned that provided you can be justified

315
00:42:01,790 --> 00:42:07,670
in knowing that your pleasure comes from the harmonious Freeplay of your faculties,

316
00:42:07,670 --> 00:42:12,080
then your expectation of agreement is justified.

317
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:22,970
The question arises, how can you be justified in believing that your pleasure comes from that source on any given occasion?

318
00:42:22,970 --> 00:42:33,590
Well, Kant is quite open about the fact that you can't be certain in any given occasion that your pleasure does come from harmonious Freeplay.

319
00:42:33,590 --> 00:42:39,200
And in fact, this is similar to claims he makes in his moral philosophy about how we can never

320
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:44,870
really be certain that we're acting from duty as opposed to from inclination.

321
00:42:44,870 --> 00:42:54,950
There, he says, there might always be some secret, unacknowledged interest or inclination that is really motivating us.

322
00:42:54,950 --> 00:43:03,440
And it's not our duty. And a similar thought may perhaps be motivating him here that unbeknown to us,

323
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:13,350
we may still be motivated by interest or our pleasure may still arise from interest rather than from the harmonious Freeplay.

324
00:43:13,350 --> 00:43:21,690
So now saying you can't be certain is now is different from saying you can never be justified in thinking that it comes from the harmonious Freeplay,

325
00:43:21,690 --> 00:43:28,320
you can consider whether there are any interests that you might have and the existence of the object, of course.

326
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:34,380
And if you can't think of any, then that might give you some grounds or justification,

327
00:43:34,380 --> 00:43:39,470
even if it's not certainty for thinking that your pleasure comes from harmonious Freeplay.

328
00:43:39,470 --> 00:43:45,690
So that concession doesn't sort of leave us in a total state of ignorance or say that we're

329
00:43:45,690 --> 00:43:50,820
in a total state of ignorance about whether our pleasure comes from harmonious Freeplay.

330
00:43:50,820 --> 00:43:56,500
But he does acknowledge that we can't be certain about the sources of our pleasure.

331
00:43:56,500 --> 00:44:03,240
OK, so that is the deduction.

332
00:44:03,240 --> 00:44:09,760
I like to finish by discussing what he says about judgements of the sublime.

333
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:25,160
So in the 18th century, in addition to the beautiful, the sublime was a very important category of aesthetic property or aesthetic experience.

334
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:36,210
So it sort of signified a kind of disturbing feeling or rapturous terror of the kind that you get when you enjoy the sight of storms at sea,

335
00:44:36,210 --> 00:44:45,900
ruined castles, volcanoes, waterfalls, hurricanes, all that stuff that the romantics would really enjoy.

336
00:44:45,900 --> 00:44:52,100
A lot of theories about it in the 18th century.

337
00:44:52,100 --> 00:45:01,130
And Burke, Edmund Burke, who's best known as author of Reflections on the Revolution in France and and as a sort

338
00:45:01,130 --> 00:45:07,100
of intellectual ancestor to political conservatives of certain stripe these days,

339
00:45:07,100 --> 00:45:16,370
early in his career wrote work on aesthetics about the beautiful and the sublime, which can't read.

340
00:45:16,370 --> 00:45:24,590
And Burke's basic thought was that we call something sublime if it causes a feeling of delight because it seems painful and dangerous,

341
00:45:24,590 --> 00:45:40,020
but it's perceived from a safe, safe distance. And he is going to have his own take on this category of aesthetic experience.

342
00:45:40,020 --> 00:45:49,350
So he thinks there's a number of similarities between judgements of taste, judgement of the sublime, which I'll just go through quickly to begin.

343
00:45:49,350 --> 00:45:55,470
So they're both based on pleasure, not based on concepts either.

344
00:45:55,470 --> 00:46:00,630
And they're or they're based on pleasure, connected with the intuition of the object.

345
00:46:00,630 --> 00:46:08,380
And not, as I say, based on concepts. Judgements of the sublime are also singular judgements.

346
00:46:08,380 --> 00:46:17,640
And he thinks they also possess that key feature of universality. We think everyone ought to agree.

347
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:21,720
But lastly, most importantly for his discussion,

348
00:46:21,720 --> 00:46:34,410
he thinks pleasure in the sublime arises from a kind of accord between imagination and a certain faculty of concepts, but not the understanding.

349
00:46:34,410 --> 00:46:51,090
It's a faculty he calls reason and reason in his vocabulary has a certain set of concepts proper to it, which he calls ideas or rational ideas.

350
00:46:51,090 --> 00:46:56,880
And these are concepts of things that it would not be possible to have an intuition.

351
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:08,370
So the concept of God is an idea, concept of freedom, concept of immortality, concept of infinity.

352
00:47:08,370 --> 00:47:15,060
All of these are ideas, special concepts associated with this other faculty of reason,

353
00:47:15,060 --> 00:47:24,420
not the faculty of understanding that makes helps make experience possible, could never have intuitions of these things.

354
00:47:24,420 --> 00:47:31,560
But we have concepts of them and they play some of them a certain role in various parts of our thinking.

355
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:45,540
According to Kant, so moral action is only possible on the assumption that we're free to use one of the most important examples for him.

356
00:47:45,540 --> 00:48:00,830
But of course, we have no empirical evidence of our freedom because in the world of experience, everything is governed by causal necessity.

357
00:48:00,830 --> 00:48:13,040
So it's an idea in that sense. So these ideas are going to be important to his explanation of his talk of the sublime two kinds of the sublime.

358
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:22,880
He talks about versus the mathematically sublime. And these are things that, as he puts it, are absolutely great.

359
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:31,820
So great without qualification, those things in comparison with which everything else is little.

360
00:48:31,820 --> 00:48:34,040
And then he makes a rather surprising move.

361
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:44,570
He says nothing we ever see is, strictly speaking, sublime, because everything we can possibly imagine or experience,

362
00:48:44,570 --> 00:48:52,880
we can also imagine being small in comparison with something else regarded in some other relation.

363
00:48:52,880 --> 00:49:05,570
However, sometimes inexperience, we perceive something that our imagination cannot hold in its entirety.

364
00:49:05,570 --> 00:49:08,840
So remember, I mentioned at the example of the line,

365
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:16,820
you've got to hold the earlier parts in order as you proceed to the later parts of the line in order to represent the whole thing.

366
00:49:16,820 --> 00:49:21,500
Sometimes we can't do that with our imagination when we perceive something.

367
00:49:21,500 --> 00:49:26,690
Some things are just so big. You forget about the earlier parts you looked at as you're surveying the whole thing.

368
00:49:26,690 --> 00:49:33,800
That seems to be the thought. And it gives an interesting example of a travel writer who describes the pyramids and he

369
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:39,980
thinks this is the reason this guy suggests that you stand neither too close to the pyramids,

370
00:49:39,980 --> 00:49:46,700
not too far away to appreciate them close enough so that as you survey them, you can't hold the whole thing in your mind.

371
00:49:46,700 --> 00:49:55,670
So you're near enough to it that it's just so vast that you can't get a representation of the whole thing by surveying it in your mind.

372
00:49:55,670 --> 00:50:03,530
That seems to be the basic thought. Now, these things are not, of course, absolutely great, as he puts it.

373
00:50:03,530 --> 00:50:18,530
But what they do is bring to our minds the idea of infinity, of what is, properly speaking, sublime.

374
00:50:18,530 --> 00:50:33,940
And the fact that we can think of it, think of infinity indicates to us that we have a faculty in us that is not limited to sensation.

375
00:50:33,940 --> 00:50:45,760
As he puts it, a faculty of mine transcending every standard of sense, namely reason, and that gives us pleasure.

376
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:54,850
But we can only get that pleasure through a kind of displeasure at our imaginations, inability to contain the whole thing.

377
00:50:54,850 --> 00:51:00,610
Similar strategy goes with the dynamically sublime, which I'll just go through quickly,

378
00:51:00,610 --> 00:51:12,400
dynamically sublime is nature seen as something mighty and fearful, but which has no dominion over us and which we are therefore not afraid of.

379
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:27,250
So once again, similar to Burke, we see nature as dynamically sublime when we see something extremely powerful from a position of safety.

380
00:51:27,250 --> 00:51:34,270
And this cat thinks brings to our mind the thought of our ability to overcome nature.

381
00:51:34,270 --> 00:51:43,240
Where do we have the ability to overcome nature? Well, in moral action, we can overcome our inclinations.

382
00:51:43,240 --> 00:51:49,360
And he doesn't. I don't think say this explicitly, but it seems to be invited.

383
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:59,410
Is the thought that we can overcome the order of causal necessity because we have freedom or at least we must presuppose freedom.

384
00:51:59,410 --> 00:52:05,260
In the case of moral action and the site of some really powerful nature over there that

385
00:52:05,260 --> 00:52:14,140
can't hurt us brings to mind this fact about us or this idea within us of moral agency,

386
00:52:14,140 --> 00:52:20,680
of overcoming nature within us and nature outside.

387
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:30,670
And that, he says, is pleasurable, even though what we're looking at, it's fearful that thought of our moral vocation.

388
00:52:30,670 --> 00:52:40,630
And he puts it is a pleasurable experience. And that's why with the sublime, you have this combination of displeasure and pleasure and why,

389
00:52:40,630 --> 00:52:49,250
properly speaking, only the human mind is sublime, not nature.

390
00:52:49,250 --> 00:52:56,000
And it's because of this moral element that we can expect everybody to agree with judgements of the sublime.

391
00:52:56,000 --> 00:53:04,370
And that's because we can expect on moral grounds everybody to be capable of feeling for the sublime,

392
00:53:04,370 --> 00:53:09,620
because we can expect them to be capable of moral feeling.

393
00:53:09,620 --> 00:53:15,000
Thanks so much.