On beauty, concept formation, and toleration : a reading of Kant's account of the judgment of taste

Abstract

My topic today is Kant’s account of the experience of beauty as it comes out of his Critique of the Power of Judgment. My goal is threefold. First, I want to offer a reading of Kant’s account of the experience of beauty in terms of concept formation. Second, I want to show that my reading of Kant’s account makes sense of his claim that beauty is a symbol of the morally good. Third, and in connection with this relationship between beauty and the morally good, I want to suggest that, appearances notwithstanding, Kant views the experience of beauty as an exercise in toleration. As a point of terminology I should note that, more often than not, Kant describes the experience of beauty in terms of the judgment of taste. He also speaks of «the judging of the beautiful», and the text makes it clear that the two formulations are equivalent. Throughout the paper I will be using the expressions «experience of beauty», «judgment of taste», and «judgment of beauty» interchangeably