Kant's Concept of Genius: Its Origin and Function in the Third Critique 9781472545718, 9781441139115, 9781441132543, 9781441190239

Citation preview

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Continuum Studies in Philosophy Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin, USA Continuum Studies in Philosophy is a major monograph series from Continuum. The series features first-class scholarly research monographs across the whole field of philosophy. Each work makes a major contribution to the field of philosophical research. Aesthetic in Kant, James Kirwan Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion, Aaron Preston Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown Augustine and Roman Virtue, Brian Harding The Challenge of Relativism, Patrick Phillips Demands of Taste in Kant’s Aesthetics, Brent Kalar Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature, Justin Skirry Descartes’ Theory of Ideas, David Clemenson Dialectic of Romanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts Duns Scotus and the Problem of Universals, Todd Bates Hegel’s Philosophy of Language, Jim Vernon Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, David James Hegel’s Theory of Recognition, Sybol S. C. Anderson The History of Intentionality, Ryan Hickerson Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory, Alison Assiter Kierkegaard’s Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts Leibniz Re-interpreted, Lloyd Strickland Metaphysics and the End of Philosophy, H. O. Mounce Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Delbert Reed Philosophy of Miracles, David Corner Platonism, Music and the Listener’s Share, Christopher Norris Popper’s Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia Role of God in Spinoza’s Metaphysics, Sherry Deveaux Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson Spinoza and the Stoics, Firmin DeBrabander Spinoza’s Radical Cartesian Mind, Tammy Nyden-Bullock St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John Mark Mattox St. Augustine of Hippo, R. W. Dyson Thomas Aquinas & John Duns Scotus, Alex Hall Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala

Kant’s Concept of Genius Its Origin and Function in the Third Critique

Paul W. Bruno

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Paul W. Bruno 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: 978-1-4411-3911-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bruno, Paul W. Kant’s concept of genius: its origin and function in the third critique/Paul W. Bruno. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-1-4411-3911-5 (HB) ISBN-10: 1-4411-3911-7 (HB) 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Kritik der Urteilskraft. 2. Genius. I. Title. B2784.B78 2010 193–dc22 2009028746

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

For Ann Without whom not

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

viii 1

Chapter One

Origins of Genius

9

Chapter Two

Aspects of the Third Critique

58

Chapter Three

Nature

81

Chapter Four

Genius

99

Conclusion

142

Notes

149

Bibliography

154

Index

159

Acknowledgments

This project started several years ago at Boston College and continued, with fits and starts, through stops at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, Austria, Assumption College, Providence College, and finally Framingham State College in Massachusetts. I suspect that my first acquaintance to Kant’s Critique of Judgment, provided as it was by Jacques Taminiaux at Boston College, could not have been better. Professor Taminiaux demonstrated through example a precision and care in his work that I greatly admire. Indeed, Professor Taminiaux’s work and that of Richard Kearney and Frederick Lawrence, who also helped with this project, provided not only expert advice, but each in his own philosophical writing and scholarship has provided an exemplary standard to which my own work strives. I would like to thank the Faculty Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching, Scholarship, and Service (CELTSS) at Framingham State College for a generous faculty development grant that allowed me the time to bring this book project to completion. The Lonergan Center at Boston College has always been a place of great fellowship. Kerry Cronin, Fr. Joseph Flanagan, and Fred and Sue Lawrence deserve special mention for their consummate support and kindness. As Aristotle points out in his Ethics, “friends enhance our ability to think and act.” With this in mind I would like to thank the many friends with whom I have shared conversation about this work and, of course, other philosophical texts and matters. James Boettcher, Charles Bonner, Scott Campbell, Alex DiPippo, Mark Goodman, James Mahoney, Ed McGushin, Patricia Raffa, and Linda Riviere have all enhanced my ability to think and act.

Acknowledgments

ix

I would like to thank my family, Julie, Steve, Beth, Obie, Dave, Caroline, Maria, and Alex, and my in-laws, Bob and JoAnn. My parents, William and Ann, deserve special thanks. They demonstrate what commitment, selflessness, and love are in the most meaningful way—they enact them. How do I begin to express my gratitude for my wife Ann? Her love, care, and steadfastness have been a constant over these many years. I am a fortunate and grateful man for being with Ann and our two lovely children, Oscar and Ada.

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

The time had come when people were starting to speak of genius on the soccer field or in the boxing ring, although there would still be at most only one genius of a halfback or great tennis-court tactician for every ten or so explorers, tenors, or writers of genius who cropped up in the papers. The new spirit was not yet quite sure of itself. from Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities (1952)

This is a study regarding genius. It does not endeavor to identify those who deserve the lable genius, nor is it intended to help those who want to identify those who should be named to some millennial list of the top one hundred geniuses of the century. The work is, rather, an attempt to uncover the philosophical roots of a term that is commonplace in Western languages today. Specifically, this study proposes to examine the roots of the word “genius” as they relate to one of its major early articulators, Immanuel Kant. While the uncovering of the philosophical roots of genius will take some labor, we can more readily say that the roots of this study grew out of questions regarding the artist. Nowadays, the question can certainly be posed, “What is this word genius that is thrown around so lightly and habitually?” As the epigraph quoted above from Ulrich, the narrator of Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities suggests, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the word in its common usage. As any Chicagoan can recall, it was not uncommon to read in the sports page that Michael Jordan was a genius.1 A recent graduate of the University of Iowa’s masters program in creative writing described the program to me as a place one could go “to find her genius.” This usage, though curious,

2

Kant’s Concept of Genius

are blithely accepted because a general understanding of the word genius suffices in conversation. It is only, perhaps, with observations like Ulrich’s that certain questions are raised. The popular usage of genius suggests some implicit understandings about the word. Foremost, as the frequent references to Michael Jordan as a genius suggest is the that the word connotes someone in possession of surpassing greatness in his field of work. Related to that belief is that the thought that greatness is something that cannot be taught—one hears this in comments about Jordan’s “transcendent skills,” or “God-given ability.” Also accompanying the popular characterization of genius is what we will call the “eccentricizing” of the genius. This phenomenon may be in accordance with popular American depictions of the artist in general, but it especially throws light on our understanding of genius. Consider movies like Pollock, Amadeus, Crumb or Shine. Each is a biographical account of an artist and each tends to emphasize the more sordid details of its heroes’ existences. These details are seen as evidence that this artist and that genius are somehow different from the rest of us, exceptional as they are. But, one just has to see an episode of Jerry Springer to realize that it is not just a “genius” like Woody Allen who runs off and marries his stepdaughter. Or, one need only look at the extensive statistics on alcoholism to realize that it is not just writers who claim among their ranks a preponderance of alcoholics. The portrait of the brooding, self-absorbed poet is also popular. Even if William Styron is correct in saying that depression seems to affect poets at a greater rate than people in other professions, we should also note that Styron views depression as an inhibitor to producing poetry. In sum, popular depictions of the artist seem to have twisted around Gustave Flaubert’s dictum, “Be quiet and normal in your daily living so that you can be violent and original in your work.” In the hands of an institution like Hollywood, we might otherwise hear, “Be violent and obnoxious in your daily living so that you will be violent and original in your work.” In recent times we have moved to the conception of the artist as the temperamental creator rather than the artisan—the careful, technically proficient producer. If anyone has ever had the chance to study Renaissance art, he would have learned that most artists, like other tradesmen, belonged

Introduction

3

to guilds, and that those artists who were in particular demand often had patrons who sponsored their work. To be sure, many artists struggled to make a living, and patrons, whether popes or aristocrats or wealthy barons, were not always the types of men to whom one wanted to be indebted. Nevertheless, a sort of commercial arrangement was obtained, and artists like other tradesmen found their work in the midst of the commerce of their city. This is not particularly remarkable, until one considers how different the life of an artist is today. As a matter of course, guilds for artists no longer thrive like they once did, commissioned work is not a widespread commercial practice, and in popular consciousness, there seems to have been a separation between an artisan, with its connotations of craftsmanship, and the “artist” (Art with a capital A is sometimes used to denote this understanding of art and the artist2), understood as a self-expressive creator of original works. This shift was precipitated by several changes, but perhaps the one that protrudes from the rest is the change in the way in which imagination is conceived, in both cognition and creative enterprises. As Mary Warnock points out in her Imagination and Time, René Descartes set up a problem for Western philosophy that challenged philosophers for many years. The imagination was introduced to try and overcome the separation of subject and object. If the world is made up of res cogito and res extensa, how then does the thinking subject get outside of himself to the objects around him? The imagination takes on an increasingly important role in responding to this question. In fact, though Warnock may be overstating it a bit when she writes that “[w]e may fairly claim, then, that imagination can dissolve what had seemed to Descartes and his successors the insoluble problem of the relation between the inner and the outer, the mental and the corporeal” (Warnock 1994, 21), it is clear, nevertheless, that the imagination began to play an increasingly important role in epistemology in the eighteenth century. In The Wake of Imagination, Richard Kearney writes, What most distinguishes the modern philosophies of imagination from their various antecedents is a marked affirmation of the creative power of man. The mimetic paradigm of imagining is

4

Kant’s Concept of Genius replaced by the productive paradigm—at best imitating some truth beyond man—the imagination becomes, in modern times, the immediate source of its own truth. (Kearney 1988, 155)

We can see that the imagination became a means of accessing truth. Originally, the imagination may have had a strictly epistemological function, but the productive imagination proved to be well suited to expressive ends, and soon the association between a work of art and truth was severed.3 The traditional understanding of the artist as imitative was superseded by an understanding of the artist as originary (an understanding that can be fairly said to persist today). Once imagination was conceived of as a “lamp” rather than a “mirror,”4 it seems only a short step to acclaiming some lamps as shining brighter than others. In short, the designation of genius emerges from the recognition that human beings make things after their own imaginations rather than imitating something already given—an illusory theory of representation,5 to paraphrase Gombrich (1992). Creativity takes center stage, and growing out of creativity is the propensity to celebrate those who are particularly creative in their endeavors. As Charles Taylor points out, Artistic creation becomes the paradigm mode in which people can come to self-definition. The artist becomes in some way the paradigm case of the human being, as agent of original self-definition. Since about 1800, there has been a tendency to heroize the artist, to see in his or her life the essence of the human condition, and to venerate him or her as a seer, the creator of cultural values. (Taylor 1991, 62) Thus, it is a quite recent phenomenon that artists came to be seen as not only self-expressive creators, but also models for how to live one’s life. Kearney remarks that “[i]t was really only with Kant and the German Idealists in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, that the productive imagination became, as it were, officially recognized by mainstream Western thought” (Kearney 1988, 156). And as Warnock reminds us, “From Kant’s time on, imagination was increasingly

Introduction

5

recognized to be an essential part of making sense of the world, even for those without the elevated powers of genius” (Warnock 1994, 30). Kearney’s use of the word “officially” should give us pause, for although Kant was among those who legitimized the productive imagination, the incipient rumblings of such a “faculty” can be found earlier in the eighteenth century. Our point is not to apportion credit to those who first thought of the productive imagination, or of genius for that matter. Rather, by taking a look at some of Kant’s influences (both positive and negative) we can form a more comprehensive understanding of how genius fits into his thought. There is a welltrodden path of exegesis on genius and more generally on aesthetics and literary criticism in the Romantic period, a period that flourished after Kant.6 Our concern is with a less-traveled path of scholarship, the climate of thought that prevailed before and during Kant’s engagement with the question of genius. To uncover the climate of thought regarding genius, we must understand that the transformation of the understanding of imagination was important to a new way of understanding genius. Genius has a long legacy in Western languages, but its meaning, just like that of imagination’s, has changed significantly over time. We might say that there is a transformation of place for both imagination and genius. Imagination was once a reproductive power that enabled us to recreate and remember what was absent. Over the course of history, imagination took on an increasingly more important role until eventually it became “an immediate source of its own truth,” to use Kearney’s words. Similarly, genius, in its role as attendant spirit, played a part in determining a person’s course of action. However, it was not until much later that genius became exalted for its specifically creative powers and “the paradigm mode in which people can come to self-definition,” to use Taylor’s words. So, let us ask the question, “What is genius?” A brief survey of aesthetics leads one directly to Immanuel Kant. Although his comments on genius are found in only a brief section of his Critique of Judgment, his depiction of genius was highly influential—at least among poets and philosophers. Interestingly enough, Kant’s description of genius in the third Critique was accomplished in the environs of an enthusiastic and lively embrace of the genius in Germany.

6

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Specifically, Kant wrote at a time when the Sturm und Drang, and especially Johann Herder, were praising genius over and above all else. John Zammito goes so far as to posit that there is ample evidence that Kant wrote his section on genius in direct response to the Sturm und Drang. Zammito writes, The Third Critique was almost a continuous attack on Herder. At each stage in the genealogy of the Third Critique we can discern a clear and self-conscious aggression on the part of Kant against the positions adopted by Herder. Herder and the Sturm und Drang were the main targets of Kant’s theory of art and genius. (Zammito 1992, 10) At the very least, what becomes clear is that Kant was not a maverick in the field of Genielehre. More accurately, as was his wont, he attempted a critique within a critique; Kant attempted to find the limits of genius in an atmosphere that increasingly only approached genius in one way, and that was to celebrate its endless creative possibilities. Naturally, there is the question about the origins of the disagreement between Herder (and the Sturm und Drang) and Kant on the subject of genius. the answer to this question has a neat symmetry when we discover that both Herder and Kant were influenced by certain English writers and literary critics. Herder was an enthusiastic proponent of the Englishman Edward Young, and Kant recognized the Scotsman Alexander Gerard as one of the few writers on the subject of genius who did a worthy job. That both Young and Gerard were writing on the subject in the mid-eighteenth century can be traced to the increasing interest in England on the subject of genius. Joseph Addison, in his Spectator articles at the beginning of the century, stimulated and popularized a great deal of discussion on the topic. Addison, known principally as an essayist, was also a widely known playwright and literary critic, and although his commentary on genius is brief and given in the form of ruminations, he originated7 a way of discussing genius that was different from his predecessors. While Kant may have been responding to the contemporary literature on genius when writing about the subject in the third Critique, he was actively trying to resolve questions left over from the

Introduction

7

first Critique concerning the interrelationship between nature and the subject. As is well known, the discovery of Newtonian mechanics impelled Kant to consider the limits and possibilities of human cognition. In the first of his critical works, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant asserted an active role for the subject in making nature intelligible, and he conceived of nature as accessible in terms of laws. In short, determinate lawfulness and order were nature’s defining characteristics. But this conception of nature left unanswered those questions concerning the aspects of nature that resist determinate judgments: “Is there a purposiveness in nature?” Does all the diversity in nature move in a lawful way towards an end? The indeterminate end of nature will not submit to the machinations of understanding or theoretical cognition. Kant asserts the need for judgments, specifically reflective judgments, in order that we may understand nature in its diversity. Judgment must have its a priori foundation in law if it is to be legitimately recognized as something pure by Kant. The principle not “borrowed from experience” that judgment asserts for itself is the idea of purposiveness of nature. The purposiveness of nature asserts that there is a harmony to all that is diverse in nature. The theoretical can determine the laws that govern the mechanical part of nature; practical reason concerns itself with putting into practice desires, and “[a]ll other propositions of performance we might call technical rather than practical” (Kant 1987, 390). The technical allows us to address the realm of the contingent, and thus we can approach the realm of nature that is, to use a term made popular in the nineteenth century, “becoming.” Kant says the technical belongs to “the art of bringing about something we want to exist [sein]” (Kant 1987, 390). This exploration of “bringing about something” is important for two reasons. The first reason is that it demands the cognitive capacity of reflective judgment. Judgment is a mediating cognitional ability that bridges the gap between understanding and reason, those cognitive abilities that govern nature and freedom respectively. Secondly, “bringing about something” allows us to look at nature not as a unified amalgamation of laws, but as if it were a work of art. The consequences of this assertion are twofold. First, the mechanical

8

Kant’s Concept of Genius

understanding of nature that Kant describes in the first Critique is in need of some complement. Second, Kant must address the question of fine art (schönen Kunst), because if he is going to look at nature as if it were a work of art, then it is imperative to explain what fine art is. The emergence of conceiving of nature in these two disparate ways is important for our purposes, in that we arrive at a notion of nature that is at once governed by determinate concepts in its mechanical aspect and at the same time resists concepts in its technical aspect. This resistance to concepts is a recurring theme in the third Critique. Not only does the technical aspect of nature not admit the use of concepts, but so too does aesthetic judgment resist concepts. When Kant moves the discussion to fine art, it is clear that a techne¯ such as fine art cannot use concepts either. Thus, as a way of finding answers to this problem, genius is finally introduced in the third Critique. The curious relationship between nature and genius is magnified when we consider that Kant defines genius as “the innate mental predisposition (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art” (Kant 1987, 174). In addition to what we have already said about Kant’s technical understanding of nature, the quotation cited above makes it clear that nature and genius are inextricably bound in Kant. In fact, understanding what Kant says about genius is impossible without uncovering his understanding of nature. Therefore, we will dedicate a significant part of this study to exploring Kant’s somewhat complicated understanding of nature as found in the first Critique and the third Critique. Once we have understood the ways in which nature is apprehended, we will proceed to an examination of Kant’s remarks about genius. We will see that Kant offers a much more sober definition of genius than that of Herder and the Sturm und Drang. Furthermore, Kant’s insistence that taste and judgment play a prominent role in genius recalls Gerard’s explication of genius.

Chapter One

Origins of Genius

Etymology of Genius The root of the word “genius” comes from the Latin gen (to be born; to beget; to come into being). Other recognizable English words with this root are “generate” (to produce, beget) and “engender” (to bring into being; to bring about). In its Latin usage, genius is understood in reference to a pagan belief in a tutelary god or attendant spirit. Every person is born with such genius. It functions as a determinant for character and is thought to govern one’s fortunes, not only functioning as a guide for one’s life, but as a conduit out of this world and into the next after death.1 We see examples of such usages of genius in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Julius Caesar. In Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 3, scene 1 he expresses his fear that Banquo knows about his role in Duncan’s murder: And, to that dauntless temper of [Banquo’s] mind, He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety. There is none but he Whose being I do fear: and, under him, My genius is rebuked; as, it is said, Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. (3. 1. 57–62) We can see here how genius functions as an attendant to one’s actions. Macbeth recognizes the role of Banquo’s “wisdom” and how it acts as his “guide.” However, unlike Banquo’s valourous wisdom, Macbeth’s “genius is rebuked.” As Macbeth realizes the enormity of his crime, his genius—that guardian of his character—loses out, thereby vitiating his valour. The internal conversation has as its interlocutors a guiding

10

Kant’s Concept of Genius

wisdom and a guiding fear. A battle is waged between the sentinel of Macbeth’s virtue, that is, his genius, and his passions or fears. Rebuking his genius amounts to a victory for fear. What we want to stress is genius’s tutelary function. It is constitutive of one’s character and fortune, and for the most part it is concerned with the goodness of that character. To highlight genius’s role as an attendant spirit and as a guide out of the world, we can again examine Shakespeare’s use of it in Act 2, scene 1 of Julius Caesar. Brutus’s soliloquy reads, Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar I have not slept Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. (2. 1. 65–73) That both of these references in Shakespeare arise in soliloquies is important to note. The soliloquy has a confessional character and tone; we are, in effect, listening in on the ruminations of a particular character as he confronts a profound conflict in his life. In the example from Caesar, the picture that is painted is something like a cartoon where a little devil is giving bad or unvirtuous advice to a character in one ear, while an angel is advising the right and true conduct in the other. Brutus witnesses an internal confrontation between his immortal, rational soul, that is, his genius, and his “mortal instruments” or passions. The suggestion that genius is immortal also hints at the fact that somehow genius is a conduit to the next world. The insurrection amounts to an overthrow of that which guides him to do right. With both Macbeth and Brutus we see that genius battles their mortal passions, and in each case genius seems to be on the side of valour or virtue, thus adding an ethical valence to its role as a guide.

Origins of Genius

11

The ethical valence, as well as the cartoon image just used, help us to consider a second characteristic of genius that can be found in use more frequently in the seventeenth century—that of the evil genius. The evil genius influences one towards more sordid ends. Again, Shakespeare is helpful. In The Tempest, after Ferdinand is warned by Prospero, his future father-in-law, about dire consequences if he “dost break [Miranda’s] virgin-knot before/all sanctimonious ceremonies may/with full and holy rite be minist’red” (15–17), Ferdinand assures Prospero that his will follows a path of rectitude. He says, As I hope For quiet days, fair issue and long life, With such love as ‘tis now, the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong’st suggestion Our worser genius can, shall never melt Mine honour into lust. (4. 1. 23–28) Such use of the “worser” or evil genius seems to have begun with none other than Shakespeare. The above is the first cited use of the word genius in this way, although it is fitting that an evil guiding spirit finds its opposite with the original Latin usage of attendant spirit. Shakespeare essentially gives genius its own opposite to play against. He gives a name to what might act as the physical or lustful side of the human character, against the morally righteous aspect of the same character. Fittingly, it is contrary to the side of human character that is concerned with virtue. This Manichean view of evil affords Shakespeare the means to dramatize an internal struggle. Here, one character can effectively articulate an internal conflict. Another later and now obsolete definition of genius that the likes of Joseph Addison, David Hume and Edmund Burke used in the eighteenth century is one that simply means disposition or inclination; this can be a characteristic of a person, a nation, or an age.2 Hume writes, “Men of such daring geniuses were not contented with the ancient and legal forms of civil government” (History of England. (1761) III, lxi, 319). Genius here is a particular disposition or temperament of a person. It does not act as a guide or attendant

12

Kant’s Concept of Genius

spirit; it is a description of one’s personality or temperament. In speaking about a nation, Addison writes, “A composer should fit his Musik to the Genius of the People” (Spectator #29, 9). About an age Hume writes of “the barbarous and violent genius of the age” (History of England. (1761) I, ix, 196). Burke writes of “The genius of the faction is easily discerned” (“Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” 1842, I, 531). In each case we see genius depicted as a temperament, disposition, or inclination. The object of the disposition or inclination can be, as we see here, a person, nation, age; it can also be a language, law, institution, place, material thing, or disease. This usage seems to do away with the virtue/vice, good/bad dichotomy. Genius does not necessarily guide one in the direction of good action or bad, but rather it simply exists as one’s temperament or inclination. In this usage, genius may be barbarous, daring, common, or otherwise. The ethical dimension seems to have fallen away. Throughout the eighteenth century, a new definition was taking shape. The burgeoning use of the word as a creative force moves from undifferentiated and broad usage to a more studied and refined use. This is not to suggest that one purified and universal definition emerged to supersede all others. As we will see, Young, Gerard, Herder, and Kant conceived of genius in different ways, yet they all retain something of the creative, inventive impulse, an aspect of the word that came into prominence in the eighteenth century. We first see the tentative advent of a new way of speaking about genius in the eighteenth century with Addison and Lord Shaftesbury. They straddle the line between conceiving of genius as disposition or temperament and conceiving of it in a new, and now more familiar manner, as creative power. The new way genius comes to be understood is as a native intellectual power of an exalted type, such as is attributed to those who are esteemed greatest in any department of art, speculation, or practice; instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original thought, invention, or discovery. (OED) This should be understood as etymological definition #3 for the remainder of this study. In fact, let us keep in mind the following

Origins of Genius

13

three definitions of genius just discussed. Each will be numbered to more easily distinguish them as the study progresses. 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 3.

genius as an attendant spirit or guide (evidence of ethical valence). evil genius. (Obsolete) a disposition or inclination (of a person). (Obsolete) a disposition or inclination (of a nation or age). a native intellectual power of the exalted type.

Of primary interest for this study is definition #3 since it deals with the creative aspect of the definition that is still with us today. Despite the ascendancy of this third sense of genius in the eighteenth century, genius was not recognized in Dr. Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary.3 It is worth noting that the word genius in the European languages (génie in French and Genie in German) share the same Latin roots. Evidence suggests that, in terms of philosophical use, the German word genie migrated to German from English, whereas the word “aesthetic” traversed languages in the opposite direction4 going from German to English. Thus, the roots of the German word genie are found in English, specifically with the English literary critics. The Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache identifies the same remote Latin roots that we have identified for the German word Genie. However, the Wörterbuch identifies the more recent roots of the word Genie which is defined as “Personifikation der Zeugungskraft” (the personification of the power of creation) in eighteenth-century France. The Trésor de la Langue Française (1789–1960) entry for génie gives references to several French writers who use the word in the sense of etymological definition #3. Among them are Voltaire and Diderot: In his 1734 Lettres Philosophiques, Voltaire wrote of, “un génie comme Mr Newton.” (ARTFL [online]). Diderot also uses genius in the sense of etymological definition #3. He writes, The interest and the charm of the work conceal Richardson’s art from those who are the most capable of seeing it. Many times I’ve begun to read Clarissa in order to train myself, many times I have forgotten my project at the twentieth page; I was completely struck like all ordinary readers with the genius with which

14

Kant’s Concept of Genius

he had imagined a young girl filled with wisdom and prudence. (ARTFL [online])5 Despite the above cited usages of génie, it is important to note that there is no evidence that any Frenchman undertook studies specifically dedicated to uncovering the meaning of genius, like those of Gerard and Young. We should also note that the French seems to have a sense of the word genius that is not acknowledged by either the OED or the Wörterbuch. This meaning, unique to the French, means simply the powers of the mind. The Trésor, records a meaning of génie as “Nature (bonne ou mauvaise), ensemble des aptitudes innées, des facultés intellectuelles, des dispositions morales.”6 It is a slight variation on etymological definitions #2a and #3. Unlike etymological definition #2a, it is not concerned so much with personality as it is the capacity of the mind. And unlike etymological definition #3, it does not emphasize a creative element, it is simply the powers of the mind. Recognizing that the words for genius in each of these languages shared meaning, we will see that both Herder’s and Kant’s accounts of genius were directly influenced by the English literary critics. As Abrams points out, The Copernican revolution in epistemology—if we do not restrict this to Kant’s specific doctrine that the mind imposes the forms of time, space, and the categories on the ‘sensuous manifold,’ but apply it to the general concept that the perceiving mind discovers what it has itself partly made—was effected in England by poets and critics before it manifested itself in academic philosophy. (Abrams 1953, 58) As we will see, although Herder may not be considered an academic philosopher, his writings on genius are strongly influenced by Young. And we will also see the strong influence that Gerard had on Kant. We will now proceed to a more thorough exploration of etymological definition #3, the vestiges of which remain with us today.

Lord Shaftesbury We find evidence of all three definitions of genius in the writings of the widely influential Lord Shaftesbury, or Anthony Ashley Cooper,

Origins of Genius

15

Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury did indeed use the word genius in the sense of etymological definition #1, but only as a means to suggest that etymological definition #2 was more appropriate. In some of his other writings he clearly has in mind the creative connotations that came to the fore in the seventeenth century. Let us examine the use of each definition in turn. In Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Shaftesbury addresses what he thinks is a misapprehension of an ancient teaching in one of his soliloquies. He wants “to shew the Antiquity of that Opinion, ‘That we have each of us a Daemon, Genius, Angel, or Guardian-Spirit, to whom we were strictly join’d, and committed, from our earliest Dawn of Reason, or Moment of our Birth’” (Cooper 1981, 60). The hypothesis that we have a genius that acts like a guardian angel is rejected by Shaftesbury. He writes, But I shou’d esteem it unfair to proceed upon such an Hypothesis as this: when (the very utmost) the wise Antients ever meant by this Daemon-Companion, I conceive to have been no more than enigmatically to declare, “that we had each of us a Patient in ourself; that we were properly our own Subjects of Practice; and that we then became due Practitioners, when by virtue of an intimate Receá we cou’d discover a certain Duplicity of Soul, and divide our-selves into two Partys.” (Cooper 1981, 60) Shaftesbury is dismissing any notion (“an Hypothesis”) of attendant spirit in favor a more equivocal “Patient,” or, to use a modern word, personality. However, he also seems to want to retain some semblance of the dualism we discussed earlier with regard to Shakespeare’s use of an evil genius. The “Duplicity of Soul” suggests a conflicted personality. Recall Ferdinand assuring Prospero that he would not follow his “worser genius.” Curiously enough, Shaftesbury seems to want to spurn the idea of an attendant spirit but retain its progeny, evil genius. In addition, in advocating “a Patient in our-self,” Shaftesbury is asserting the broader understanding of genius as personality that is apparent in etymological definition #2. In a later soliloquy in Characteristicks, Shaftesbury refers to “the different Genius of Nations,” “the Genius of our People,” “British

16

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Genius” (306) and even “the moral Genius” (Cooper 1981, 190–92). Clearly, in these instances Shaftesbury is employing etymological definition #2 while, at times, still reaching back for the ethical valence we discussed in etymological definition #1. In The Moralist he continues this use with references to “the Genius of the People” and “Genius of the Place.” The transition to etymological definition #3 must be located in Shaftesbury’s use of the Prometheus story. In fact, Abrams recognizes Shaftesbury’s use of the Prometheus myth, specifically the idea that “paralleled the poet to the Creator,” (Abrams 1953, 280) as widely influential in Germany.7 In De Shaftesbury à Kant, Jean-Paul Larthomas recognizes the importance of Shaftesbury’s claim that the imagination is Promethean, that is, that it can create. In the chapter entitled “L’Enthousiasme et la Théorie du Génie,” Larthomas devotes much of his discussion to Shaftesbury’s use of the Promethean myth. Larthomas writes, “Prometheus is at the same time the force of nature and that of liberty reunited” (Larthomas 1985, 254). Furthermore, the creative impulse is not strictly bound to feeling; reason plays an important role: “Shaftesbury puts forth that this ‘hardy adventure’ of sentiment as much as that of reason is implicit of all creative genius, of all Promethean art” (Larthomas 1985, 236). Shaftesbury equates the poet with Prometheus. He writes that a poet who “give[s] to an Action its just Body and Proportions” should be recognized as “a second Maker: a just Prometheus, under Jove” (Cooper 1981, 110). In The Moralist, Shaftesbury states, “Prometheus was the Cause. The Plastik Artist, with his unlucky hand, solv’d all. ‘Twas His Contrivance (they said) and He was to answer for it’” (Cooper 1987, 48). We should state that indeed Larthomas is correct to remark that Promethean art requires the rational faculties—“just Body and Proportion,” “Tones and Measures,” “Judgment and Ingenuity,” and “Harmony and Honesty” to use Shaftesbury’s words (Cooper 1981, 110). Although Shaftesbury recognizes that reason is involved in Promethean art, he does not directly equate the Promethean story with genius. In fact, the references to genius in his discussion of Prometheus are sparse.8 It is only in Soliloquy Part I, section 3 in Characteristicks that Prometheus and genius are found in proximity, and almost a full page apart at

Origins of Genius

17

that. Here is what Shaftesbury writes some twenty lines after talking about “a just Prometheus”: . . . we should consider of the Advantages or Disadvantages our Authors may possibly meet with, from abroad: and how far their Genius may be depress’d or rais’d by any external Causes, arising from the Humour or Judgment of the World. (Cooper 1981, 110) It is not at all clear that this reference to genius is a reference to the creative impulse found in the Promethean or to the identity of English poets as a group, to their collective disposition as it were. This is not to argue that Shaftesbury had no influence on Kant. When it comes to ideas like the sublime, judgment, common sense, disinterestedness and the fundamentally subjective character of beauty (or the assertion that beauty was not found in the body), Shaftesbury was very much at the forefront of many literary and aesthetic ideas that came to prominence at the end of the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century. It is true that genius tends to be included in many critics’ lists of topics that cover the range of influence Shaftesbury had on later thinkers. However, closer examination reveals that Shaftesbury uses the word, for the most part, in a way that suggests personality in general, that is, in a way that comports with our etymological definition #2. Before we dismiss Shaftesbury as entangled in the web of an older definition of genius, we should acknowledge that he does indeed touch upon the ideas inherent in etymological definition #3. In his “Miscellaneous Reflections” Shaftesbury writes, “An English Author wou’d be all Genius. He wou’d reap the Fruits of Art; but without Study, Pains, or Application. He thinks it necessary, indeed (lest his Learning shou’d be call’d in question) to show the World that he errs knowingly against the Rules of Art” (Cooper 1989, 306). Implicit in playing genius over against “Study, Pains, or Application” is the idea of some creative impulse. Elsewhere he writes, “The morals, the character, and genius of an author must be thoroughly considered” (Hofstadter and Kuhns 1964, 244). We should not forget that Shaftesbury was writing at the end of the seventeenth century in

18

Kant’s Concept of Genius

order to understand that he, along with Addison, was at the forefront of the evolving definition of genius as creative. However, what is missing from Shaftesbury is not only a sustained and direct inquiry into the concept of genius, but also a consistent use of the creative sense of the word. While recognizing that in Shaftesbury genius is used much more often in the sense of etymological definition #2, we should not underestimate the importance of Shaftesbury recognizing the artist as “a just Prometheus” for genielehre as a whole. As Abrams points out, The rebels of the Genieperiode exploited the element of Promethean defiance against vested authority, in order to attack the code of poetic rules. Even earlier than Goethe, Herder had adopted the Promethean simile. (Abrams 1953, 281) The Promethean myth, far from being equated with genius in Shaftesbury’s writing, is the key idea that is left for eighteenth-century writers, like Herder, to exploit. It seems that genius and the Promethean myth are poised to merge at the dawn of the eighteenth century. And indeed, as we will see with Herder and the Sturm und Drang, genius takes on the characteristics of a god-like creator some years after Shaftesbury’s writings. The more direct locus of influence that Shaftesbury had on Kant would best be found in the idea of the subjective character of beauty and in disinterestedness in aesthetics. In Characteristicks, at the end of a dialogue, Shaftesbury presents us with a response to the questions regarding the origin of beauty. He writes, Here then, said he, is all I would have explained to you before. “That the beautiful, the fair, the comely, were never in the matter, but in the art and design; never in body itself, but in the form or forming power.” Does not the beautiful form confess this, and speak the beauty of the design whenever it strikes you? What is it but the design which strikes? What is it you admire but mind, or the effect of mind? ’Tis mind alone which forms. All which is void of mind is horrid, and matter formless is deformity itself. (Hofstadter and Kuhns 1964, 250)

Origins of Genius

19

One can immediately see a confluence between Kant’s transcendental inclinations and Shaftesbury’s idea. For Kant, a judgment of beauty will be made through the subject’s feelings of pleasure or displeasure, and furthermore, the “forming power” certainly invites one to consider a notion like Kant’s free play. For Shaftesbury, as with Kant, locating a judgment of beauty in the subject does not necessitate gainsaying universality. “All of us own the standard, rule, and measure” of beauty says Shaftesbury. It is only “interest and passion [that] breed disturbance” (Hofstadter and Kuhns 1964, 255). Thus, we can see the roots of Kant’s all important characteristic of a judgment of beauty in the First Moment of the “Analytic of the Beautiful”; it is a disinterested judgment. Furthermore, disinterestedness is a key component of the idea of a free play of the imagination. In sum, let us recognize that Shaftesbury had a strong influence on Kant in many of his aesthetic ideas. The Promethean myth proves to be quite useful in changing the conception of the artist to artificer and creator from merely an imitator. Let us now turn to Joseph Addison who directly addresses the question of genius in its creative and artistic sense.

Joseph Addison The critic who first begins to reflect on the significance of the word genius itself is Addison. Addison reflected on genius in the Spectator. The entry dated September 3, 1711 proposes to “throw some thoughts together on so uncommon a subject” (Addison 1864, 329). The subject to which Addison is referring is genius, and he immediately recognizes his contemporaries’ tendency to label as genius just about everyone with a pen. He writes, There is no character more frequently given to a writer, than that of being a genius. I have heard many a little sonneteer called a fine genius. There is not an heroic scribbler in the nation that has not his admirers who think him a great genius; and as for you smatters in tragedy, there is scarce a man among them who is not cried up by one or other for a prodigious genius. (Addison 1864, 329)

20

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Addison, like Ulrich in The Man Without Qualities, acknowledges that genius is liberally used to describe writers and poets, and it is the liberality of use that compels him to ruminate on the subject. That we are simply seeing Addison’s pithy musings on the subject is clear; he harbors no pretense of a rigorous examination of the subject. Addison simply identifies two classes of genius—one endowed with natural abilities and the other acquiring his trade through imitation and learning. Of the first type Addison writes, Among great geniuses those few draw the admiration of all the world upon them, and stand up as the prodigies of mankind, who by the mere strength of natural parts, and without any assistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own times and the wonder of posterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in these great natural geniuses. (Addison 1864, 329) The adjective “great” seems to serve an exegetical purpose for Addison. The great genius, the one who does not need training or education, is the one endowed with natural abilities. Addison places Homer, authors of the Old Testament, Pindar, and Shakespeare among those who belong to the class of great geniuses. These disparate writers have in common that “they were very much above the nicety and correctness of the moderns” (Addison 1864, 330) and that they were “hurried on by a natural fire and impetuosity to vast conceptions of things and noble sallies of imagination” (Addison 1864, 331). We can see the close relationship between both classes of genius in Addison and definition #3. The native intellectual power of definition #3 is evident throughout Addison’s discussion. The locus for such exuberance is the imagination, and learning is not emphasized. It is also a very select class of writers; one does not easily merit the label great genius. It is only Addison’s second class of genius which employs the aid of learning, rather than having natural gifts endowed to him. Although Addison insists that this second version is not inferior to the first class, we do see a marked change in tone. Instead of “noble sallies of

Origins of Genius

21

imagination” and the appearance of something “nobly wild and extravagant,” we get the more temperate submission of natural talent to “the corrections and restraints of art” (Addison 1864, 332). Addison explains the difference in class of genius with a verdant simile: The genius in both these classes of authors may be equally great, but shows itself after a different manner. In the first, it is like a rich soil in a happy climate, that produces a whole wilderness of noble plants rising in a thousand beautiful landscapes, without any certain order or regularity: in the other, it is the same rich soil under the same happy climate, that has been laid out in walks and parterres, and cut into shape and beauty by the skill of the gardener. (Addison 1864, 332–33) Addison’s use of nature to make this distinction begins a long list of writers who closely relate genius and nature. The use of a nature trope anticipates what will be an increasingly common usage from this point on into the Romantic age. Despite Addison’s insistence that neither class is superior to the other, he does seem to privilege the first class. First of all, he uses the adjective great when referring to the first class of genius. Secondly, he reminds us of the danger of the second class of genius cramping his ability by “too much imitation” (Addison 1864, 333). Thirdly, he states, An imitation of the best authors is not to compare with a good original; and I believe we may observe that very few writers make an extraordinary figure in the world, who have not something in their way of thinking or expressing themselves that is peculiar to them, and entirely their own. (Addison 1864, 333) The evidence clearly suggests that Addison esteems the first class of genius over the second despite his comments to the contrary. The first class is able to reveal something peculiar to them; the “personal” is invoked, and that brings with it a depth of vision that a more imitative practice lacks. Furthermore, Addison’s mention of writers “expressing themselves” and thinking in a manner “peculiar to them” or “entirely their own” signals a new way of conceiving of a writer as

22

Kant’s Concept of Genius

self-expressive. We may find this language commonplace today, but Addison, who wrote at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was undoubtedly at the forefront of conceiving of the artist as selfexpressive and having a personal vision. As we will see with Young and those who follow, the approach to literary criticism underwent a great deal of change in the eighteenth century. This fundamental change had to do with centering criticism upon the artist or writer rather than upon the work of art itself. Seeking a definitive answer to the question of priority regarding the first or second class of genius in Addison’s writing would be folly for the simple reason that he presents his piece as reflections casually put together. However, such a conflict is important to note because the tension between natural and learned genius has a legacy that persists throughout and beyond the eighteenth century. It is a conflict that finds champions on either side of the argument. We will now turn to two of the thinkers who reside on opposite sides of this conflict: Alexander Gerard and Edward Young.

Edward Young Throughout the eighteenth century genius was becoming a significant topic in critical discussions where there was a marked shift from focusing upon a work itself to looking at how the writer creatively interacts with his work. This phenomenon has, to a certain degree, been adumbrated in our discussion of Addison and others. To further our sense of this shift, we must look to Edward Young (1683–1765), who was very much a part of the discussion, and who amplified a very powerful strain of thought regarding genius. Young is credited with being one of the progenitors of the Romantic movement, which flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. His writings in “Conjectures on Original Composition” (1759) prefigured many of the principles that became commonplace in the Romantic era. Hazard Adams, in his Critical Theory since Plato, points out that Young was at the forefront of literary criticism in two key areas: First, his interest turned “from the relationship between the work and the reader to that between the author and his work,”

Origins of Genius

23

and second his “emphasis shifted from discussion of rules and conventions of literary statement to interest in originality and innate ‘genius’” (Adams 1971, 337). The two comments by Adams are obviously interrelated; they point to an emphasis on the artist, rather than on the work of art. Adams goes on to say that “Young’s aim is to change the main preoccupations of criticism as it had been practiced by the neoclassicists, and to emphasize the uniqueness of personal genius and the element of poetry that is ‘beyond prose reason’” (Adams 1971, 337). Young saw reason, with its universalizing tendencies, as something that effaced individuality; personal genius could be revealed in a realm “beyond prose reason.” Herder was said to have remarked that Young’s “Conjectures” had an “electrical effect and kindled a blaze of fire in German hearts.”9 The blazing fire of which Herder speaks found its outlet mainly in the German Sturm und Drang movement of the late eighteenth century— championed and perpetuated, as we will see, particularly by the influential Herder. A look at some of the ideas put forth by Young reveals his predilection for the natural, as opposed to the learned, genius. Young does not undertake a systematic critique of genius; rather, he does exactly what the title of his work says he does—he makes conjectures. As one might expect when reading the title, his “conjectures,” much like Addison’s throwing together of thoughts in his Spectator entries, take the form of speculation or opining without much rigorous or systematic inquiry. It is instructive to learn that Young’s conjectures are addressed to his friend Samuel Richardson, a critic and novelist, who suggested that Young write something of his “sentiments on original, and on moral composition” (Adams 1971, 338). Young muses on original composition at length, and it is fair to say that his conjectures swirl around haphazardly rather than deliberately building from some foundational ideas to a logical conclusion. His conjectures are peppered with numerous references to genius. Such a whimsical approach is consistent with his ideas on genius: one would not expect a deliberate approach from someone who is effusively praising the deep and spontaneous inner drives of feeling that miraculously result in profound visions of beauty. Indeed, Young addresses the question of genius as one tossing around ideas regarding the state of politics in the next century.

24

Kant’s Concept of Genius

When we examine some of Young’s references to genius, it is soon obvious that the origins of genius are mysterious—at times divine, at times natural, but always beyond reason. Predictably, Young emphasizes the word “original,” a word that we will see that Gerard wanted to avoid because of its overuse. The move toward considering the relationship between the work of art and its author is a transformation that is difficult to understate. This change profoundly reorients the traditional outlook on art. Rather than the focus of interest being on the text or work of art, the focus now centers on the maker of the text or art. This reorientation does, according to Adams, lay the groundwork for the Romantic movement, and it brings with it its own fascination with the artist. In fact, we must recognize the various musings on genius as part and parcel of this shift, for the study of genius is nothing if not a concentration on the relationship between the artist and the work. So, when Young focuses on the artist and invokes nature to help explain the artist, he is prefiguring two conspicuously modern ways of addressing art. Throughout his “Conjectures,” Young’s references to genius often appeal to the divine. He writes, “Genius is from heaven, learning from man” (Young 1968, 559). The reference to the divine is immediately striking. God, once considered the only artificer, gains the company of human artists in Young. Genius holds with it the possibility of escaping slavish imitation. Young goes on to emphasize the divine nature of genius: for what, for the most part, mean we by genius, but the power of accomplishing great things without the means generally reputed necessary to that end? A genius differs from a good understanding, as a magician from a good architect; That raises his structure by means invisible; This by the skillful use of common tools. Hence genius has ever been supposed to partake of something Divine. (Young 1968, 556) “[T]he means generally reputed” for creation had been traditionally regarded as divine or sacred, thus reserved for God. Indeed, since the only possibility for the artist was imitation—and not creation—there

Origins of Genius

25

was never even a conflict between learned and unlearned genius. What is also striking is Young’s reference to “magician.” It appears that Young simply equates magician and “something divine.” Magic, in this case, is not sleight of hand, but rather, the presence of some otherworldly power, a land, perhaps, of fancy. He states, “In the fairyland of fancy, genius may wander wild; there it has creative power, and may reign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras” (Young 1968, 560). It must be stressed that this land of fancy can be manifest in the world; the imaginative world can be transferred into structures. Note also the “arbitrary” command of genius. One gets the feeling that the laws of physics do not apply to Young’s genius. Whereas an architect learns his trade through the study of physics, engineering, and design, the magician possesses a power that allows him to transcend his lack of knowledge; the magician does not have “the means generally reputed” to design a building, yet he succeeds “by means invisible.” These invisible means are, for Young, something divine, the same hidden power of God to create. Young is the first to directly equate the creative genius with the divine. (Addison hints at the divine with his use of words like “exalted,” but never explicitly so.) In doing so Young uncovers a tension that will be present in all of the philosophers that follow in this study: That is the tension between education and spontaneous creativity. A divinity does not need the lessons of empirical study; there is an implicit conflict between education and divine genius. As long as one stresses the divine, the inspirational, and the arbitrary, there will ultimately be the inevitable conclusion that education is inimical to creativity. Young sets up the dichotomy between magician and architect in such a way as to preclude the architect from being a genius. He states that the architect does his work “by skillful use of common tools.” The magician on the other hand uses “means invisible,” and one gets the impression that never the two should meet. This is confirmed by Young’s statements that “Many a genius, probably, there has been, which could neither write, nor read” (Young 1968, 559) and “Learning we thank, genius we revere; that gives us pleasure, this gives us rapture; that informs, this inspires; and is itself inspired” (Young 1968, 559) and “Who knows if Shakespeare might not have

26

Kant’s Concept of Genius

thought less, if he had read more?” (Young 1968, 574) and “the less we copy the renowned ancients, we shall resemble them the more” (Young 1968, 555). Thus, education and learning are seen as potential strictures on the creative genius. Young is relentless in his assault against learning, in that he attaches to learning a stifling and inhibiting quality. For Young, learning to read and write amounts to the fitting of shackles on the imagination, whereas inspiration and rapture are the desired ends of genius. Learning merely provides information, not enlivening creativity. The roots of the relationship between divinity and genius are clear enough. As we remarked earlier, etymological definition #1a includes the idea of an “attendant spirit or guide.” The word spirit, if not something explicitly divine, nevertheless hints at something supersensual. In the earlier understanding of the word, the spirit guides one to virtue or valor. The significant change that took place in the eighteenth century is that the spirit or guide became a creative, original, and inventive force. Young’s comparison with the divine does indeed retain some sense of the word’s origins. The difference however between Young’s and Addison’s usage is in the decidedly creative ends that they attach to it. The sense of genius as a guiding spirit aimed at valiant behavior is superseded by the sense of genius as a creative impulse. Just as Young refers to the divine origins of genius, so too does he refer to nature as the origin of genius. In the context of nature we find the key to originality. Young writes, “Imitations are of two kinds; one of Nature, one of Authors: The first we call Originals, and confine the term Imitation to the second” (Young 1968, 551). Again, we can see emerging here the tension between imitation and originality. Original imitation sounds like a oxymoronical contradiction, but Young distinguishes imitation of nature as a way of being original, while imitation of (other) authors should be understood in the more reductive sense of copying. Young’s clumsy distinction is not terribly profound. He is not struggling, as William Desmond does in “Kant and the Terror of Genius,” with an inherited dualism of creativity and imitation; rather Young merely points toward a vague distinction between production and reproduction, or invention and copying, but for the most part, he seems only able to broadly suggest that

Origins of Genius

27

nature is the source of originality. He goes on to use nature as a metaphor to illustrate originality. He writes, An Original may be said to be of a vegetable nature; it rises spontaneously from the vital root of Genius; it grows, it is not made: Imitations are often a sort of Manufacture wrought up by those Mechanics, Art, and Labour, out of pre-existent materials not their own. (Young 1968, 552) The claim to originality is thus founded on genius which grows naturally. “An adult genius comes out of nature’s hand, as Pallas out of Jove’s head, at full growth, and mature: Shakespeare’s genius was this kind” (Young 1968, 558). As we have seen, education can ruin the potential of a genius, and here, we see the genius spring fully developed from the heads of the gods. In sum, Young was very influential in the conversation regarding genius that was occurring in the eighteenth century. As Zammito remarks, “What is important about Young is the religious and spiritualist element in his celebration of original genius” (Zammito 1992, 355 n. 64). We will see that Young wields a powerful influence on Herder and the followers of the Sturm und Drang as well as the Romantics. This manifests itself in Herder’s and the Sturm und Drang’s attitudes to education and the divine origins of genius. It is no wonder that Herder said of Young that he “kindled a blaze of fire in German hearts.” Let us now briefly consider a contemporary of Young who undoubtedly picked up on the general tenor of discussion regarding genius but never dedicated any explicit study to genius: David Hume.

David Hume It is widely acknowledged that David Hume (1711–1776) had a profound influence on Kant; in his first Critique Kant recalls that it was Hume who had awakened him from his dogmatic slumber. Hume also had an influence on Gerard, as we will see with Hume’s associationist psychology. However, Hume’s understanding of genius does

28

Kant’s Concept of Genius

not appear to be a locus of influence on either Kant or Gerard. The word does indeed appear in The Treatise of Human Nature and in Of the Standard of Taste, but in an undifferentiated way. He writes, One would think the whole intellectual world of ideas was at once subjected to our view, and that we did nothing but pick out such as was most proper for out purpose. There may not, however, be any present, besides those very ideas, that are thus collected by a kind of magical faculty in the soul, which, tho’ it be always most perfect in the greatest genius, and is properly what we call a genius, is however inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding. (Hume 1967, 24) His use of the word is consistent with definition #3, but it is hardly rigorously pursued as a philosophical term. Mary Warnock, in her study Imagination and Time, points out that imagination for Hume was fundamentally reproductive (Warnock 1994, 6). This immediately gives pause because genius is so ineluctably bound with the productive imagination. If imagination is simply reproductive, then what is the significance of this inventive power? Hume’s epistemology seems to preclude any deep influence on the word genius. We recognize the transformation the word went through at this time, and the lack of any strong idea of a productive imagination prevents Hume from transforming the meaning of genius in any significant way. Let us consider that in Of the Standard of Taste, Hume writes, “But though poetry can never submit to exact truth, it must be confined by rules of art, discovered to the author either by genius or observation” (Adams 1971, 316). Later, he says at length, Authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator; but his reputation will never be durable or general. When his compositions are examined by posterity or by foreigners, the enchantment is dissipated, and his faults appear in their true colors. On the contrary, a real genius, the longer his works endure, and the more wide they are spread, the more sincere is the admiration which he meets with. (Adams 1971, 316)

Origins of Genius

29

In each quotation, the sense of Hume’s use of the word genius is clear. Noteworthy in the first example is that Hume mentions the “rules of art.” (Later in this study, we will see that Kant talks of genius as “giving the rule to art.”) The “rules of art” reference is quite suggestive; the reproductive aspect of Hume’s imagination is implicit in the way that he uses it. It is as if the artist finds the rules, follows them, and then posterity will determine who the genius is. Furthermore, we may note that genius is contrasted with observation, in that one or the other may “discover to the author” these rules. It seems unlikely that anyone could discover a “rule of art” without observation—even a genius. One is not sure if Hume is making some allusion to a conflict between learned and unlearned genius here. Is the suggestion that observation implies learned, whereas genius, presumably a non-observer, is unlearned? Perhaps. In any case, Hume seems to use this inherited term in an unreflective way. The second quotation is clearer, though not overwhelmingly so. One has the sense here that genius produces works of lasting import, and thus, will be subject to the vagaries of particular tastes. We are left to believe that the genius is better at finding the rules. Only a historical standard can recognize genius. The longer the work of art endures, the more readily its author can be recognized as a genius. One last observation regarding “Of the Standard of Taste”: Hume does suggest a relationship between taste and genius, but only in so far as men of taste might recognize genius. Hume writes, Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society, by the soundness of their understanding and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind. The ascendant, which they acquire, gives a prevalence to that lively approbation, with which they receive any productions of genius, and renders it generally predominant. (Adams 1971, 320) Hume’s suggestion that a man of taste can recognize genius at least establishes a relationship between taste and genius, though Gerard and Kant were to take this relationship much further. In both A Treatise of Human Nature, and “Of the Standard of Taste,” Hume’s use of genius is only suggestive of relationships with aspects

30

Kant’s Concept of Genius

of genius that Kant and Gerard make explicit—invention, taste, and judgment, for example. He writes, “The first and most considerable circumstance requisite to render truth agreeable, is the genius and capacity, which is employ’d in its invention and discovery” (Hume 1984, 495). In this case, Hume does equate genius and invention. Man has a capacity for discovery, and genius has the potential for invention. Thus, we see that Hume does not reduce the activity of genius to finding rules. The inventive element is found in genius. But, the inventive element is never developed in any substantive way. It would be difficult to sustain an argument that Hume had any particular influence on Kant’s explication of genius; rather, Hume seems to fit in the general legacy of Addison’s early eighteenth reflections: genius is sought in the realm of the arts, and creativity is a cornerstone of genius’s power. For a more influential philosopher regarding the specific characteristics of genius we must turn our attention to Alexander Gerard.

Alexander Gerard Alexander Gerard (1728–1795) was a professor of philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland. From 1758 to 1773 he belonged to the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (records exist of these meetings up until 1771) which included other Aberdeen scholars such as Thomas Reid, John Gregory, George Campbell, David Skene, Robert Trail, and John Stewart.10 It was at the twice monthly meetings of the Aberdeen society that Gerard began his examination of genius. In fact, the question regarding genius was number eighteen on a list of 126 questions formulated by the society. It read: “In the Perfection of what faculty does Genius consist? Or if in a Combination of Faculties, what are they?” Indeed, the opening section of An Essay on Genius seems to be a direct response to these questions. Gerard states in the preface to An Essay on Genius that “the first part [was] composed, and some progress was made in the second part, so long ago as the year 1758” (Gerard 1966, iii). This is evidenced by the 1759 publication of his An Essay on Taste where Gerard provides a propaedeutic for his fuller examination of genius by devoting a

Origins of Genius

31

section to it. This is noteworthy because it places Gerard at the forefront of a number of books composed on genius in a twenty-year period that dates from the 1750s.11 As Bernhard Fabian points out in the introduction, if Gerard composed much of the book in 1758, he may be considered to be one of the earliest writers on the subject and almost reverse[s] the traditional history of Genielehre. For what might be considered as a summary of established doctrines when written in or shortly before 1774 must appear as new and “original” if written or at least conceived in the seventeen-sixties or even in the late seventeenfifties. Gerard would then deserve a different place among these pioneer thinkers and, perhaps, stand out as their precursor. (Gerard 1966, xi) Our purpose is not to determine Gerard’s historical place in the history of Genielehre. Rather, our interest is in Gerard’s influence on Kant. Important dates, therefore, would be 1766, the year the German translation of Gerard’s An Essay on Taste appeared in Germany and, more importantly, 1776, the year An Essay on Genius appeared in German translation. Zammito states, “Kant read [An Essay on Genius] just about as soon as it arrived” (Zammito 1992, 41). The year 1776 is fourteen years before the date of publication of the third Critique. Georgio Tonelli, in his essay “Kant’s Early Theory of Genius (1770–1779),” points out that “before 1770 Kant rarely uses the term genius” and “after 1770 Kant gives terrific development to his theory of genius” (Tonelli 1966, 109–10). Tonelli makes clear in his essay that 1776 is a pivotal year for Kant’s conception of genius. Questions regarding Geist, education, and talent take on a different hue for Kant in the years following 1776. Such development will be addressed below. For now, let us return to Gerard and examine his concept of genius. Milton Nahm suggests that there is a fundamental dualism in Gerard’s theory of genius (Nahm 1956, 141). The suggestion of a dualism arises because Gerard refuses, unlike Edward Young, to give genius free reign in creation. Genius manages to combine creation with judgment and taste. We can recall that etymological definition

32

Kant’s Concept of Genius

#1a earlier this chapter regards genius as an “attendant spirit” or “guide.” Our examples from Shakespeare exemplified this usage. The vestiges of etymological definition #1a are evident in Gerard when he invokes the role of judgment and taste which act as a guide for the inventive or creative impulse. Now recall the question put forth by the Aberdeen Philosophical Society. It poses the riddle of genius in terms of faculties: “Is genius one faculty or is it a combination of many?” Clearly for Gerard genius is a combination of faculties. If we piece together Gerard’s theory of genius, we see that all the powers of the mind are useful for genius. So rather than, as with Nahm, label Gerard’s theory as dualistic, it may be more accurate to aver, with Bernhard Fabian, that for Gerard “genius brings into play all the powers of the human mind” (Gerard 1966, xxxvi). Rather than conceiving of genius as two poles playing against one another as Nahm’s conception of a dualism would have it, we can more accurately understand Gerard’s genius as an interplay of all the powers of the human mind: imagination, judgment, taste, memory, and the passions. Each contributes its power according to its capacity. As we have mentioned, the threads of etymological definition #1a can be found in Gerard— the faculties of judgment and taste being akin to a guide. Also, we see evidence of the more contemporary usage found in etymological definition #3 where the power of imagination is called upon. Fabian writes that scientists carried the mantle of genius before the Romantic Age (Gerard 1966, xxxi–ii). Gerard, unlike Kant, sought to include both scientists and artists in his theory of genius. Perhaps for this reason Gerard would not follow the trend established by contemporaries like Young and relinquish the tie between imagination and judgment. If he did, then the inclusion of scientists and artists under the same rubric would prove difficult, for without the rational faculties a scientist would be powerless. Kant does indeed sever the ties between scientists and genius. Though such a severing portends the central role of art and the artist in the Romantic Age, Kant was clearly no disciple of Young, for judgment obviously plays a fundamental role in Kant’s conception of genius. But, it is noteworthy that the rational faculties, typically evident in the disciplines of science, play a diminished role with the Romantic artist. When Kant puts forth the idea that the scientist cannot be considered a genius, he places the

Origins of Genius

33

very faculties by which a scientist lives, that is, judgment and reason, in a precarious place. At the very least, some of his Romantic successors give pride of place to nature, and judgment and rationality seem to be marginalized. Consider here Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Eolian Harp” (1796). He writes, And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caress’d, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! (Coleridge 1967, 399, lines 13–18) The immediate cause of the sound is the “desultory breeze.” An undisciplined, unstructured nature caresses the sound from the harp sitting idly in the window. Nature, in the guise of the breeze (like a lover), strokes the sound into being. Later in the poem the speaker says, Traverse my indolent and passive brain As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! (Coleridge 1967, 399, lines 41–43) Clearly, Coleridge exalts nature over and against the functioning of the brain which is merely a passive receptor. We are using an example from a time after Kant only because it is a particularly poignant instance illustrating what Gerard, and later Kant, are up against. Young and Herder set the stage for a “wild and various” nature to overwhelm judgment and reason. This points to the conundrum we will address in the next chapter. In particular, we will examine both the broadly conceived question of the interrelation of nature and genius and, in Kantian terms, how nature can be understood as a mechanism and as a technic. For now we shall return to Gerard’s more psychological account of genius and the human mind. His essay is replete with references to “the rational faculties,” “the passions,” and “moral faculties.” Any use

34

Kant’s Concept of Genius

of words like faculty will strike the modern reader as outdated and clumsy (recall how Nietzsche sneered at all “the young theologians of the Tübingen seminary [who] went into the bushes—all looking for ‘faculties’” in part 1, section 11 of Beyond Good and Evil), but they function suitably enough for Gerard—one understands their significance. Gerard’s intention is to examine this mysterious power that, as we have seen, was a pervasive subject in eighteenth century and that was assumed to have played a role in human history, but “has scarce ever been examined with care” (Gerard 1966, 3). Gerard’s study is not a superficial musing like Addison’s Spectator entry, but instead is a careful consideration of the “exertions” of genius. There are five fundamental aspects of Gerard’s essay that must be disclosed. First, is the assertion that the imagination is “productive.” The second is that both scientist and artist possess the inventive power of genius. The third is that the imagination is the source of genius or the inventive capacity. The fourth is that genius requires judgment. The fifth is concerned with taste’s influence on genius.

Productive Imagination Imagination is not limited by the existence of its object for “it exhibits [ideas] as independent existences produced by itself” (Gerard 1966, 29). In short, the imagination does not simply reproduce things that it sees, hears, feels, smells; rather, it is capable of producing “ideas” or things that have no place in the world of our senses. Imagination “confers something original upon [ideas], by the manner in which it exhibits them” (Gerard 1966, 29). The “creative power” of imagination is not dependent on perceptions or any “prior archetypes.” Gerard states, “Imagination . . . can lead us from a perception that is present, and carry us through extensive, distant, and untrodden fields of thought . . .” (Gerard 1966, 30). Thus, imagination has the power to move beyond the world of objects to a realm of ideas. These ideas eventually lead to production. Reading such comments on the imagination is hardly remarkable for the modern audience, but we must remember that Gerard was writing in the eighteenth century. As early as the 1750s, Gerard asserts the validity of a productive imagination. He writes in An Essay on Taste, “Imagination is,

Origins of Genius

35

first of all, employed in presenting such ideas as are not attended with remembrance, or a conviction of their having been formerly in the mind” (Gerard 1963, 151). Although Gerard might not be the inventor of the notion that the imagination is productive, he certainly promotes the idea. We should also note the prominent use Gerard makes of “ideas.” Though there may be no directly documented relationship with Kant’s “aesthetic idea,” it makes for a convenient symmetry. Ideas, for Gerard, are the result of a productive imagination. They are not dependent upon memory or the world of objects; rather, ideas retain a Platonic sense of otherworldliness.

The Distinction between Scientific and Artistic Genius As we have said, Gerard considers genius operative in both the sciences and the arts. It is in regard to production that Gerard makes a distinction between science and art. Though both science and art invent, it is only in the realm of art that “a capacity for execution” exists. A scientist will “trace out the effects of a principle,” whereas “an artist must do something mechanical” (Gerard 1966, 327). To further this idea, he writes, “A capacity of employing some instrument, so as to express the conceptions of the imagination, is common to genius for all the arts” (Gerard 1966, 417). Later, he states, “In every art, expression contains something mechanical. In painting, the management of the pencil; in music, the use of the instrument; in poetry, the artifice of numbers, or dexterity in versifying, are in great measure mechanical” (Gerard 1966, 420). The capacity for execution must be nurtured. Some measure of education or practice is necessary. Gerard uses Titian as an example of one who practiced his craft for “without exercise, no person can become perfect in [expression]” (Gerard 1966, 420). Thus, we see that Gerard is not an advocate of the “unlearned genius.” A lively imagination must become practiced in expression. The scientist does not concern himself with technical and mechanical rendering; he is concerned with following the causes and effects. Nevertheless, the “following of causes and effects” includes a creative element.

36

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Gerard claims that the reason for the distinction between the scientific and artistic genius is that they have two different ends. Scientific genius, by means of “penetration,” seeks truth. Artistic genius, by means of “brightness,” seeks beauty. The separation of truth and beauty in art is a symptom of what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls “aesthetic non-differentiation.” Gerard’s reservation of truth for the sciences and beauty for the arts is in keeping with a manner of aesthetic thought that was becoming increasingly prominent in the eighteenth century. Gadamer writes that “aesthetic non-differentiation” occurs when “we abstract from whatever meaningfully addresses us in the work of art and wholly restrict ourselves to a ‘purely aesthetic’ evaluation” (Gadamer 1986, 29). Gerard writes in such a way as to be suggestive of such “aesthetic non-differentiation.” If he is not guilty of it, then he lays the groundwork for it when he writes, “In matters of science the necessity of judgment is obvious; all the collections and arrangements of ideas which imagination makes, are immediately subjected to reason, that it may infer truth” (Gerard 1966, 72). A scientist, in search of the truth, “traces out the effects of any principle.” A poet, on the other hand, is not concerned with all the causes and effects, but rather, “some leading, or striking circumstances” (Gerard 1966, 327). Such a distinction becomes obvious when we consider that Gerard devotes a great deal of space in his essay to the “principles of association.”12 The principles suggest that through imagination an artist or a scientist is able to find new links or relationships hitherto unrecognized. Gerard discusses these in An Essay on Taste: “fancy, by its associating power, confers upon [ideas or things perceived] new ties, that they may not lie perfectly loose; and it can range them in an endless variety of forms” (Gerard 1963, 153). The distinction is, of course, that for Gerard the scientist is concerned with direct cause and effect links; the artist can concern himself with indirect or striking circumstances. Through the associationist principle we can see that the artist may range far and wide in the consideration of striking relationships. The difference between the two is in the recognition. Gerard writes, all genuine productions in the arts, are marked with strong signatures of a bright and lively imagination: and every original work in

Origins of Genius

37

science, will be found, on examination, to proclaim a force and vigour of the same power, though the traces of it may not be so obvious at first view. (Gerard 1966, 32) Though it may be more difficult to recognize the scientific genius, the above quotation leads us directly to the second fundamental aspect of Gerard’s examination of genius: the imagination is the source of invention.

Imagination as Source Gerard begins his essay with the contention that genius “arises from the natural intricacy and mutual connexion of the intellectual powers” (Gerard 1966, 7). A lengthy passage will establish the prominent role of invention. Invention is to be understood in contrast to originality. Fabian points out that “original” had always been closely associated with genius so much so that the power of the word had been lost. Fabian writes, In [originality’s] comparatively complicated history it had come to mean all things to all critics, and there was a considerable variety of theories about the foundations and manifestations of originality. In addition, the discussion had for the most part been centred on literature and, as in the case of wit, a strong subjective element was frequently involved. (Gerard 1966, xxx) Thus, Gerard makes invention, rather than originality, the cornerstone of his definition of genius: Genius is properly the faculty of invention; by means of which a man is qualified for making new discoveries in science, or for producing original works of art. We may ascribe taste, judgment, or knowledge, to a man who is incapable of invention; but we cannot reckon him a man of genius. In order to determine, how far he merits this character, we must enquire, whether he has discovered any new principle in science, or invented any new art, or carried those arts which are already practiced, to a higher degree of

38

Kant’s Concept of Genius

perfection, than former masters? Or, whether, at least, he has, in matters of science, improved on the discoveries of his predecessors, and reduced principles formerly known, to a greater degree of simplicity and consistence, or traced them through a train of consequences hitherto unknown? Or, in the arts, designed some new work, different from those of his predecessors, though not perhaps excelling them? Whatever falls short of this, is servile imitation, or a dull effort of plodding industry, which as not implying invention, can be deemed no proof of genius, whatever capacity, skill, or diligence it may evidence. But if a man shows invention, no intellectual defects which his performance may betray, can forfeit his claim to genius. (Gerard 1966, 8) It is immediately evident that Gerard establishes invention as the cornerstone of genius. Without designing something new or improving on a previous discovery, one cannot be recognized as a genius. But, this is only a point of departure for Gerard. His conception of genius will become nuanced when he discloses the role of judgment and taste as his study progresses. Nevertheless, the unmistakable starting point for his discussion of genius is invention. Gerard calls genius a “faculty of invention,” and it is apparent that not all people possess this faculty. Taste, judgment, and knowledge seem to be present in all people, though in varying degrees, but the faculty of invention is reserved for only those who discover, invent, or practice a higher degree of perfection in some activity. In this regard Gerard is firmly situated among his contemporaries and in keeping with the legacy of Addison. Indeed, a key to etymological definition #3 is the emphasis on creativity. As that definition begins to predominate we see the older characteristic of “attendant spirit” or “guide” (definition #1a) fall by the wayside to varying degrees.

The Role of Judgment We now come to perhaps Gerard’s most important contribution to the understanding of genius: the idea that judgment plays a decisive role in the machinations of genius. In etymological definition #1a, genius was thought to be an attendant spirit that guides one on the

Origins of Genius

39

way to virtue or valour. As noted above, Gerard, whether deliberately or not, exploits this notion of a guide when he asserts the power of judgment in genius. Gerard states, The vigour of imagination carries [genius] forward to invention; but understanding must always conduct it and regulate its notions. A horse of high mettle ranging at liberty, will run with great swiftness and spirit, but in an irregular track and without any fixt direction: a skillful rider makes him move straight in the road, with equal spirit and swiftness. (Gerard 1966, 71) To be sure, the imagination is the driving force behind invention, but the understanding is a key regulative factor in its direction and manifestations. To avoid excess, the understanding must guide the imagination. Gerard states flatly that “without judgment, imagination would be extravagant; but without imagination, judgment could do nothing” (Gerard 1966, 38). The mutual interplay between these powers cannot be overstated. Any impulse to privilege the role of imagination is confounded by the comments that though “Genius derives its immediate origins from the imagination[,] mere imagination will not constitute genius. If fancy were left entirely to itself, it would run into wild caprice and extravagance, unworthy to be called invention” (Gerard 1966, 36) and “a man can scarce be said to have invented till he has exercised his judgment” (Gerard 1966, 37). Gerard uses the word “fancy” almost interchangeably with imagination. The difference is that fancy frequently seems to have a negative connotation to it (if negative is too strong a word then we might say it signifies the caprice and extravagance that uncontrolled imagination can demonstrate). We can see in the following quotation that fancy is in need of judgment: In a man of genius, imagination can scarce take a single step, but judgment should attend it. The most luxuriant fancy stands most in need of being checked by judgment. As a rich soil produces not only the largest quantity of grain, but also the greatest profusion of such weeds as tend to choak it; so a fertile imagination, along with just and useful ideas, produces many trifling, false, and improper

40

Kant’s Concept of Genius

thoughts, which, if they be not immediately examined by reason, and speedily rejected, will over-run and obstruct the truth or the beauty which the others might have produced. (Gerard 1966, 75–76) Fancy requires the guidance of judgment. The wayward flights of mind that fancy may attempt need such restraint. The soil metaphor is especially revealing. It suggests that the most fertile imaginations are in need of the most vigilance. The possibility of frivolousness overcrowding the truly inventive must always be kept in check, and this is where judgment plays a particularly important role. Here we can think of Kant’s comment in §47 of the third Critique when he states that “Genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art” (Kant 1987, 178). We note the similarity to Gerard’s assertion that the imagination provides the ingredients for production: judgment cannot collect ideas, but it revises those which fancy has collected, and either adopts or rejects them, as it finds cause. Though a bright and comprehensive fancy be the principal ingredient in genius, yet nothing is so dangerous as to affect to display it constantly, or to indulge it without any control from reflection; nothing is productive of greater faults. This leads philosophers to construct whimsical hypotheses, instead of constructing just theories. This leads poets to describe improbable events and unnatural characters. (Gerard 1966, 76) We get the picture of undifferentiated imagination throwing out ideas. Judgment has the ability to sort, decipher, criticize, and refine the crude productions of fancy. Imagination is instrumental to the act of musing in the sense of brainstorming—tossing out for consideration what comes to mind, not judging or analyzing if the idea is worthwhile or not. Gerard goes on to say that “fancy throws out both the worthless earth and the rich ore; judgment, like a skillful refiner, distinguishes the one from the other, and purifies the gold contained in the latter, from the dross with which it is intermingled” (Gerard 1966, 88). Judgment is in search of the “diamond in the

Origins of Genius

41

rough.” The skillful judge will be able to mine diamonds in the roughest landscape of the imagination. Gerard’s conception of genius, and especially his assertion of the necessary role of judgment, stands in stark contrast to Young and, as we will see, to Herder. For Gerard, the interplay of all the powers of the mind must include judgment and, as we will now discuss, taste.

The Role of Taste The relationship between judgment and taste is not always clear with Gerard. When reading An Essay on Taste, one sometimes wonders if judgment and taste are one and the same concept. Other times, it is apparent that judgment is an important element in taste. Still other times, judgment seems overwhelmed by the senses and “proper culture” that are endemic to taste. The familiar and emphatic distinctions in judgment made by Kant are not evident in An Essay on Taste. One can see hints of Kant’s eventual distinctions, but they are hardly the kinds of distinctions that would lead to determinate and reflective judgments, or to the further classification of judgments of taste and teleological judgments. In An Essay on Genius Gerard does combine taste and judgment in a more decisive manner. He identifies taste interchangeably with “a judgment of beauty” (Gerard 1966, 377). As one might expect, Gerard’s Essay on Taste is clearer about taste. We can determine from An Essay on Taste that judgment is the faculty that is made for discerning and combining disparate objects and their qualities. Indeed, judgment makes up half of the equation in taste. Gerard writes, The completest union of the internal senses, is not of itself sufficient to form good taste, even though they be attended with the greatest delicacy of passion. They must be aided with judgment, the faculty which distinguishes things different, separates truth from falsehood, and compares together objects and their qualities. (Gerard 1963, 83) Judgment must help taste; it is a key component to good taste. The other component is made up of sensibility, refinement, correctness,

42

Kant’s Concept of Genius

and proportion—the powers of imagination. Gerard makes this clear when he writes, “[Taste] consists in certain excellences of our original powers of judgment and imagination combined. These may be reduced to four; sensibility, refinement, correctness, and the proportion or comparative adjustment of its separate principles” (Gerard 1966, 95). We can see that taste is constituted by powers of judgment and imagination. Now our questions is: How does it contribute to genius? Taste appears to do more for genius than judgment does. As we saw in the preceding section, judgment directs and guides imagination. Taste goes a step further by giving genius its “particular form and track.” When taste gives form, it is doing more than guiding. Gerard continues, “Whenever the degree of perfection to which any art has already arrived, leads forward to new improvements, it does so chiefly by means of taste” (Gerard 1966, 397). Taste includes both judgment and imagination; this combination is therefore capable of discovering something new—it leads forward. Gerard says that “a person’s genius and his taste are correspondent” (Gerard 1966, 399). Parsing out this statement we can see that the elements of imagination and judgment are operative in both. The source of genius is the imagination, and judgment guides and restrains it. Taste is constituted by these same two powers. That taste and genius are correspondent suggests that they are mirror images of each other. A genius has the requisite taste of a genius; one with genius—like taste—must become practiced (like Titian) in his craft. Gerard seems to suggest, though nowhere is he explicit, that someone with taste is a latent genius. Indeed, taste can “give form,” something of which judgment is not capable. The key distinction is that a genius is practiced at his particular craft. Thus, by implication we see that practice, study, and learning are all requisite for the genius. There is no talk of unlearned or spontaneous genius. Gerard is distinctive in his time for the analytic manner of his study. It differs considerably from the musings of Addison and the reflections of Young. Gerard’s study is characterized by a cool reserve. He does not want to praise or worship genius per se or the exemplars of genius, but rather, he wants to soberly consider the inchoate literary term.

Origins of Genius

43

It is really not surprising that Gerard’s nuanced and rather extensive account of genius proved to have a strong influence on Kant. The major elements of genius, judgment, and taste are all included in Gerard’s study. Indeed, Kant was quite complimentary in his review of Gerard’s Essay on Genius. He wrote, This word genius is much misused, and this misuse has caused one to investigate it. Through this investigation one has sought to thoroughly decipher what is meant by genius, but this has been in vain. Gerard, an Englishman, has written about genius, and has offered up the best examination, although other authors have written about it too.13 (Kant 1831, 233) Clearly, Kant admired Gerard’s work. Many parallels will become apparent when we examine Kant’s formulation of genius. We should also keep in mind that Kant thought the term genius had been often misused (gemißbracht). In such an environment Kant recognized the importance of Gerard’s study. In fact, it was important enough for Kant to devote significant time and thought to clarifying the concept of genius.

Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) came of age in the intellectual climate of the Enlightenment. He was a student of Kant who later dissociated himself from his mentor. His thought vacillated and ranged over a wide variety of subjects. In the 1770s he addressed questions of language in studies which led him to conceive of culture in the broadest possible terms. His insistence that peasants had a culture of their own and that their songs and poetry were meaningful, something commonplace in our day, was revolutionary at the time. Rather than merely creating theoretical studies, Herder spent a great deal of time examining the folk music of many cultures, in addition to delving into Ossianic literature. Although Herder’s study of Ossian seemed trumped by the fact that James Macpherson’s translations of the poetic prose from the

44

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Gaelic turned out to be forgeries, he was undaunted, and, as Robert Clark states in his biography, Herder: His Life and Thought, Herder still “rationalized out of them his own picture of Ossian’s times” (Clark 1969, 142). Clark writes at length: There was no Ossian, so one had to be invented. This invented Ossian was cut to measure out of the poetic presuppositions of an unpoetic age and affected everyone who desired to experience poetry. In Western European literary, political, and social history this desire was epoch making, since from it developed not only a Romantic literature but also an ideal of classless national state, an organic conception of culture, and hence a foundation for the radical movements of the nineteenth century. Only in such an organic conception could the hard and fast boundaries between castes be broken down; only when the lower classes were shown to have high values in their possession could they find any justification for their existence except in the medieval hierarchy of callings.14 (Clark 1969, 145) Clark goes on to write that Herder understood that, “songs of the people . . . go straight to the point, and are not distracted by “shadowconcepts, half-baked ideas, and symbolic print-understanding” (Clark 1969, 149). Folk songs spoke volumes about the identity of a people. Moreover, Herder deemed it valuable to study and explore such songs and customs. They presented raw, authentic glimpses of a Volk, and Herder refused to disparage these cultural manifestations on the customary grounds that they were low art or peasants’ blathering. Charles Taylor points out that, admiration for early, rugged, unspoilt, strongly expressive poetry grew in the second half of the eighteenth century, and turned people towards folk poetry (Herder played a particularly important role here) as well as towards Homer, the Hebrew Bible, and even the entirely invented writer “Ossian.” (Taylor 1989, 377) Herder’s influence upon language and culture studies is quite broad, and his influence lives on today. In the following centuries, composers

Origins of Genius

45

like Stravinsky and Mahler would make great use of rhythms and melodies from Russian and Prussian folk tunes. Renoir would find it appropriate and meaningful to depict peasants in their everyday life. Such scholarly and artistic practices are so common today as to be unremarkable. Universities are full of courses concentrating on peoples, regions, and ethnicities, and art galleries conspicuously promote folk art. This emphasis on the legitimacy of cultural studies is not entirely traceable to Herder, but as Taylor writes, he was “a major early articulator” of a strain of thought that embraced the ordinary. Before this time, the lower classes were never deemed worthy of such study. Herder went on to develop a strong movement of anti-rationalism that had as its target the Berlin school. The Berliners were the proximate exemplars of Enlightenment thought, and in response to the predominance of Enlightenment thinking Herder, among others, sought a way of living that did not confine itself to the strictures of reason. Most importantly for us, Herder, along with a handful of others, became a progenitor of the movement in Germany known as the Sturm und Drang.

Sturm und Drang Herder was the acknowledged leader of the Sturm und Drang, a short lived, but very influential intellectual movement in Germany in the 1770s. As Clark points out, Herder was “an original thinker, the energizer and inspirer of Goethe, the Storm and Stress, the Romantic school, the forerunner of Hegel, and a participating influence on the carriers of the best German tradition of the nineteenth century” (Clark 1969, 99). One can see that Herder’s influence ranged far and wide. Of these, our concern is the Storm and Stress, otherwise known as the Sturm und Drang. The Sturm und Drang received its name from the title of a play written by Maximillian Klingler, and it emphasized the individual over against Enlightenment rationalism. To characterize the movement is difficult, but the one thing that can be asserted for sure is that the Sturm und Drang must be recognized in relation to the Aufklärung or the Enlightenment. The Aufklärung, in Kant biographer Ernst Cassirer’s words, brings with it the assertion

46

Kant’s Concept of Genius

that “the evolution of mankind’s spiritual history coincides with the progress, the ever keener comprehension, and the progressive deepening of the idea of freedom” (Cassirer 1981, 227). Roy Pascal could just as easily be commenting on the Aufklärung when he writes in The German Sturm und Drang: The great extension of human achievement and knowledge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the fruit of the marriage of human dynamism and energy with science, the growing comprehension and mastery of the laws of nature. The supreme effort of consciousness was, naturally enough, the discovery and formulation of laws governing all branches of human experience. (Pascal 1953, 133) Kant, responding directly to the question of the Aufklärung, begins his 1784 “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” essay with the famous lines Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”—that is the motto of enlightenment. (Kant 1983, 41) To be sure, there were those Enlightenment thinkers who tried to add caveats against an overweening embrace of man’s power to reason. Thus, a simple definition of Enlightenment is difficult, if not impossible. In the same year that Kant wrote his Enlightenment essay, Moses Mendelssohn, perhaps influenced by Rousseau’s Discourses, provides a different response to the question on Enlightenment. He states, A language attains enlightenment through sciences and culture through social interaction, poetry, and oratory. Through the former, it becomes more fit for theoretical use; through the latter for practical use. Both together make a language educated. (Mendelssohn 1997, 314)

Origins of Genius

47

Mendelssohn’s distinction between theory and practice recognizes a tension between the progress of comprehension and the practical usages of knowledge. One gets the impression that Mendelssohn is responding to a pervading idea of Enlightenment in his essay: the idea that the Aufklärung emphasizes progress through reason. For Mendelssohn, an educated language requires both theoretical and practical wisdom; an overemphasis on progress and reason can come at the expense of culture. Such was the case for Herder—though he employs very different modes of argument. Herder believed that a culture overrun by a predominance of reason exacts a price. It is in the context of Kant’s answer to the question “What is Enlightenment?” that Cassirer addresses the relationship between Kant and Herder.15 By Kant’s measure of Enlightenment, Herder’s preference to indulge feelings and the passions can be easily dismissed as immature and timorous, for Herder would seem to lack the courage to use his understanding. Herder was enamored with diversity and givenness, whereas Kant sought unity and precision. Cassirer writes, [Kant] who fixed his eye above all on strictness of proofs, precise inference to principles, and sharp distinction of spheres of validity, could see in Herder’s methodology nothing but “an adroitness in unearthing analogies, in wielding which he shows a bold imagination. This is combined with cleverness in soliciting sympathy for his subject—kept in increasing hazy remoteness—by means of sentiment and sensation . . .” (Cassirer 1981, 230) The conflict between Herder and Kant is clear. Although one could never relegate Kant to a mere follower of a movement such as the Aufklärung, as is apparent from his Enlightenment essay, he did embody and espouse some of its fundamental tenets. In this context, let us concentrate on the basic principles of the Sturm und Drang. As we have stated the Sturm und Drang is a reactionary movement that has as its impetus the Aufklärung that flowered in Germany in the later part of the eighteenth century. Among the principle champions of the Sturm und Drang were, in addition to Herder, Johann Hamann, Johann Merck, Reinhold Lenz, Friedrich Klingler, and Johann von Goethe.16 Perhaps its chief objective is summed up best by Pascal who

48

Kant’s Concept of Genius

writes, “All these temporary and partial associates of the Sturm und Drang were urged on by the desire to live according to instinctive feeling, to fashion their lives according to intuition and ‘revelation,’ not social norms and practical reasonableness” (Pascal 1953, 4). The Sturm und Drang sought to eliminate any conflicts between knowledge and feeling by merging the two together: knowledge is feeling and feeling is knowledge. This merging of feeling and knowledge is important to keep in mind when Herder asserts that genius must employ all of one’s faculties. Hamann emphasized subjective principles at a time when objectivity was especially prized. Herder delighted in sensuous imagery of the Bible, of Shakespeare, of folk song; he admired early civilisations because he believed that in them the intellectual, sensory, and practical sides of man were not separated, and he condemned his own society because thinkers were cut off from practical life and the enjoyment of the senses. (Pascal 1953, 14) Lenz was “often acutely aware of [a] dissonance between his feeling and reality, and yet was convinced that life was unbearable unless he was carried away by emotion” (Pascal 1953, 33). Merck was, according to Pascal, a more “realistic” thinker who had a more fluid relationship with the Stürmers; his principle role was one of critic and confidant to another man who does not fit neatly into the thought of the Sturm und Drang: Goethe. It is widely believed that Herder had a strong influence on Goethe. It was Herder who “opened up to him the world of Shakespeare, the folk song, Ossian, of the Encyclopédie, and ridiculing rococo frivolity encouraged him to trust his own imagination and feeling and to let his mind range freely and boldly” (Pascal 1953, 20). During their year together (1770) in Strassburg, Herder served as Goethe’s mentor. Despite this, it is clear that Goethe’s interests ranged far afield, and his thinking could never be confined to one movement. In sum, the Sturm und Drang sought to reintroduce the passions, burning feelings, and desire to a time when progress and reason reigned as king. The tightening grip of reason and progress led to conceptions of human beings that neglected the powers of spontaneous

Origins of Genius

49

creativity. Narrow definitions of civilization and culture ignored the expressive potential of folk art and poetry. The Stürmers sought to emphasize these creative and expressive powers over and above the power of reason. It is no wonder that the creative genius became a central element in reinvigorating the powers of creativity. Furthermore, in a climate that accentuated the creative powers, the tendency to conflate knowledge and feeling resulted in an emphasis on feeling because it was thought to be more expressive.

Divine Genius To be sure references to genius are liberally scattered throughout Herder’s work, but in his 1775 essay “Ursachen des gesunknen Geschmacks bei den verschiednen Völkern, da er geblühet” Herder does not succumb to his usual need to glorify genius through unrestrained praise. Rather, he gives some explanation of what he means by genius. The essay is typical of Herder in that despite the promise suggested by the title, one is not sure if he ever adequately addresses the actual causes of the decline of taste. As quoted by Clark, Magus, in a correspondence with Herder, wrote of the essay, “I ran through your prize essay in one evening. It seemed to me to have solved the question impudently (dreist), but to have touched the matter itself as little as possible” (Clark 1969, 215). What the essay lacks concerning the decay of taste is, in part, filled with comments on genius. Herder’s poetic tendencies appear in full force in the essay; throughout we find ourselves confronted with, to use words employed by Paul Ricoeur, the reverberations of metaphors. As we will see in the following chapters, there is a growing relationship between genius and nature throughout the eighteenth century. Herder is very much captivated by this line of thought. He writes, “Genius is a gathering together of natural powers: therefore, it comes out of the hands of nature and must go out ahead of taste, before taste can come to be” (Herder 1994, 113).17 Thus, Herder weighs in on an issue that lingered among his contemporaries: “What is the relationship between taste and genius?” This issue is an interesting point of difference between Herder and Kant. Whereas Herder decisively privileges the role of genius, Kant is more inclined to let them be, if not

50

Kant’s Concept of Genius

equiponderant, then to allow them to seesaw back and forth or resist one another. We will address this more fully in Chapter Four. Herder employs two different definitions of genius that we laid out earlier in the etymology section of this chapter. At times, he uses genius to mean national character (definition 2b). At other times, he uses genius as original creator (definition 3). His use of definition 2b fits neatly in his Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784–91). In this study, Herder insists that the history of all peoples is significant. The title of his Chapter One (“National Genius and the Environment”) consider genius as a collective, a whole made up of many parts. Both Herder’s fascination with paradoxes and his relish for change are immediately apparent when he confronts the everchanging character of history. He writes, “[The] history of man is ultimately a theatre of transformations” and “The whole course of man’s life is change” (Herder 1968, 5). Despite this nature of change, Herder insists that “all mankind are only one and the same species” (Herder 1968, 5). What emerges to distinguish each Volk is a national genius. All men change, but a people’s identity comes about through their transformations. Frank Manuel, in his introduction to Herder’s work, writes that Herder thought that “each Volk contained the principle of its individuality within itself; [each] was a self-respecting monad” (Herder 1968, xvii). Manuel continues, Herder’s use of the term Volk is characteristically loose. It embraces the chosen people of Israel, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Germans, as well as tiny tribes of American Indians and Negroes in the African bush. A Volk is virtually any group that has a name and a culture. If there is a mythology, a folk poetry, a separate religion, a cuisine, a recognizably different pattern of sense perceptions, the Volk is identifiable. But Herder’s canopy also includes peoples that have not artifacts, or hardly any, and little mythology. The history of the world for Herder is the history of these Völker, their formation as a consequence of the interpenetration of their physical environment and their being, their creation of a mythic cosmology, a music, and a poetry, above all a language. The union of their original nature, their genius, and the environment reaches a climax in a form-giving moment. (Herder 1968, xvii)

Origins of Genius

51

We can see from Manuel’s description that in the context of Herder’s reflections on history, genius does indeed refer to something creative, but it is indicative of a people as a whole—the very principle of a people’s particular identity. It tells us something about the identity of a people. The “principle of individuality” (of a people) is found in the “form-giving moment”—an amalgamation of nature, genius, and environment. This use of genius can thus be identified with our etymological definition #2b for it speaks of a national character on disposition of a people. Perhaps more often, Herder uses genius in the sense of etymological definition #3. Charles Taylor points out, Herder was “a major early articulator rather than originator” of a very powerful idea in modern consciousness. That is, “Herder put forward the idea that each of us has an original way of being human. Each person has his or her own ‘measure’ is his way of putting it.”18 Though Herder does not here speak of genius, the stress he places on originality is clear. It is not a grand leap to the apotheosis of genius, something, not without merit, of which Herder is accused. Reading Herder can try even the most patient reader for he is not the most consistent of thinkers. Clark writes of Hamann’s suggestion that Herder’s pastime was “formulating paradoxes” (Clark 1969, 215). Indeed, one does find contradictions throughout Herder’s work. In Manuel’s words, Herder’s work is “full of ironies and ambiguities” (Herder 1968, ix). Cassirer put it this way: “Herder as a poet is a philosopher, and as a philosopher, a poet” (Cassirer 1981, 230). Throughout his work, Herder abruptly employs metaphors and comparisons. Despite the demands put on the reader, his work, like poetry, tends to linger, thus making one stretch the imagination. Herder uses both provocative metaphors and bold declarations to amplify the meaning of genius associated with etymological definition #3 of genius. Herder begins his analysis of taste and genius by positing that the Orient was once the land of “rohen, starken, erhabnen Genies” (raw, strong, exalted genius) before Greece replaced it as the land of genius. The manner in which Greece replaced the Orient was through the interplay of taste and genius. Herder employs his first metaphor when he compares this occurrence to a prizefighter. Herder writes,

52

Kant’s Concept of Genius

“First, through many improprieties brought about by the power of raw application, the fighter learns an evenhanded way of fighting and conquers” (Herder 1994, 114). The idea here is that taste becomes evenhanded through the raw improprieties of genius. A young fighter approaches a fight with an air of invincibility; his boxing skills are not polished, but his astonishing athletic ability allows him to do things that most fighters would not dream of. Fighters of this ilk take their shots, maybe even get knocked down a few times, but through such experiences a raw brawler becomes a practitioner of the art of boxing. The great skill of the young fighter becomes tempered in the ring over time, and his movements become precise; he never wastes a punch; instead of being seen as the powerful brawler, he becomes known as the champ with an effortless bearing in the ring. Genius rushes out like the raw fighter, and taste is startled by such rash offensives, but over time the boldness of genius is tempered, and taste and genius find an agreeable compromise. The key here is that genius strikes out ahead of taste, and taste must reconcile the bold forays. As we will see, this may be a point of agreement between Kant and Herder regarding the relationship between taste and genius. After we are told that taste without genius is an absurdity (Unding), we are presented with two more provocative metaphors: (1) taste is the rudder (Steuerruder) of the ship that is genius; (2) Hercules’ guide is taste. In both of these metaphors we can see the vestiges of etymological definition #1a, albeit in a dramatically different way. The sense of genius as an attendant spirit or guide in #1a has now been turned around. The guide for Herder is no longer genius, but rather taste. Genius is the impelling power, and taste merely guides. We say merely because Herder clearly intends the role of guide to be subordinate. He states, “And now is it crystal clear to what extent Genius alone makes taste worse? Without genius, taste does not exist” (Herder 1994, 116). Since taste is nothing without genius, genius clearly maintains a privileged position for Herder. The image of a guide is, however, problematical. The rudder metaphor reveals this confusion. To be sure, someone deep at sea treading water would find it absurd to hold on to a rudder—without a ship, the rudder would surely be useless. But, one might also suggest that a ship afloat without a rudder is equally as

Origins of Genius

53

absurd. It would keep one dry, but the direction of the ship would be determined by the water’s current. Herder does not seem worried by this apparent conflict. Ultimately for Herder, without genius, taste would fall back upon convention—upon the water’s current, we might say. Taste, in Herder’s words, is an “organum of common convenience” (das Organum gemeinschaftlicher Konvenienz) (Herder 1994, 121). Taste, that is, the guide, wants to be enticed (gelockt) (Herder 1994, 117) by the power of genius, not by rules (Regeln). One is overwhelmed by the suspicion that although Herder calls taste a rudder, the rudder in fact follows genius like a compass faces north. The rudder steers towards (is enticed by) the manifestations of genius. The compass may be the orienteer’s guide, but to function at all, the compass must be able to find north; taste may be a people’s guide, but taste’s functioning is dependent on genius. Remember Herder’s earlier comment: “Genius is a gathering together of natural powers: therefore, it comes out of the hands of nature and must go out ahead of taste, before taste can come to be” (Herder 1994, 113). The going “out ahead” specifies genius’s role. We might think of a tour guide who has given countless tours of the same museum, historic district, or mountain pass. She can give the tour with her eyes closed. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, she longs to learn a different path and wants to be enticed into doing something different. Genius is capable of finding a new way. The second metaphor regarding Hercules is also both instructive and confusing. It exemplifies a recurring idea in Herder’s work. As the heading of this section suggests, Herder unabashedly equates genius and godliness. Recall that after Hercules is struck by madness and murders his wife Megara and their three sons, the Delphic oracle sends him to Eurytheus, the King of Mycenae or Tiryns.19 Eurytheus sends out Hercules to complete his twelve labors. Herder is not explicit, but it seems that Hercules has two guides in the story. One is the oracle at Delphi, and the other is Eurytheus. Herder’s reference to Hercules reads like this: “Good that just like the goddess appeared to Hercules to show him the way . . . to reach his goal” (Herder 1994, 117). Whether die Göttin is Eurytheus or, more likely, the Delphic oracle20 is not clear. However, for our purposes, we must only consider that Hercules was guided toward his twelve labors by some divine figure.

54

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Hercules completes the prodigious feats, just as the genius creates. The guide for Hercules simply points him to his task. Taste, in this manner, acts as a guide, and genius is charged with the task of doing or creating. To return to our example of the tour guide, it is as if the tour guide points her customers to the museum, historic district, or mountain and says, “There it is, go to it.” Or perhaps, we might consider a painting instructor who does not instruct at all, but pointing at a canvas, paints, and brushes saying, “Go get ’em.” We also must not lose sight of the fact that Hercules “considers himself on an equality with the gods” (Hamilton 1969, 160). Much to Hera’s dismay, he is the progeny of Zeus and Alcmena—a god and a mortal. Therefore, it is no wonder that Hercules considers himself godlike. One suspects that Herder finds the genius to be on equal footing with the gods as well. Also telling is Hamilton’s observation regarding Hercules. She writes, “Intelligence did not figure largely in anything he did and was often conspicuously absent” (Hamilton 1969, 160). It would be an overstatement to say that Herder dismisses intelligence; more accurately, he disdains education and regards intelligence as something that is not necessarily rational. Herder, like Gerard, wants the genius to employ all the powers of the mind; however, Herder emphasizes that the creative capacity of the mind is central to his conception of living. Pascal writes, “For Herder, however, [the intellectual] forces are all the complex powers within him, sense, thought, feeling, activity, striving for expression and satisfaction” (Pascal 1953, 135). Pascal goes on to quote a poem that Herder wrote for his beloved Caroline, “I am not here to think! but to be! to feel!/ To live! to rejoice! (Pascal 1953, 135). Thus, what for Herder is being ruled by one’s intellectual powers might not be that different from what for some other means being ruled by one’s passions. As we said earlier, Herder did not want to separate feeling and knowledge. One suspects that Herder was well aware of the fact that Hercules, in a fit of rage, killed his music teacher. The slaying effectively prevented Hercules from being educated, for music was a cornerstone of a Greek boy’s education. As a poetic choice, the example of Hercules proves to be efficacious. All of the aforementioned attributes of Hercules make him a marvelous example of Herder’s

Origins of Genius

55

characterization of genius. The divine, superhuman quality is present in the feats that Hercules completes; the disdain for formal education is present in Hercules’ murder of his teacher. Antirationalism is present in many of his activities, including the time when he threatened to shoot the sun because it was too hot, and the potential for greatness is everywhere evident in his indomitable courage. Herder, in his inimitable way, manages to splice together a portrait of genius. It would be contrary to his habits and far too easy for him to lay out a dry and direct definition of genius. Rather, he relies on heavy doses of metaphor and praise to deliver the definition. In terms of popular acceptance, Herder’s method proved effective; the basic outline of genius is presented in such a way that any readers with the slightest bias toward the emotive (the Romantics who follow him perhaps) could run with any idea of genius that suits him. The Swiss clergyman J. C. Lavater was another contemporary of the Stürmer. Although he is not considered part of the Sturm und Drang, he began a correspondence with Herder in 1772. Despite not counting Lavater among the Stürmer, Pascal avers that his characterization of genius took its cues from Herder. In fact, what we see in Lavater is an intensification of the notion that genius is somehow divine. Pascal states that Lavater and Herder share the belief that “self-realisation [is] a divine calling . . . and parallel to God’s creative purpose in the world” (Pascal 1953, 138). Lavater’s commingling of creative genius with the divine amounts to an impassioned celebration. Of the creative genius he writes, “God’s in human form! Destroyers! Revealers of the mysteries of God and men! Interpreters of nature! Speakers of unspeakable things! Prophets! Priests!”21 One suspects that Lavatar has made a Christian counterpart to Herder’s Greek Hercules. Other Stürmers, like Goethe22 were suspicious of the lengths to which Lavater and Herder would become carried away in rhapsody. As if the comparison between genius and priests is not enough, Lavater almost swoons with the following, Where there is activity, energy, deed, thought, feeling, which may not be learned or taught by men, there is genius! . . . Genius is not learned, not acquired, not to be learned, not to be acquired, it is

56

Kant’s Concept of Genius

our unique property, inimitable, divine, it is inspired. Genius flashes, genius creates; it does not arrange, it creates!23 Herder’s influence on Lavater is evident not only regarding situating the origin of genius in the divine, but also in his position on education. A genius, again like Hercules, finds education unnecessary, especially education that focuses on abstract rules. It seems that this was the very kind of education that predominated in Herder’s youth. For Herder, this kind of education was likely to be inimical to genius and taste; Herder writes, One must learn to see the rules as indispensible and come to them on one’s own. Any rules (or systems of rules) that are imposed too early are harmful and always remain harmful, as one can see with the fixed, prescribed taste in Egypt and China. The creator himself first lets chaos ferment and allows through inner laws of nature the world to develop to harmony, order, and beauty. A fly which was awakened from its wintersleep unnaturally and forcefully revives only for minutes, then dies forever. (Herder 1994, 114) Herder’s distaste for formal education was clear. As Pascal states, Herder thought that, “The abstract instruction of the grammar school has detached him even further from the real world, and stifled his powers of clear observation and objective thinking” (Pascal 1953, 16). No doubt it was this disparaging conception of education that led Herder to champion the unlearned genius. Learning rules can be damaging and that damage is long-lasting. To be awakened from sleep unnaturally is for him akin to imposed rules or education. Education may provide a short span of life or creativity, but the death of creativity is sure to follow. Herder deems education unnatural or against nature (widernatürlich). Presumably a natural education would be like fermentation. Just as the grapes naturally develop into wine, life left untouched by formal education and bound only by the inner laws of nature will naturally produce a creator. The relationship between rules (Regeln) and genius will prove to be a fruitful topic of comparison between Herder and Kant. For now, let us record Herder’s distaste for education and his insistence that, just

Origins of Genius

57

as for grapes, there is a natural course for creativity. Let us also note that Herder’s meanderings and the Sturm und Drang as a whole maintained a very strong voice in the 1770s. This emphasis on a poetic sensibility that championed feeling was in direct contrast to the burgeoning influence of the Aufklärung. If feeling is knowledge and knowledge feeling, then any analytic dependence on reason naturally would be disparaged for reasons that have already been made clear. Lastly, let us consider two comments concerning Herder found in the Dictionary of Literary Biography: “[T]he historians of philosophy who consider Immanuel Kant the dominant figure of his time are prone to underrate Herder as quixotic, disorderly, and much too poetic” and “Herder’s notions, Goethe said, have been so fully absorbed into German (one might even say Western) culture that one does not need to read his works in order to know them” (Hardin 1990, 109). The first quotation can be read as a direct rejoinder to this study; Kant indeed is the main focus of this study, and in many ways, it is taken for granted that he is the dominant figure of his time. Furthermore, as already mentioned, Herder is quixotic and disorderly, thus it is difficult to fully grasp his writings and claim mastery over them. Kant may be no less difficult in this regard (How many claim mastery over Kant’s thought?), but at least he proffers a systematic approach to his work. This difference leads us to the second quotation because if Goethe is correct in asserting Herder’s influence then we are bid to examine Herder’s writings in the name of history and self-knowledge. In many ways, it can be asserted that the very idea that Herder was “so fully absorbed into German culture” and, in Zammito’s words, “Herder was the darling child of the age” (Zammito 1992, 44) were the demons that Kant was fighting when he discussed genius in the third Critique. We will consider this thesis more fully in the closing section of this study.

Chapter Two

Aspects of the Third Critique

Judgment It is in the Critique of Judgment where Kant addresses the issue of genius, yet we must understand from the beginning that unlike Addison, Gerard, and to a certain extent Young, Kant’s focus in the book lies with judgment; therefore genius is addressed only within a larger context. Kant is putatively completing his critical work by delimiting the powers of judgment. In the words of Werner Pluhar, “The Critique of Judgment contains Kant’s mature views on aesthetics and teleology, and on their relation to each other as well as to the two earlier Critiques” (Kant 1987, xxiii). This fact sets up a problematic for the student of genius. One must not only extract Kant’s thoughts on genius from the third Critique, but also understand genius’s role in the overall structure of both the book and Kant’s critical oeuvre. As we have already mentioned in the introduction, nature plays a pivotal role both as it relates to Kant’s critical work and as it relates to Kant’s conception of genius. Since the concept of genius is introduced in §46, it is obvious that there is a great deal of material preceding any mention of genius. Much of that material is, as the title suggests, concerned with judgment, and we will argue that implicit in the critiquing of judgment are questions concerning the constitution of and our access to nature. In turn, nature will hold the key to understanding genius. Because genius is situated within the larger framework of the Critique of Judgment, we must take the time to address Kant’s understanding of judgment and nature. Judgment, in general, is the “ability to think the particular as contained under the universal” (Kant 1987, 18). The relationship

Aspects of the Third Critique

59

between the particular and the universal is of import in Kant’s further distinction between determinative judgments and reflective judgments. A determinative judgment is so called when the universal is given. From the given a judgment is made which “subsumes the particular under the [universal]” (Kant 1987, 18). When “judgment has to find the universal for [the particulars]” (Kant 1987, 19) then the judgment is reflective. A judgment of taste is just this sort of reflective judgment. A particular object is given and we must find a universal principle for it. In a reflective judgment only the particular is given. What is not given is the universal rule under which the particular can be subsumed. Since we are dealing with taste, we might say that there is not a universal that states, “All men are beautiful.” Such a universal would eliminate the need for reflective judgment. With reflective judgment we are charged with the pursuit of a universal. This cognitive ability is important because nature presents itself in so many contingent and diverse ways. Kant states, since the laws that pure understanding gives a priori concern only the possibility of a nature as such (as objects of sense), there are such diverse forms of nature, so many modifications as it were of the universal transcendental concepts of nature, which are left undetermined by these laws, that surely there must be laws for these forms too. (Kant 1987, 19) The diverse forms of nature “cannot be subsumed by determinate judgments.” In other words, universal laws or principles are not given for every possibility of nature, and therefore another kind of judgment must avail itself to us. In order to understand those particulars that do not fit under some given universal reflective judgments are necessary. Kant’s assumption here is twofold. First, he assumes that “universal natural laws have their basis in our understanding,” and second, that “laws can be prescribed to even diverse forms of nature” (Kant 1987, 19). The significance of such thinking cannot be understated. With Kant’s transcendental philosophy there is the obvious implication that human cognition maintains a place of priority over and against nature. This will become somewhat clouded

60

Kant’s Concept of Genius

as we progress to our examination of genius, but the transcendental aspect of Kant’s philosophy makes this assessment of cognitive priority fair, if only provisionally so. In his article “Kant and the Terror of Genius,” Desmond points out that the self becomes “an active source of intelligibility” and more dramatically, that “nature is essentially defined [by Kant] in its intelligible order because we have imposed such an order on it” (Desmond 1998, 596–97). To be sure, Desmond is speaking of the first Critique, but he is merely amplifying Kant’s transcendental claims—the same transcendental claims made in the third Critique. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s “Copernican turn” grounds the universal a priori in our understanding; the conditions of the possibility of cognition are based in the subject. The second assumption is a working assumption of the Critique of Judgment. The above cited quotation illustrates this working assumption: “surely there must be laws for these [modified or diversifying] laws [of nature].” Kant continues, Since these laws are empirical, they may indeed be contingent as far as our understanding can see; still, if they are to be called laws (as the concept of a nature does require), then they must be regarded as necessary by virtue of some principle of the unity of what is diverse, even though we do not know this principle. (Kant 1987, 19) In the introduction Kant lays the ground work for the second moment when he declares that a judgment of beauty asserts universal validity. The diversity of nature requires laws, and those laws unify a priori. But a radical relationship between the contingencies of our knowing and the concept of nature has endured. From the first Critique we know that “all our knowledge begins with experience. But it does not follow that all our knowledge arises out of experience” (Kant 1929, 41). Though our knowledge may begin with experience, our faculty of knowledge supplies something a priori or independent of our sense impressions. When the a priori are the categories or the “pure concepts of understanding” we are able to make determinate judgments; we have universals under which particulars can be subsumed.

Aspects of the Third Critique

61

The abiding problem for Kant was to account for the “contingent laws” mentioned in the above-quoted passage from the third Critique. Again, we must revisit the first Critique. Kant states, By nature, in the empirical sense, we understand the connection of appearances as regards their existence according to necessary rules, that is according to laws. There are certain laws which first make a nature possible, and these laws are a priori. Empirical laws exist and can be discovered only through experience, and indeed in consequence of those original laws through which experience itself becomes possible. (Kant 1929, 237) In Kantian terms, a law is only possible if it is necessary. But nature, understood as a connection of appearances according to laws, is unified in some of its appearances and disconnected in others. The disconnected elements are apprehended by us as particulars in search of universals. No necessary universal is given in order to adequately handle the particulars. These “contingent laws” or disconnected experiences must be necessary in some way, because nature acts according to certain a priori laws. The necessity is found in “some principle of unity of what is diverse.” A reflective judgment, one that is obliged to ascend from a particular in nature to the universal, requires a principle “which it cannot borrow from experience” (Kant 1987, 19). The principle, being necessary and a priori, is a transcendental principle, and further, the reflective judgment gives a law but only to itself. Kant writes, “A reflective judgment cannot take laws from somewhere else (since judgment would then be determinative); nor can it prescribe it to nature” (Kant 1987, 19). A reflective judgment proceeds with the principle that it gives a law not to nature, but to itself. This makes the judgment decidedly centered in the subject. Desmond writes, It is quite clear that Kant’s determination of the judgment of aesthetic taste is consistently thought in terms of the subject: namely, the discovery of a transcendental a priori relative to the delight in the beautiful, which we can impute universally, not in relation to an object as beautiful, but in relation to the responding subject. (Desmond 1998, 597)

62

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Thus, we see that the judgment is not necessarily imputing anything to nature. The notion of a reflective judgment allows Kant to explore the possibility of both aesthetic judgment (i.e. taste) and teleological judgment. Although our concern in this essay is with aesthetic judgments, we can see the importance of reflective judgments with regard to teleology. A reflective judgment is the means by which one may organize a diverse or disconnected range of phenomena in order to unify it. Kant asserts the transcendental principle of the purposiveness of nature, something which takes what is diverse in nature and grounds it in the subject. Through the concept of the form of purposiveness, nature is presented “as if an understanding contained the basis of the unity of what is diverse in nature’s empirical laws.” This purposiveness of nature is a condition for the possibility of linking what nature gives to us in experience with what we conceive of as laws of nature. Kant states, “The purposiveness of nature is a special a priori concept that has its origins solely in reflective judgments” (Kant 1987, 20). We must proceed with the a priori principle that in nature’s diverse manifestations there is the possibility of cognition, “for judgment bids us proceed in accordance with the principle of nature’s being commensurate with our cognitive power” (Kant 1987, 28). The purposiveness of nature is contingent upon our ability to grasp its unity; our ability to grasp nature’s unity requires the a priori principle of nature’s purposiveness. In any given representation there is both a subjective and objective character to the representation. The objective representation can, by means of cognition, be used to determine the object. Kant calls this the logical validity of the representation. On the other hand, the aesthetic character of an object is “what constitutes [the representation’s] reference to the subject” (Kant 1987, 28). This reference is not given so that we may determine something about the object. Rather, the “subjective [feature] of a presentation which cannot at all become an element of cognition is the pleasure or displeasure connected with that presentation” (Kant 1987, 29). Just as we discussed purposiveness in terms of teleology, there is an aesthetic

Aspects of the Third Critique

63

component of purposiveness. Kant writes, Now a thing’s purposiveness, insofar as it is presented in the perception of the thing, is also not a characteristic of the object itself (for no such characteristic can be perceived), even though it can be inferred from a cognition of things. Therefore, the subjective [feature] of the presentation which cannot at all become an element of cognition is the purposiveness that precedes (vor) the cognition of an object and that we connect directly with this presentation even if we are not seeking to use the presentation of the object for cognition. Therefore, in this case we call the object purposive only because its presentation is directly connected with the feeling of pleasure, and this presentation itself is an aesthetic presentation of purposiveness. (Kant 1987, 29) Whereas purposiveness in a teleological judgment is concerned with unifying diverse appearances, purposiveness in an aesthetic judgment is linked with the subjective aspect of a presentation. What is aesthetically pleasing does not belong to the object itself. The object does not contain the beautiful. This distinction amounts to something of a Copernican turn in aesthetics. Aquinas wrote of beauty “in a thing” as “properly belong[ing] to the nature of a formal cause” or “beauty consists in due proportion” (Aquinas 1945, 40). The conception of beauty as belonging to the object has had an abiding influence in the history of western thought. Thinkers as modern as James Joyce adhere to what Umberto Eco states is “an excessively objectivist conception of beauty” (Eco 1988, 55). Stephen Dedalus, taking his cue from Aquinas, requires “wholeness, harmony, and radiance” in an object if it is to be beautiful.1 Kant changes any objectivist leanings by claiming that the beautiful is revealed in the pleasure or displeasure of the sensation one has upon apprehending an object. Ostensibly the feeling is given to the subject as an object. This differs from an objective sensation. The color of a tree or grass is given as a solely objective sensation. Someone who is color blind may not perceive the grass as green, but this is the case of a faulty objective sensation. The aesthetic judgment is

64

Kant’s Concept of Genius

different. When we apprehend an object there is an aspect of the apprehension which we do not give over to cognition. Cognition attempts to arrive at a determinate judgment, not a reflective judgment. The representation is not given over to determinate cognition because it “precedes the cognition of an object.” In other words, this happens (or, as it were, does not happen) before cognition begins. Therefore it is merely a presentation of sense to the subject. The presentation that refers solely to the subject cannot determine something about the object; it can only reveal the pleasure or displeasure the presentation gives to the subject. So in a manner of speaking the feeling or sensation becomes objectified. In the “First Moment” Kant states that “the word sensation means an objective presentation of sense” (Kant 1987, 47). The feeling of pleasure or displeasure becomes the object which we judge. Kant defines imagination as “the power of a priori intuitions” (Kant 1987, 30). An intuition, as explicated in the Critique of Pure Reason, is the means by which objects are immediately related to the subject. Kant states, “In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that through which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all thought as a means is directed” (Kant 1929, 65). Conversely, concepts refer to an object “mediately”. The contrast of immediate and mediate is illuminating. The order of operations (i.e. the immediacy of imagination and the mediacy of understanding giving rise to concepts) establishes the framework from which aesthetic judgment will emerge. There seems to be a certain temporal ordering to the operations as suggested by Kant’s use of the word “precedes” (vor) in the passage quoted above; the subjective or aesthetic feature of a presentation precedes cognition. We return to the second working assumption that we uncovered earlier in our discussion of reflective judgment, albeit in a slightly different manner. In a teleological judgment one’s goal is to find a unifying law out of the diverse or modified manifestations of nature. There is some “principle of unity” in what is diverse. To put it simply, the working assumption is: purposiveness unifies the varying empirical manifestations of nature. An aesthetic judgment differs because it abstracts from the material or from the matter of an object given to

Aspects of the Third Critique

65

our senses and it concentrates solely on the form. Kant calls this the “formal subjective purposiveness of the object” (Kant 1987, 30). Thus, the judgment of beauty rests upon the harmonious relationship between the imagination and understanding. Kant expands upon this idea: For this apprehension of forms by the imagination could never occur if reflective judgment did not compare them, even if unintentionally, at least with its ability [in general] to refer intuitions to concepts. Now if in this comparison a given presentation unintentionally brings the imagination (the power of a priori intuitions) into harmony with the understanding (the power of concepts), and this harmony arouses a feeling of pleasure, then the object must thereupon be regarded as purposive for the reflective power of judgment. A judgment of this sort is an aesthetic judgment about the object’s purposiveness; it is not based on any concept we have of the object. (Kant 1987, 30) Thus, the understanding is brought into play. The condition of the possibility of a judgment of taste is merely our cognitional ability. When our “power of concepts” and our “power of a priori intuitions” strike some accord or harmony, then we call something beautiful. This harmony is strictly formal. As Paul Guyer points out, “We may not be able to say that everyone will find a given object beautiful, or, as Kant supposes, that everyone should find it so; but his theory certainly allows us to say that anyone could find it beautiful” (Guyer 1997, 289). “[A]nyone could find it beautiful” because everyone has an imagination and understanding—those capabilities “required for every empirical cognition” (Kant 1987, 31). One could not have the imagination operative and ignore the understanding (or vice versa); both are conditions of the possibility of empirical cognition. Karl Jaspers writes that “[t]he judgment of taste is not a mere incidental faculty (like that of the wine taster) but contains the actuality of our whole essence. For it operates in the harmony of all the faculties of our reason” (Jaspers 1962, 79). Gerard and Herder, like Kant, were interested in including all the mental powers operative in human

66

Kant’s Concept of Genius

beings when dealing with taste. The difference emerges when one considers what characterizes the mental powers in action. For Kant it is clearly the play of the cognitive faculties taking place between the powers of imagination and understanding. For Gerard, taste, judgment, and imagination get equal billing. Though Herder calls for the use of all mental powers, it is clear that he privileges feeling and emotion. Finally, we must not forget that the judgment of beauty is a reflective judgment; therefore the harmony attained (or not) is by means of a particular (for all judgments of beauty are singular) searching for a universal. As we know, the search does not include concepts because concepts imply a role of determinacy and aesthetic judgments cannot be determinate. So the question that begs to be asked is: “What is the standard or ground of the judgment of taste?” For an answer to this question, we must address the supersensible (übersinnliche)—something we will address in Chapter Four. Now, however, we must address how the early parts of the third Critique make it possible for a concept like genius to exist at all. In so doing we will uncover a cognitional dynamic that is operative in judgment and can be applied to the production of art. Let us examine the Analytic of the Beautiful.

Analytic of the Beautiful Before we address nature and its relationship to genius we should examine the clues Kant leaves that make a concept like genius fit within the framework of the third Critique. As we have stated, the discussion of genius is saved until §46, therefore, we might ask the question: “How do the early sections of the work make possible a concept such as genius?” It does so by setting up a cognitional dynamic, one that is operative in both the appreciation of beauty (an aesthetic judgment) and the production of beauty or fine art. Zammito explains the relationship as follows: The architectonic intention was to read the production of beauty in art as structurally homologous with the appreciation of beauty.

Aspects of the Third Critique

67

Beauty always involved Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck, i.e., subjective formal purposiveness, which, transcendentally analyzed, meant harmony of the faculties. Not only was this harmony of the faculties to be discerned transcendentally as the basis of the appreciation of beauty in the judgment of taste, it was now to be shown as the basis for the production of beauty in the work of art. Consequently, what Kant now turned to accomplish was elucidation of the production of the work of art in terms of the relations of the faculties of the mind. (Zammito 1992, 143) So, in the dynamic of the judgment of beauty there is a structure that is also evident in the dynamic of the production of a work of art. In a survey of the four moments, looking for traces of the aforementioned dynamic, we will find that the relationship between the cognitive faculties is characterized by a disinterested and free contemplation that is reducible to neither the existence of a particular object or a concept. The freedom from concepts opens up the possibility for the exploration of ideas, and the basis of communication of an aesthetic judgment is to be found in common sense (sensus communis). All of these ideas will also appear when we discuss genius; the dynamic interplay evident in aesthetic judgments is operative in the dynamism of genius. Taste is the ability to judge the beautiful. An analysis of judgment can uncover the requirements for beauty. Kant employs the “logical functions of judging” to help him analyze our ability to judge the beautiful, but he uses the logical functions in name only. Each moment is named after the logical functions: quality, quantity, modality, and relation. By so using the names, Kant calls attention to judgment’s relation to cognition in general. Paul Guyer points out in Kant and the Claims of Taste that, In his early thought, Kant treated the problem of the universal validity of judgments of taste as a part of the problematic of “logic” . . . and drew the materials for his attempts at its solution from his general views about knowledge. But in the texts which present his mature theory of taste—the two Introductions to the Critique of Judgment and its first half, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment—Kant places the

68

Kant’s Concept of Genius

problem of aesthetic judgment in a new context . . . [W]e suddenly find the judgment of taste treated as a species of the more general class of what Kant calls “reflective” judgments. (Guyer 1997, 29) The reason for this shift in Kant’s way of thinking about judgment may be that logic concerns itself with objectivity. In contrast, Kant’s analysis of aesthetic judgment is concerned with the specific principles that govern subjectivity. Once a representation is offered up to the feelings of pleasure or displeasure we know that the determining basis of the judgment is “subjective.” Feelings of pleasure or displeasure reveal nothing in the object. A “subject feels himself” (sich selbst fühlt) as it were. Kant is emphatic about the preceding distinction. He states, “To apprehend a regular, purposive building with one’s cognitive power (whether the [re]presentations be distinct or confused) is very different from being conscious of this [re]presentation with a sensation of liking” (Kant 1987, 44). In effect, the representation is given to the subject’s feelings: the response of these feelings is the determining ground for judgment. Thus, we can see the separate realm established for judgment in contradistinction to the powers of understanding. Our feelings do not contribute anything to cognition; they merely reveal our response to a given representation. Kant also insists on the disinterestedness of taste, an idea difficult to apprehend in the current climate of heightened cultural, ethnic, and gender awareness. Many students are suspicious of such claims of disinterestedness. Students maintain that impartiality is impossible to find. If one probes just a little, one realizes that, in a circuitous way, the student’s misgivings are illustrative of Kant’s point because they are generally unwilling to admit a distinction between what they like and what is beautiful. The beautiful is what they like and what they like is beautiful. They tend to happily conflate the two words. One need only establish a difference between like and beauty. If and when that is accomplished, Kant’s analysis becomes apposite. He states, We can easily see that, in order for me to say that an object is beautiful, and to prove that I have taste, what matters is what I do with

Aspects of the Third Critique

69

this [re]presentation within myself, and not the [respect] in which I depend on the object’s existence. Everyone has to admit that if a judgment about beauty is mingled with the least interest then it is very partial and not a pure judgment of taste. In order to play the judge in matters of taste, we must not be in the least biased in favor of the thing’s existence but must be wholly indifferent about it. (Kant 1987, 46) Note that Kant speaks of pure judgments of taste. He is establishing an ideal case. That people have different interests, likes, and dislikes is indisputable for Kant, but abstracting from those “biases” allows Kant to assert a disinterestedness. After Kant establishes that the agreeable is solely subjective, there is another kind of liking that has an objectivity to it, namely, the good. Kant states, “The good is what, by means of reason, we like through its mere concept” (Kant 1987, 48). Whenever we speak of the good, we have some sense of its purpose whether we think something intrinsically good or whether we think something is good for something. Recognizing a purpose for something can only be accomplished through a determinate concept. This is not, however, the case in apprehending the beautiful. Kant states, Flowers, free designs, lines aimlessly intertwined and called foliage: these have no significance, depend on no determinate concept, and yet we like [gefallen] them. A liking [Wohlgefallen] for the beautiful must depend on the reflection, regarding an object, that leads to some concept or other (but it is indeterminate which concept this is). This dependence on reflection also distinguishes the liking for the beautiful from [that for] the agreeable, which rests entirely on sensation. (Kant 1987, 49) The distinction between the likable and the good is clear in our ordinary speech. We may like something that is not good for us. Kant uses the example of food. We may avoid fine tasting food because we know it will not digest easily. Our liking and the good are thus brought into conflict. The opposition between the two is clear: liking is purely subjective, and the good has its objective valence. Despite

70

Kant’s Concept of Genius

this opposition, they are related in that both are connected with an interest. We esteem the good because of a determinate value connected with the existence of an object. We are gratified by the agreeable because it stimulates our inclination. A judgment of beauty, on the other hand, is contemplative. Kant stresses that something contemplative is “indifferent to the existence of the object.” In contemplation we hold up a representation to our feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Contemplation is not a strictly cognitive operation, so determinate concepts cannot be used. Only in contemplative liking are we disinterested and free. Being disinterested, free and “indifferent to the existence of the object” are important clues for a discussion regarding genius. Such freedom suggests that in the making of something beautiful, an artist will be free to explore ideas and possibilities, rather than be restricted to objects given in sense perception. In keeping with the idea of freedom just mentioned, Kant insists that aesthetic judgments are free and unfettered by interest and inclination: “The judging person feels completely free as regards the liking he accords the object” (Kant 1987, 54). The judging person’s freedom affords him the expectation that his aesthetic judgment is akin to a determinate judgment in one particular way. Namely, just as logical judgments are valid for everyone, aesthetic judgments are likewise valid for everyone. However, the major difference is that this universality is not arrived at through concepts. It is the disinterested quality of aesthetic judgment that grants it the kind of validity that concepts bring to determinate judgments. Kant states, It follows that since a judgment of taste involves the consciousness that all interest is kept out of it, it must also involve a claim to being valid for everyone, but without having a universality based on concepts. In other words, a judgment of taste must involve a claim to subjective universality. (Kant 1987, 54) Thus, a judgment of beauty demands agreement by others. Kant insists that this demand for agreement is not a cognitional operation

Aspects of the Third Critique

71

that generalizes through concepts, and it is not about the agreeable, something for which everyone has his own taste. According to Kant, “[T]aste regarding the agreeable can be called taste of sense, and taste regarding the beautiful can be called taste of reflection, though the judgments of both are aesthetic judgments” (Kant 1987, 58). Moreover, any generalizing done through concepts is not aesthetic judging. The general validity of a reflective judgment is the result of a representation being referred to the feelings of pleasure or displeasure, and does not arise from any determinate concept. There are two interrelated points that are raised in the qualitative moment which have portentous significance for Kant’s project in the third Critique. The first is the notion of “free play.” The second is the idea of a universal voice or universal communicability. When our cognitive powers are in use and no determinate concept imposes itself on the activity, then we are “in free play” (in einem freien Spiele). This free play of cognitive powers must be universally communicable, says Kant. In fact, the subjective universal communicability is “the mental state in which we are when imagination and understanding are in free play (insofar as they harmonize with each other as required for cognition in general)” (Kant 1987, 62). The powers at work in free play are the same cognitive powers at work in understanding; the difference is that free play operates without determinate concepts. The communicability of a judgment is related to free play because the subjective conditions for free play, that is, the harmonization of one’s cognitive powers, are operative in everyone. The communicability is grounded by the fact that we all have the subjective conditions for judging. A person who judges has a sensation of the quickening powers of cognition, thus revealing the judgment. Kant states, a judgment of taste determines the object, independently of concepts, with regard to liking and the predicate of beauty. Hence that unity in the relation [between the cognitive powers] in the subject can reveal itself only through sensation. This sensation, whose universal communicability a judgment of taste postulates, is the quickening2 of the two powers (imagination and understanding) to an activity that is indeterminate but, as a result of the prompting of

72

Kant’s Concept of Genius

the given presentation, nonetheless accordant: the activity required for cognition in general. (Kant 1987, 63) We can see that our cognitional powers are central and operative, yet these powers are without their most prominent weapon, that is, determinate concepts. Rudolf Makkreel’s study neatly identifies this difference as one of subordination (in the case of determinate judgments) and coordination (in the case of aesthetic judgments) (Makkreel, 1990, 9–12). Whereas determinate judgments find a determinate concept under which a given representation can be placed, aesthetic judgments co-order the powers of imagination and cognition in such a way that results in a free play of these powers. The second moment makes clear the universal claim of singular judgments of taste. The communicability of such judgments is not based on concepts, and free play is introduced as a key element in aesthetic judgment. Such dismissal of concepts in aesthetic judgment emphasizes the point just made regarding the artistic exploration of ideas. Not only will the fine artist be liberated from the existence of objects, he will also be free of concepts. The moment of relation is concerned with the relation between the object called beautiful and one’s feeling of pleasure. In this relation one is concerned with the form of the object itself and the corresponding feeling of pleasure that it elicits. Kant writes, “Consciousness of a presentation’s causality directed at the subject’s state so as to keep him in that state, may here designate generally what we call pleasure” (Kant 1987, 65). To “keep” one in this state of mind is crucial. This suggests that lingering in the midst of the beautiful is a consequence of the relationship between the subject’s state and the representation of the object. As Kant states, “it involves merely the relation of the presentational powers to each other, insofar as they are determined by a presentation” (Kant 1987, 66). The presentational powers are the subject’s ability to respond with a feeling of pleasure or displeasure and the ability to make representations of an object. The words that Kant typically uses to describe these phenomena are contemplation and reflection. Not surprisingly, both words, in their common usage, suggest a lingering or tarrying—the very activities in

Aspects of the Third Critique

73

which we find ourselves engaged when we visit a museum, or admire a great work of architecture, or listen to a piece of music. This lingering or tarrying is not a figuring or computing—a search for a definitive answer—but rather an activity whose only goal is to remain in that state of contemplation. The desire to stay in this state of wonder or contemplation is the pleasure of which Kant speaks when he discusses aesthetic judgment. This pleasure Kant “declares to be valid for everyone” (Kant 1987, 66). Elsewhere he states, “We linger in our contemplation of the beautiful, because this contemplation reinforces and reproduces itself” (Kant 1987, 68). The act of reinforcing is self-perpetuating, it feeds on itself as it were. A key point introduced in the moment of relation is Kant’s idea of formal purposiveness. Reflection is the mode of access to the form of purposiveness. Kant writes, “we can at least observe a purposiveness as to form and take note of it in objects—even if only by reflection— without basing it on a purpose (as the matter of the nexus finalis)” (Kant 1987, 65). This “purposiveness as to form” is provocative. In the first place, it relates to Kant’s entire critical project; the very nature of critique is one of discernment. It is an attempt to properly establish the limit qualities of our faculties (in this case, aesthetic judgment). By definition this formal purposiveness abstracts from all empirical content. In the second place, it uses a word, that is, formal (formale), that resonates in the philosophical memory. Aristotle and Aquinas use the term in discussions of the natural sciences (the four causes) and in discussions of beauty (the form of the object). Kant’s use of the term concentrates on the operations of a judger. Because a judgment is formal, it is a pure aesthetic judgment—it is devoid of all empirical input such as the charm or emotion stimulated by seeing or hearing something. In §17, entitled “On the Ideal of Beauty,” Kant introduces the notion of universal communicability and the foundational role of idea. We will discuss later the significance of aesthetic ideas as they relate to genius in the third Critique, but now it is important to discuss the search for a universal principle that serves as a criterion for the beautiful. As we already know, concepts cannot serve in aesthetic judgment in this capacity. The criterion that Kant opts for is Humian,

74

Kant’s Concept of Genius

that is, it is the empirical criterion (Kriterium . . . empirische); he insists that the “broadest possible agreement among all ages and peoples regarding this feeling that accompanies the presentation of a certain object is the empirical criterion” (Kant 1987, 79). This criterion may sound weak, but it has been confirmed historically with numerous examples. If we consider Michelangelo or Homer, we realize that the beauty of their work has been recognized by many different people, in many different places, at many different times. Because of this expansive agreement, one must wonder if there is not something common to all the disparate judges who have agreed with one another about the beauty of such works of art. Kant asks if taste “stems from [a] deeply hidden basis, common to all human beings” and suggests that grounding the diversity of taste are “forms under which objects are given to them” (Kant 1987, 79). The temptation to appeal to determinate concepts is dismissed because of Kant’s aforementioned dictum that a judgment of beauty is based on the subject’s feeling, rather than “the concept of an object.” This deeply hidden basis allows us to regard some products of taste as exemplary (exemplarisch). Despite the exemplarity of some products of judgment and the something “common” and “hidden basis” of judging, Kant does not think imitating someone with taste will result in the acquisition of taste. Taste “must be an ability one has oneself” (Kant 1987, 79). Ultimately, taste is realized in the singular encounter with the object of judgment; it cannot come about by imitation. By virtue of the singularity and the inimitable quality of taste, Kant posits that “the archetype of taste is a mere idea, which everyone must generate within himself and by which he must judge any object of taste, any example of someone’s judging by taste, and even the taste of everyone [else]” (Kant 1987, 79). He then makes a further distinction between idea and ideal: an idea is a rational concept, and an ideal is “the presentation of an individual being as adequate to an idea” (Kant 1987, 80). This is not to be confused with Kant’s conception of a determinate judgment (a particular subsumed under a universal where the universal is given). The ideal unlike the determinate judgment, is indeterminate and cannot be presented through concepts; furthermore, it is not given for “we do not have such an ideal

Aspects of the Third Critique

75

in our possession” (Kant 1987, 79). An ideal always remains a goal, something for which we are in pursuit. Kant states, “But it will be merely an ideal of the imagination, precisely because it does not rest on concepts but rests on an exhibition, and the power of exhibition is the imagination” (Kant 1987, 80). When a poet responds to the question, “What does your poem mean?” by saying that the poem means what it says and says what it means, we get an idea of what Kant means by “the ideal of the imagination rests on an exhibition.” The poem’s meaning, like the ideal, is manifest in its exhibition or telling. It cannot be schematized into concepts, but rather it “exhibits” (auf der Darstellung beruht) itself as itself, that is, as a poem. Later in the third Critique (§59), Kant addresses the significance of symbol, an explanation which is helpful to understanding this discussion of the ideal of the imagination. It also sets the groundwork for the notion of aesthetic idea—something that we will discuss in Chapter Four. Kant says of symbol that it makes a concept sensible (§59). This is similar to a schematic which also makes a concept sensible. They differ in that with the schematic, the concept is formed in the understanding and in that there is a corresponding intuition given a priori. Thus, as Pluhar points out, in a schematic exhibition there is a direct or immediate connection with objective reality. (Kant 1987, 226 n. 31). On the other hand, a symbolic exhibition has a much more tentative relationship to concepts. Indeed, Kant says, “there is a concept only reason can think” (Kant 1987, 226). However, no sensible intuition can be given for this concept. We recall from the first Critique Kant’s famous statement that “thoughts without concepts are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” (Kant 1929, 93). With regard to the symbolic, however, the lack of a sensible intuition does not hold such vacuous consequences. Once again Kant demonstrates the import of his formal claims. We know that in the moment of relation Kant stipulates that the pleasure one experiences in aesthetic judgment is purely formal; consequently no cause and effect can be determined. Similarly, in a symbolic exhibition (hypotyposis) the formal relationship between the concept and intuition is there, but there is no intuition. In its place is the exhibition Kant speaks of in (§17)—the manifestation of the work of art or the symbolic exhibition. It is as if the work takes the place of sensible intuition. Although we

76

Kant’s Concept of Genius

are no longer concerned with schematizing a concept with the sensible, the analogy of the formal interplay of concepts and intuitions is helpful. It is helpful because even though intuition does not supply this formal interplay, judgment treats it as if it did. Kant is emphatic that symbolic presentation is a kind of intuitive presentation (Kant 1987, 227) (die symbolische ist nur eine Art der intuitiven) just like the schematic. Both the symbolic and the schematic serve “as a means for reproducing concepts in accordance with the imagination’s laws of association. They are either words or visible (algebraic or even mimetic) signs, and they merely express concepts” (Kant 1987, 227). However, the direct demonstration characteristic of the schematic is distinguished from the symbolic which proceeds via analogy. When considering the aforementioned notion that judgment treats the symbolic interplay as if it were the direct interplay of concept and intuition, it is important to keep in mind the double function of judgment. Kant says of judgment that “it applies the concept to the object of a sensible intuition; and then it applies the mere rule by which it reflects on that intuition to an entirely different object, of which the former object is only the symbol” (Kant 1987, 227). Kant stops short of a detailed analysis of the role of analogy in cognition, but it is unmistakably bound to the role of the symbolic. Furthermore, analogy opens up a realm of cognition for judgment that is indispensable for the third Critique as a whole. More specifically, it is indispensable for the role of aesthetic idea and its relationship to concepts. Kant points out that we can reflect on the way a monarchy rules through consideration of a machine like a hand mill. Symbolically, or by analogy, we indirectly exhibit the manner of rule by consideration of a machine. Of symbolic exhibitions Kant writes, “they express concepts not by means of a direct intention but only according to an analogy with one, that is, a transfer of our reflection on an object of intuition to an entirely different concept, to which perhaps no intuition can ever directly correspond” (Kant 1987, 228). Thus, a way is opened up for cognition to grasp ideas that are not directly captured by concepts and intuitions. The symbolic mode seems to invite the development of a notion such as the “aesthetic idea” that Kant later introduces, as we will see in Chapter Four.

Aspects of the Third Critique

77

We should keep in mind the following: the model for taste is merely an idea; the formal inter-play of cognitive powers is the sine qua non of communication; and symbols are a kind of intuitive presentation. The moment of modality holds that the beautiful is without concept, yet is cognized as necessity. We already know that concepts cannot be used in judgments of taste; therefore Kant must establish a standard for judgments of taste that is not grounded in concepts. In establishing such a standard he introduces two important ideas into our study. They are exemplary (exemplarisch) and common sense (sensus communis). Whenever someone judges that something is beautiful, there is an implicit suggestion that others will agree with the judgment. If one is merely speaking of something agreeable then there is no such claim to universal validity. The claim to necessity is an assertion of something exemplary. Kant explains “exemplary” by stating that it is “an example of a universal rule that we are unable to state” (Kant 1987, 85). The ineffable quality of something exemplary is reminiscent of the notion of free play discussed earlier in this chapter. In parting from the firmness of determinate and empirical evidence, Kant anchors the necessity of aesthetic judgments in the fact that everyone shares a common ability out of which aesthetic judgment arises. Common sense is a subjective principle that “determines only by feeling rather than concepts” (Kant 1987, 87). Common sense, a phrase used to signify many different things, is a loaded term for a modern American reader. Some think of the notion of a “lowest common denominator,” or a baseline understanding of something. Others think of the average or typical apprehension of something considered obvious. Still others think of a pragmatic, unsentimental approach to a problem. But for Kant, the meaning is very specific. Kant calls common sense the “effect arising from the free play of our cognitive powers” (Kant 1987, 87). Such an effect is the very basis for communication. Much like the anticipation of understanding is central to Kant’s teleology, communication is pivotal to judgment. For any discussion of determinate or reflective judgment to occur, it is necessary that these judgments be communicable. If any judgments we make are

78

Kant’s Concept of Genius

incommunicable, then they are pointless and useless judgments. For a judgment to be anything at all, it must be communicable, lest we fall into the throes of a severe and self-defeating skepticism. Kant writes that the communicability of judgments is essential, “For otherwise we could not attribute to them a harmony with the object, but they would one and all be a merely subjective play of the presentational powers, just as skepticism would have it” (Kant 1987, 88). So, communication or the possibility of exchanging or sharing judgment is necessary for there to be judgment at all. Kant says that the mental state, i.e., the attunement of the cognitive powers that is required for cognition in general, must also be universally communicable. For this attunement is the subjective condition [of the process of] cognition, and without it cognition [in the sense of] the effect [of this process] could not arise. (Kant 1987, 88) Being human means possessing the fundamental means for cognition in general. Every subject has the capacity to enliven (die Stimmung) his or her mental powers, and it is this shared capability that makes communication possible. The enlivening or attunement of the mental powers is determined by feelings and this attunement itself, and hence also the feeling of it (when a presentation is given), must be universally communicable, while the universal communicability of a feeling presupposes a common sense. Hence it would seem that we do have a basis for assuming such a sense, and for assuming it without relying on psychological observations, but as the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our cognition, which must be presupposed in any logic and any principle of cognition that is not skeptical. (Kant 1987, 88) Thus, common sense acts as an “ideal standard” or “ideal validity” (exemplarische Gültigkeit); it ascribes an “ought,” a conditional quality, to judgments of beauty. In other words, if one’s cognitive powers are well-greased and running smoothly we can expect agreement. According to Kant, “Although the principle is only subjective, it would still

Aspects of the Third Critique

79

be assumed as subjectively universal (an ideal necessity for everyone)” (Kant 1987, 89). The possibility for universal agreement rests in the common cognitive powers that human beings possess.

The Moments and their Foundational Import for the Third Critique We have proceeded with the idea that the four moments provide us with an entrée into beauty. For Kant, the point of access to beauty comes about through judgment. An exploration of the “Analytic of the Beautiful” has not only shown the way we apprehend beauty, but it has also uncovered several key terms that Kant uses in his discussion of genius. These terms (contemplation, play, disinterestedness, common sense, idea, exemplary) play pivotal roles for understanding judgment, and their import reaches beyond judgment because the dynamic that constitutes judgment is also operative in the production of fine art. Otto Schlapp argues that Kant deliberately argues toward the culminating concept of genius (genius is the “Kristellisationspunkt”) throughout the third Critique. Walter Biemel, on the other hand, argues that genius surfaces only in the process of the explication of the beautiful. Kant dedicates most of his time to explicating the beautiful, and in the process, the question of artistic beauty arises. As we stated earlier, the dynamic operative in aesthetic judgment proves important for the machinations of genius. We will proceed to a discussion of a concept that was important to the Critique of Pure Reason. Let us keep in mind that the detailed analysis of judgment makes clear the importance of the following: z z z z z

judgment in apprehending beauty; the role of free play; purposelessness in §16 describes flowers, or natural things, thus making them free rather than attached; the ideal of beauty comes from ideas, or otherwise stated, the model for taste is a mere idea; common sense is linked with the communicability of aesthetic judgments.

80

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Keeping in mind these terms and relations will help us uncover the cognitive dynamic in the production of fine art or a production by genius. Recall Zammito’s contention that “[n]ot only was this harmony of the faculties to be discerned transcendentally as the basis of the appreciation of beauty in the judgment of taste, it was now to be shown as the basis for the production of beauty in the work of art.”

Chapter Three

Nature

Perhaps nothing more sublime has ever been said, or a thought ever been expressed more sublimely, than in that inscription above the temple of Isis (Mother Nature): “I am all that is, that was, and that will be, and no mortal has lifted my veil.” Gerard 1966, 185 n.

What for many of the philosophers we have studied (Gerard, Young and Herder) is a trope relating to plants and animals (verdant fields, blazing sun, shining stars, leaves awash in color, the appetancy of a ravaged tiger, etc.), is for Kant something different. Though there are times when he conceives of nature on the model of plants and animals—he writes of “Flowers, free designs, lines aimlessly intertwined and called foliage” (§4)—but, for the most part, he stays with an explicit distinction between two kinds of nature, neither one of which can be conceived of simply as a world of plants and animals. The two kinds of nature are mechanical and technical. Kant’s depiction of nature is indeed one that suggests “all that is, and all that will be,” and further, his somewhat tepid introduction of the idea of the supersensible (übersinnlich) suggests that there is an insuperable veil that will forever conceal the fullness of nature. Yet nature is an irreplaceable concept in Kant’s critique. We realize this not only because Kant says that “nature gives the rule to art,” but also because his examination of nature is the means by which Kant brings together the realm of laws (Gesetze) as determinate concepts and the realm of teleology and beauty as accessed by judgment. Establishing a normative understanding of Kant’s concept of nature is no easy task. Nevertheless, it is necessary to establish such

82

Kant’s Concept of Genius

an understanding if we are going to explore Kant’s concept of genius, for genius is so inextricably linked to nature that it cannot possibly be understood exclusive of genius. A study of the role genius plays in the third Critique inevitably leads us to consider nature as it relates to Kant’s first Critique because nature is depicted so differently in each work. As Desmond makes clear in his essay, Kant’s depiction of nature has some conflicting elements that are most evident in its relationship to the cognitive subject. Desmond writes, “In the earlier picture of nature in Critique of Pure Reason, the self gives the rule to nature. Now, in a reversal, it seems that nature is giving the rule, and through genius” (Desmond 1998, 598). The seeds of this conflict appear in the first Critique when Kant asserts that nature is unified by the subject. It is clear that the subject plays a large role in constituting nature; the self is in Desmond’s words an “active source of intelligibility.” The reversal of which Desmond speaks is apparent in the third Critique where we learn that nature works through genius, as opposed to the first Critique where the subject is constitutive of nature. Let us consider the two viewpoints in turn.

Mechanical Nature It is clear that Kant’s understanding of nature in the first Critique is essentially mechanical, in Ernst Cassirer’s words, “the expression of the highest objectivity, the expression of order and lawfulness” (Cassirer 1981, 89). That objectivity, order, and lawfulness are bound to the light of human reason Kant also makes clear. Kant uses Galileo as the leading example of someone who employs reason to determine nature. Galileo’s method of testing—measuring the rate of various sized balls moving down an incline—acts as a determining ground even before the experiment begins. In other words, the manner of questioning sets up the parameters for possible answers. Kant explains the decisive role of reason in such pursuits: . . . a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were,

Nature

83

in nature’s leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgment based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions of reason’s own determining. (Kant 1929, 20) Kant uses as strong a word as constraining (nötigen) in explaining reason’s role, but this is in keeping with the Copernican revolution undertaken in the first Critique (the supposition that “objects must conform to our knowledge”) (Kant 1929, 22). Kant acknowledges how strange it is to presuppose that our minds will no longer conform to objects out there in the world, but that the objects must now conform to our minds. He writes, “That nature should direct itself according to our subjective ground of apperception, and should indeed depend upon it in respect of its conformity to law, sounds very strange and absurd” (Kant 1929, 140). Despite the strangeness, it is clear that the subject is occupied with putting nature in his “leading-strings.” Kant mentions Galileo to illustrate the constitutive role of human reason as it interacts with nature. The plan laid down by reason, or the questions asked by scientists, advances the possible mechanical operations of objects. The way in which Galileo conducted his experiments allowed him to seek determinate mechanistic laws of nature. In other words, he was asking questions regarding the rate of falling bodies with certain types of answers in mind. In Kant’s time people like Newton were making startling discoveries in mechanics, and Kant wanted to discover how such advances in understanding were possible. Foremost for Kant is that nature behaves according to laws. Kant writes, When we consider that this nature is not a thing in itself but is merely an aggregate of appearances, so many representations of the mind, we shall not be surprised that we can discover it only in the radical faculty of all our knowledge, namely, in transcendental apperception, in that unity on account of which alone it can be entitled object of all possible experience, that is, nature. (Kant 1929, 140) Cassirer is helpful in understanding Kant’s point here. He writes, “Although in the material sense [nature] signifies the set of all objects

84

Kant’s Concept of Genius

of experience, in the formal sense it signifies the conformity to law of all these objects” (Cassirer 1981, 165). The “aggregate of appearances” must be put together, and the only way it can be is in a way that conforms to reason. When Kant invokes lawfulness, objectivity, and order to clarify nature, it is in the formal sense of which Cassirer speaks. The material sense refers to mechanical laws of nature; the amalgamation of things operate according to laws, but does not aim at a particular end or purpose. The cohesiveness of all these appearances is found in the faculty of knowledge. Kant writes, “the order and regularity in the appearances, which we entitle nature, we ourselves introduce. We could never find them in appearances, had not we ourselves, or the nature of our mind, originally set them there” (Kant 1929, 147). It is in pure apperception (the “I”) that the aggregate is united into lawfully interrelated possibilities. This, of course, requires that we disabuse ourselves of the notion that nature is something in itself, unassailable, and irresponsive to interaction with the beings who inhabit it. This notion is also a radical understanding of nature and the first example of Kant reorienting the discussion of nature. We see in the passage quoted above that “order and regularity in appearances” are what “we ourselves introduce.” The self is the instrument of ordering. Kant is stating this in the first Critique, and it is clear that the order and regularity in appearances are discovered “only in the radical faculty of all our knowledge.” But, Kant’s argument is circular here, and we might already see the inchoate need for a concept or idea that can manage those parts of nature that cannot be constrained by mechanical laws (in other words, the idea of the technic of nature which Kant does not introduce until the third Critique). The circularity is evidenced by Kant’s insistence that the “radical faculty of all our knowledge” is active on what is given to us in appearance. In sensibility we have the form of space and time, and understanding gives us rules. Even with these cognitive powers of intuition and understanding, we need something given— what Kant calls an aggregate. Without the given our powers would be useless. Kant states that, “nature, as object of knowledge in an experience, with everything which it may contain, is only possible in the unity of apperception” (Kant 1929, 148). The aggregate of appearances

Nature

85

needs transcendental apperception to unify it just as transcendental apperception needs an aggregate of appearances to unify. The combination results in what we call nature. Since we are dealing with Kant’s mechanistic understanding of nature as put forward in the first Critique, perhaps we should take a step back and examine, with the help of Karl Jaspers, some of Kant’s fundamental concerns regarding knowledge. Jaspers is aware of the circular quality in some of Kant’s thinking. As Jaspers says in his book Kant, language, statement, judgments; functions of thought, objects; subjectivity, objectivity. Beginning with any of these phenomena, the inquiry will ultimately move in the circle to which thinking itself confines us in our thinking. For in thinking about thinking itself, we presuppose thinking and in trying to know what knowledge is, we presuppose knowledge. (Jaspers 1962, 29) We see here the circular relationship between nature and the unity of apperception; as we will see in the next section, not only does judgment presuppose a purpose in nature, but the idea of nature is predicated on the idea that there is something that can apprehend it. Jaspers speaks of this as “‘consciousness as such,’ the ‘I’ that is every I” (Jaspers 1962, 29). Jaspers does not understand the cognitive subject in Kant as some individual, “empirical psychological subject.” Rather, Jaspers says, [The cognitive subject] does not exist objectively as something other, but is present in the operation. I myself, in knowing, am this consciousness as such, which knows, but is not itself known as an object. This is the point that distinguishes it from every mere object. In my knowing, knowledge and being are not separate, but identical. (Jaspers 1962, 30) Jaspers sees Kant overcoming the split between the object and subject through identity; there is an identity between the operation of knowing and being, and this is why Jaspers says that for Kant, unlike traditional

86

Kant’s Concept of Genius

metaphysicians who start by examining being, “consciousness is the starting point.” So, how might this help us in examining Kant’s understanding of nature? Earlier, we said that Kant’s thinking about the relationship between nature and the unity of apperception (the radical faculty of our knowledge) was circular. Now, we might more accurately grasp the relationship between nature and the unity of apperception as an identity. Paul Crowther, in his “Judgment, Self-Consciousness, and Imagination: Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Beyond” essay, uses the term “ontological reciprocity” (Crowther 1998, 117) to describe what we are here calling an identity. Thinking in this way is not an easy task because it flies in the face of the traditional conception of nature and the self. Desmond elaborates on this: Traditionally, it was held that there were a set of more or less readymade objects, already out there, awaiting in full determinacy the approach of the knower. The knower conforms to the pre-given determinations of nature as being-other. There was the complexity that in post-Cartesian epistemology mind and nature were defined as essentially opposite substances: neither could be reduced to the other, only mind could interact with mind, only matter with matter. (Desmond 1998, 596) The traditional view of nature still has a powerful grip on us. Even if philosophy has been grappling with this question since Descartes, the possible solutions to the subject/object split have generally not made it into our everyday speech. If, in a casual conversation one was to ask an interlocutor, “What is nature?” the likely response would be ostensive: a finger pointing out of doors accompanied by some such words as, “That’s nature.” But instead of conceiving of nature and the self as two separate objects that must be brought together as traditional conception would have it, we can conceive of them as sharing an identity. This is pertinent whether we are discussing nature as understood in mechanical or technical terms. In the case of mechanical nature, the identity is shared between determinate concepts and nature (recall that objectivity, order, and lawfulness are all characteristics of nature and

Nature

87

bound to the light of human reason)—or, as we will address in the next section, if we are discussing nature technically, as something purposive. In each case, it is crucial to refrain from conceiving of nature and the cognitive subject as discrete objects. Kant recognized that many before him fell into the trap of the subject/object split and also that the object side had convincing testimony of its otherness in the form of Newtonian mechanics. Desmond writes that, Kant agreed that modern science revealed a world that answered to Newtonian physics, but he tried to alter the terms of answering how our representations related to this being-other. Very simply, the intelligible order we come across is not a pre-given determinacy; it is rather the outcome of a process of determination that the mind itself performs. Nature as being-other is determinately intelligible because we have determined it to be intelligible. The knowing self is an origin of intelligibility. (Desmond 1998, 597) Desmond does not use Jaspers’s term of “identity,” but he is clear that the being-other of nature is not given already, but rather is determined by the knowing subject. Consequently, nature’s origins are found in the process that the “mind itself performs.” Let us now examine the nature in its other aspect. Specifically, let us look at the change which the relationship between nature and the subject seems to undergo in the third Critique.

Purposiveness of Nature The question for Kant in the third Critique does not pivot on the mind’s role in determining the mechanistic operation of nature, but rather he focuses on the purposiveness and unity of nature as a system. Both purposiveness and the unity of nature have an undeniable indeterminate quality, and therefore Kant’s point of approach, as we know, is judgment. We have already alluded to Kant’s conception of judgment earlier in this chapter. Now we must turn to the purposiveness of nature and then the technic of nature in order to grasp Kant’s far-reaching understanding of nature in general. Furthermore, we will

88

Kant’s Concept of Genius

have to understand how the mechanism of nature and the purposiveness of nature can coexist, and that will require a glimpse of the supersensible substrate that underlies this relationship. Prior to the third Critique, Kant had already explored understanding and reason. We know from the first Critique that understanding yields concepts, and from the second Critique, we know that reason gives us ideas. In Kant’s “system of the higher cognitive powers,” judgment plays an intermediate role. Understanding is “the ability to cognize the universal (i.e. rules),” reason is “the ability to determine the particular through the universal,” and judgment “mediates the connection [Zusammenhang] between understanding and reason” (Kant 1987, 391–2). Hannah Arendt gives an insightful example to illustrate how judgment might mediate between understanding and reason. She writes, “For Kant ‘the middle term’ that links and provides a transition from theory to practice is judgment; he had in mind the practitioner—for example, the doctor or lawyer, who first learns theory and then practices medicine or law, and whose practice consists in applying the rules he has learned to particular cases” (Arendt 1982, 36). Judgment is capable of taking particular occurrences or cases and seeking the universal under which it may be grasped. To be consistent with Kant’s overall program, judgment, like understanding and reason, must be based on a priori principles. Kant states that there are three powers of the mind; these powers coincide with the subjects of each of the three critiques. They are the cognitive power (Critique of Pure Reason), the power to feel pleasure or displeasure (Critique of Judgment), and the power of desire (Critique of Practical Reason). The a priori principles are distinguished as follows: Now the power of cognition according to concepts has its a priori principles in pure understanding (in its concept of nature), and the power of desire has its a priori principles in pure reason (in its concept of freedom). That leaves, among the general properties of the mind, an intermediate power or receptivity, the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, just as judgment is left as an intermediate power between the [other] higher cognitive powers [understanding and reason]. What is more natural to suspect that judgment will

Nature

89

also contain a priori principles[,] for the feeling of pleasure and displeasure? (Kant 1987, 396) By definition, we know that judgment is confined to “the ability to subsume the particular under the universal;” therefore, it does not produce concepts. However, there is one concept that we can “form based on judgment” (Kant 1987, 392). It is that “nature’s arrangement conforms to the ability we have to subsume the particular laws under universals” (Kant 1987, 392), that is, nature conforms to our ability to make judgments. Kant’s term for this concept is “the purposiveness of nature.” The concept allows us to presuppose that nature has a form that is possible to cognize. Kant writes that judgment “presupposes a system of nature even in terms of empirical laws, and it does so a priori and hence by means of a transcendental principle” (Kant 1987, 400 n. 21). It is by means of such a transcendental principle that judgment can act as an intermediary between understanding and reason. Within a three-page span in the first introduction to the third Critique, Kant introduces us to three essential elements of his critique: judgment, purposiveness, and technic of nature (we will discuss the technic of nature in the next section). The linchpin of these three terms is judgment. The concept of the purposiveness of nature is “based on” judgment, and the concept of nature as art, i.e. the technic of nature “arises originally from judgment” (Kant 1987, 393). Judgment has application for Kant in both the realms of beauty and of teleology. In our consideration of art, we will see that natural beauty serves as a model for artistic beauty; however, as should already be apparent, Kant’s understanding of nature is broader than the sole possibility of manifesting beauty. The presuppositions that are inherent in judgment are of fundamental importance to Kant, because those presuppositions will be pivotal for both teleological and aesthetic judgments. The presupposition of the purposiveness of nature is tied to the very possibility of judgment. Section V of the introduction is entitled “The Principle of the Formal Purposiveness of Nature Is a Transcendental Principle for Judgment.” A transcendental principle is “one by which we think the universal a priori condition under which alone things can become objects of our cognition in

90

Kant’s Concept of Genius

general” and “it says that a change in [bodies] must have a cause” (Kant 1987, 20–21). The very possibility of making a judgment is founded on the transcendental principle that nature must have some unity to it; nature must move in a purposive manner. If that a priori condition (the assumption of nature’s purposiveness) is not met, then we would not be able to make a reflective judgment. In §78 Kant reiterates the “principle of teleology,” only this time he ends by emphasizing the distinction between the mechanism of nature and purposiveness: in view of the character of human understanding, the only cause that can be assumed [in order to account] for the possibility of organic beings in nature is a cause that acts intentionally, and that the mere mechanism of nature cannot at all suffice to explain these products of nature. This principle is only a maxim of reflective rather than of determinate judgment; and hence it holds only subjectively, i.e., for us . . . (Kant 1987, 298) Thus, Kant realizes that his depiction of nature as determined by laws, that is, the mechanistic understanding of nature, cannot explain all of nature. The faculty of judgment and its reflective capacity allows, and even invites, a principle that suggests that nature transcends mere mechanism. This subjective principle is the technic of nature.

Technic of Nature It is in the first introduction that the technic of nature receives the most attention. In the first introduction to the third Critique, Kant immediately delimits a system of philosophy. This system of rational cognition (Vernunft-Erkenntnis) is divided into two parts: the formal (logic) and the material (real). The formal is concerned with the “form of thought in a system of rules,” and the material “considers systematically the objects we think about, insofar as we can have rational cognition of them from concepts” (Kant 1987, 385). The material can be further divided into the theoretical and practical. In such a division, the theoretical concerns itself with nature and the practical concerns itself with morals. This division is pertinent for two reasons. The first is that

Nature

91

the theoretical can have empirical principles, whereas the practical, which Kant also calls the philosophy of morals, “must contain no principles other than pure a priori ones (since freedom cannot possibly be an object of experience)” (Kant 1987, 385). It was, of course, in the Critique of Practical Reason that Kant addressed the limits of practical wisdom. Theoretical knowledge (knowledge of nature) is something different from the practical, and it “gives us no insight into the possibility of (the highest good)” (Kant 1987, 389). The following outline shows a breakdown of the preceding division of philosophy: System of Philosophy: 1. Formal (logic) — deals with the form of thought 2. Material (real) — deals with objects insofar as we can cognize them a. theoretical (nature) — can have empirical principles b. practical (morals) — deals with pure a priori since freedom cannot be the object of experience Though the distinction between theoretical and practical seems relatively clear, practical principles do not include all human actions. The practical realm of human action includes only those acts that find their own principles in the idea of freedom. Practical propositions then “directly [direkt] express [darstellen], as necessary, the determination of [our powers of choice to] an act by the mere presentation of the act’s form (in terms of laws as such), without regard to the means [used] to achieve the act’s object” (Kant 1987, 389). In the second Critique, Kant writes that “all practical principles which presuppose an object can hand down no practical laws” (Kant 1993, 19) and “the moral law expresses nothing else than the autonomy of pure practical reason, i.e. freedom” (Kant 1993, 34). The practical is thus autonomous—free from any empirical objects. In order to address the realm of empirical principles, Kant introduces the technical, in the sense of a making or bringing about. He

92

Kant’s Concept of Genius

writes, “All other propositions of performance, with whatever science they may be affiliated, we might call technical rather than practical, if we are worried about ambiguity. For they belong to the art of bringing about something that we want to exist [sein]” (Kant 1987, 390). Thus, it seems that Kant situates the act of bringing something into existence in our theoretical knowledge. Recall that the only two categories he gives to the material part of philosophy are theoretical and practical, and since Kant says that “all other propositions of performance” are other than practical, it would follow that these “other propositions of performance” are theoretical. But, Kant is ambiguous. He goes on to derive the term “technic of nature” from the foregoing discussion. The technic of nature is broadly understood by Kant who writes of technical judgments: In those cases the judgments are neither theoretical nor practical (in the [proper] sense just discussed), because they determine nothing about the character of the object, nor about how to produce it; rather, in them we judge nature itself, though merely by analogy with an art, in its subjective relation to our cognitive power, rather than in its objective [objektiv] relation to objects [Gegenstände]. (Kant 1987, 390) He clearly states that the technic is “neither theoretical nor practical,” and therefore, the technic of nature must be a subdivision of the theoretical. It must be situated under the theoretical, because we already know that the object of theoretical concern is nature. But that is not all; Kant insists that the technic will be used “in other cases too.” These other cases are conjectural or speculative because they are concerned with judgment. Specifically, those cases are ones “where we merely judge [certain] objects of nature as if they were made possible through art” (Kant 1987, 390). So, our outline, redrawn to include both usages of a technic of nature,1 would have to situate technic in two different places, and would appear as follows: System of Philosophy (including technic of nature): 1. Formal (logic) — deals with the form of thought

Nature

93

2. Material (real) — deals with objects insofar as we can cognize them a. theoretical (nature) — can have empirical principles aa. technic (nature) — deals with precepts of skill b. practical (morals) — deals with pure a priori since freedom cannot be the object of experience 3. technic (nature) — concerned with when we merely judge objects of nature as if they were made possible through art Understood in the sense of #3, the technic of nature is concerned with “the subjective relations to our cognitive powers.” It does not deal with the form of thought, as does the formal division of philosophy, and it does not deal with objects insofar as we cognize them, as does the material part of philosophy. Rather the technic deals with the subjective relations of our cognitive powers. Kant states more than once that the technic is not a part of doctrinal philosophy (Kant 1987, 391, 394), but that it is merely concerned with critique. This distinction must be understood with Kant’s comment that “the doctrinal enterprise will consist of the metaphysics of nature and that of morals” (Kant 1987, 8). Pluhar writes of this distinction as follows: ‘Critique,’ in Kant’s sense of the term, consists in examining the scope and limits of our cognitive powers (‘reason,’ in the broadest sense in which Kant uses this term) in order to decide to what extent, if any metaphysics is possible for us human beings. Metaphysics consists in the discovery of truths (true propositions) about the world that are not empirical (dependent on experience), in which case they would be contingent, but are necessary and hence a priori (knowable independent of experience). (Kant 1987, xxx) Hannah Arendt says that critique “means an attempt to discover reason’s ‘sources and limits’ . . . ‘critique’ is placed in opposition to ‘doctrine’” (Arendt 1982, 32). Thus, technic is not about truths so

94

Kant’s Concept of Genius

much as it is about the capabilities of our reason. By including the idea of a technic of nature in an examination of the limits of our cognitive powers, Kant is able to extend the reach of his critical work to the mysterious area of human téchne.2 More importantly, the technic gives Kant a “heuristic principle” (heuristisch) from which we can proceed to examine nature. He writes, the “[concept of the technic of nature] does not enrich our knowledge of nature with a special [besonder] objective law, but only serves judgment as the basis for a maxim by which we [can] observe nature and to which we [can] hold up [and compare] nature’s forms” (Kant 1987, 394). Such a heuristic principle allows one to anticipate that there is the coherence of a system in nature. To put it negatively, the heuristic principle allows us the idea that nature is not just an aggregate of empirical or mechanistic laws as pure reason might have it. Furthermore, the distinction allows Kant to amplify the difference between the mechanical and the artificial (understood as made, rather than fake). Arendt explains the distinction this way: ‘Mechanical’ in Kant’s terminology refers to natural causes; its opposite is ‘technical,’ by which he means ‘artificial,’ i.e. something fabricated with a purpose. The distinction is between things that come into being of themselves and those that are fabricated for a specific end or purpose. (Arendt 1982, 14) Such a distinction allows Kant to approach nature with two different sets of expectations, or perhaps, two different heuristic principles. Kant writes, [W]e would consider in terms of mechanical laws whatever is necessary in nature as an object of sense; but the harmony and unity of the particular laws of nature and of the forms based on them are contingent in terms of mechanical laws, and [so] this harmony and unity, as objects of reason, we would at the same time consider in terms of teleological laws (as, indeed, we would consider the whole of nature as a system). So we would judge nature in terms of two kinds of principles, and the mechanical kind of explanation would not be excluded by the teleological as if they contradicted each other. (Kant 1987, 294)

Nature

95

The two distinct heuristic principles establish the bounds of one’s investigation. If one is asking about mechanical laws, then we would expect determinate concepts. If one is asking about teleological laws, then we would expect judgments regarding something indeterminate—the object’s purposiveness. Mechanism allows us insight into “the nature of things” (§78), whereas teleological laws allow us insight into our apprehension of things. In the first Critique, Kant suggests that the schematism is the means by which an image is given to a concept. Such a schematic is indispensable to determinate concepts. Since judgment does not employ concepts, the schematism is not operative. Kant writes in the first introduction: [W]hen reflective judgment tries to bring given appearances under empirical concepts of determinate natural things, it deals with them technically, rather than schematically. In other words, it does not deal with them mechanically, as it were, like an instrument, guided by the understanding and the senses; it deals with them artistically, in terms of a principle that is universal but also indeterminate: the principle of a purposive arrangement of nature in a system. (Kant 1987, 401–02) The technic allows Kant a certain liberty in reflection. Whereas the schematism employs concepts, the technic has no such determinate factors. It allows for a subjective approach that strikes a balance with natural laws. Kant writes, “judgment itself makes a priori the technic of nature [a] principle for its reflection . . . judgment makes this technic its principle only so that it can, according to its need[s], reflect in terms of its own subjective law, and yet in a way that also harmonizes with natural law in general” (Kant 1987, 402). The technic allows one to reflect with the idea in mind that apparent arbitrary arrangement of, say, a flower’s petals has some overarching unity or purpose to it. Determinate concepts can help one discover the laws that govern a plant’s growth, reflective judgments can help us discover nature’s underlying unity. So, what is the distinction between the schematism and the technic? We know from the first Critique that “the schema is in itself always a product of the imagination” (Kant 1929, 182) and that “images can

96

Kant’s Concept of Genius

be connected with the concept only by means of the schema to which they belong” (welches sie bezeichnen) (Kant 1929, 183). The imagination plays an indispensable role in bringing together representations and concepts. The schema is “simply the pure synthesis, determined by a rule of that unity, in accordance with concepts, to which the category gives expression” (Kant 1929, 183). The rule of unity amounts to a harmonized relationship between the categories and appearances. Kant sums up the role of the schemata in the final lines of Chapter One of the “Transcendental Doctrine of Judgment.” He writes, “The categories, therefore, without schemata, are merely functions of the understanding for concepts; and represent no object. This [objective] meaning they acquire from sensibility, which realises the understanding in the very process of restricting it” (Kant 1929, 187). We can see that the end of bringing together pure concepts and appearances is an objective one. This is in contradistinction to the end of a technically considered appearance. The end in that case is subjective—an end that is still looking for a universal, albeit an indeterminate one. We find ourselves back at the underlying principle of judgment—the idea of the purposiveness of nature. For it is that principle which presupposes that nature itself makes its transcendental laws specific in terms of… [nature’s] appropriateness for the power of judgment itself, [i.e., for judgment’s attempt] to find among things, [despite] their immense diversity in terms of [all the] possible empirical laws, sufficient kinship to be able to bring them under empirical concepts (classes), and bring these under more general laws (higher genera), and so arrive at an empirical system of nature. (Kant 1987, 403) So long as we assert an empirical system of nature, we can “regard nature as art” (Kant 1987, 403). The principle of judgment has lasting significance for nature. Kant writes, “Nature, for the sake of the power of judgment, makes its universal laws specific [and] into empirical ones, according to the form of a logical system” (Kant 1987, 404). The systemic principle is not posited in the object or reason, but

Nature

97

rather in the subject’s power to reflect. Zammito summarizes Kant’s conception of the systemic in nature thus, “nature is considered beautiful when it looks like art, but we know it is not. It is inadvertent artifice: what seems to be designed, yet cannot be ascribed to any worldly artist. Hence Kant treats natural beauty ‘as if’ it were art, and he calls this, frequently, the ‘technic of nature’” (Zammito 1992, 132). The design that Zammito speaks of is, in fact, the system of empirical laws. We have established that the systemic principle is asserted by the subject’s power to reflect, so we might now ask the following: What does the purposiveness of nature tell us about the object’s “cause” or about the object itself? In a word, nothing. Kant states that “This concept [of purposiveness] belongs to reflective judgment, not to reason, because the purpose is not posited in the object at all, but is posited solely in the subject: in the subject’s mere power to reflect” and “purposiveness does not determine anything regrading the forms of natural products, since it is only a subjective principle of the division and specification of nature” (Kant 1987, 407). Any talk about causality must confine itself to purposiveness. In short, if one wants to inquire about the causes of something’s purpose or systematicity, then he must find a way to ask about it. That way is provided by the technic of nature. Kant writes, “Insofar as nature’s products are aggregates, nature proceeds mechanically, as mere nature; but insofar as its products are systems—e.g., crystal formations, various shapes of flowers, or the inner structure of plants and animals—nature proceeds technically, that is, it proceeds also as art” (Kant 1987, 405–06). Thus, there are two distinct ways to approach nature: mechanical and technical. What one may find is determined on the basis of judgment. Kant writes of this distinction that, these two ways of judging natural beings is made merely by reflective judgment. [Making this distinction is] something that determinative judgment did not (under principles of reason) allow it [to do], as regards the possibility of things themselves, wishing perhaps to have everything reduced to a mechanical kind of explanation. (Kant 1987, 406)

98

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Kant knew that nature could not be reduced to mere mechanics, and reflective judgment gives us access to the part of nature unapproachable by mechanism. What has emerged are two distinct ways of apprehending nature— the mechanical and the systematic. The apprehension of the mechanical is accomplished through the understanding, and it is determinate; the apprehension of the technical (or systematic) is accomplished through reflective judgment. How then are these two ways of looking at nature united? Kant asserts the supersensible (übersinnlich), to which we shall turn at the end of Chapter Four.

Chapter Four

Genius

Fine Art We shall begin by concentrating our study on Kant’s conception of art, a subject Kant addresses midway through the “Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgments.” He begins by distinguishing art from nature. In both cases (i.e. art and nature) there is some sort of production. While nature produces effects (effectus), art produces works (opus). Kant gives the example of bees making honeycombs. While one might want to consider this production a work of art, it is really a product or effect of the bee’s nature that they produce the honeycombs. The distinguishing factor for Kant is the lack of rational deliberation on the part of the bees. A work of art needs some kind of rational deliberation, whereas a product of nature comes from instinct or natural causes. Rational deliberation lends to art a particularly human quality. Art becomes “a production through freedom” (Kant 1987, 170), and therefore some knowledge is required of the artist. Thought regarding the piece of art’s purpose precedes the work of art itself. Kant’s insistence on this point can be considered over against Herder’s tendency to see knowledge as a hindrance to artistic creation. Kant further delimits art by contrasting it with science. The simple analogy he uses to explicate the relationship between art and science is as follows: art is to “can” as science is to “know.” An artist can do something—paint a painting, sculpt a sculpture, and so on. The scientist is different because he is concerned with knowing something or knowing about something. The operative words concerning art are “practical” and “technic” because art is concerned with putting into action or bringing into existence. On the contrary, with science

100

Kant’s Concept of Genius

we use the terms “theoretical” and “theory” because science is concerned with knowledge and not bringing something into being. Kant states, “Only if something [is such that] even the most thorough acquaintance with it does not immediately provide us with the skill to make it, then to that extent it belongs to art” (Kant 1987, 171). Kant emphasizes this point with a touch of humor. In referring to Peter Camper, a Dutch anatomist and naturalist, he states, “Camper describes with great precision what the best shoe would have to be like yet he was certainly unable to make one” (Kant 1987, 171). Camper, no doubt a student of footwear as well as anthropology, could make keen observations of shoes, but that does not mean he could make the shoes. Kant likewise suggests a difference between art and craft. The key to understanding this difference has already been disclosed in the distinction between art and nature. The requisite freedom that constitutes art is absent from craft, or what Kant calls mercenary art. One is attracted to craft by its effective pay-off. Although craft is regarded as “an occupation that on its own account is disagreeable (burdensome)” (Kant 1987, 171), one does it for some other reason (i.e. pay, reward, prestige, or persuasion). Art, or what Kant calls free art, is always an agreeable pursuit. Kant writes, “We regard free art [as an art] that could only turn out purposive (i.e. succeed) if it is play, in other words, an occupation that is agreeable on its own account” (Kant 1987, 171). The notion of play and freedom may suggest a certain frivolity to artistic pursuits, but Kant issues a caveat in order to obviate such an interpretation. He states, It is advisable, however, to remind ourselves that in all the free arts there is yet a need for something in the order of a constraint, or, as it is called, a mechanism. (In poetry, for example, it is correctness and richness of language, as well as prosody and meter.) Without this the spirit, which in art must be free and which alone animates the work, would have no body at all and would evaporate completely. (Kant 1987, 171) Thus, though art is based upon freedom, this is not a negative freedom. In Taylor’s political writings, he suggests that freedom must be

Genius

101

differentiated in kind. There is a negative freedom that rests on a freedom from, a freedom from obstacles or mechanisms of constraint. As long as nothing (rules, laws, others, or other mechanisms) impedes one’s progress, he or she is free. But there is another, more difficult freedom to identify and realize, and that is a freedom for. This freedom is founded upon the possibility of realizing the good, or as Taylor states, “an excellence of moral development” (Taylor 1995, 258). Recall Kant’s distinction between negative and positive freedom in “The Principles of Pure Practical Reason” in the second Critique. He writes that the “intrinsic legislation of pure and thus practical reason is freedom in the positive sense. Therefore, the moral law expresses nothing else than the autonomy of pure practical reason, i.e. freedom” (Kant 1993, 34). Although both Kant and Taylor are making ethical points by positing two types of freedom, there is something analogous to the mechanism Kant invokes in the above referenced quotation in their respective ethical distinctions. The necessary freedom for a work of art opens the possibility for a rich, meaningful piece of work. Art is not an unmediated, spontaneous emotional outburst as Lavater would have it. Recall his comment in Chapter Two: “Where there is activity, energy, deed, thought, feeling, which may not be learned or taught by men, there is genius!. . . Genius flashes, genius creates; it does not arrange, it creates.” Whereas Lavater leaves a strong impression that genius creates art spontaneously, Kant thinks art is looking for and free to find a certain spirit (Geist) to enliven the work, and this spirit is found in play. The idea of play might be understood as exploration. With a work of art the artist can freely explore possibilities of purpose or meaning. Kant never gives concrete examples of art, but his idea of play seems to anticipate much of the abstract art that emerges in the nineteenth century. We can look to Leonardo da Vinci, who, in the fifteenth century, sought to legitimize his art by incorporating scientific understanding into his work. He thought that a scientific or mathematical grounding imbued the work with a weight or meaning that had been lacking throughout history. E. H. Gombrich amplifies this idea stating, “[da Vinci] thought that by placing it on scientific foundations he could transform his beloved art of painting from a humble craft into an honoured and gentlemanly pursuit” (Gombrich 1989, 223).

102

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Kant demurs at this way of thinking. He conceives of fine art in opposition to “fine science” of which he states there is no such thing. He says, “There is no science of the beautiful, but only critique; there is not fine science, but only fine art” (Kant 1987, 172). The relationship between fine art and fine science is only that “fine art, like science, requires study—that is the study of ancient languages, classical authors, history, and the antiquities” (Kant 1987, 172). The study of these various disciplines is not undertaken so that one might produce a technically proficient reproduction of some object. This would merely yield mechanical art. Aesthetic art is properly so called when “what it intends directly is [to arouse] the feeling of pleasure” (Kant 1987, 172). Aesthetic art, therefore, prompts the animation of the senses. Kant continues his analysis by parsing out two distinct categories of aesthetic art: agreeable art and fine art. “Agreeable art are those whose purpose is merely enjoyment” (Kant 1987, 172). Enjoyment is the passive reception of some sensible object whether it be the sound of background music or good time laughter among a gathering of friends. There is no assertion of universal validity when speaking of the agreeable. Some may find the fragrance of one flower lovely, while in another it is only the cause of a sneeze. Some may find certain music on the car radio agreeable while it only offends a fellow passenger. We play games or attend sporting events for the enjoyment. All of those things that fall under the broad rubric of agreeable art are concerned with “entertainment of the moment, not any material for future meditation” (Kant 1987, 173). Thus, agreeable art is animated by a certain something to divert or amuse the passive subject. It lacks the characteristics necessary to prompt discussion or conversation. Nothing can really be communicated about it except, perhaps, that it was “nice” or “interesting” or “fun.” Fine art is distinguished in precisely its communicability. Kant states, “Fine art, on the other hand, is a way of presenting that is purposive on its own and that further, even though without a purpose, the culture of our mental powers to (facilitate) social communication” (Kant 1987, 173). This one sentence is overflowing with significance. Kant’s use of “culture” in the quotation is to be understood as a formal and subjective condition of human beings. The human subject

Genius

103

has the ability to set forth meaningful or purposive ends. Kant says that culture is “man’s aptitude in general for setting himself purposes” (Kant 1987, 319). Just as businesses or religious sects make “statements of purpose” or “mission statements,” human beings have the capacity to establish purposes. One is reminded of the line from T. S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding,” which reads, “And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” As an architect plays with a blueprint by exploring the possibility of a room here or a room there, a facade ornamented one way then another, so human beings can present through fine art possible ends. The purpose is “on its own”; it is not subject to the constraints of time or place. When someone looks at an Impressionist painting and says, “That’s not the color of hay stacks or the color of the Cathedral,” he is revealing his inability to look at a painting “on its own.” One must displace himself or herself in order to enter the space and time of the work of art. The displacement is a function of the culture of our mental powers, and the possibility of communication rests on it. This “purposiveness on its own” is further clarified as “without a purpose.” The work of fine art does not advert to a set of rules or concepts in order to reveal its purposiveness. Da Vinci’s greatness is hardly found in scientific grounding. His greatness is not even found in the understanding of the story behind one of his works, for example, “The Last Supper.” Once we know the story, our mental powers do not cease. As a counter example, we would suggest that once a mathematical problem is solved for x, the wonder ceases and we look forward to the next problem. With fine art the wonder lingers and is open to endless consideration and deliberation. In Kant’s terms, “the culture of our mental powers” are endlessly occupied by a work of fine art. Culture, or as we have stated, the general aptitude human beings have “for setting [themselves] purposes,” is exercised in such a way that the means of social communication is strengthened or enhanced. How is this possible? We communicate a message or some meaning in primarily two ways. By way of example Kant uses moral feeling to demonstrate one means of communication. According to Kant, moral feeling “requires concepts and is the exhibition of a law-governed, rather than free, purposiveness” (Kant 1987, 158). Therefore, to communicate moral

104

Kant’s Concept of Genius

feelings, one must know the laws governing the moral feeling. Kant writes of these laws that they “must communicate through quite determinate practical concepts of reason” (Kant 1987, 158). Thus, concepts of reason are the fundamental means of communication in the moral realm. When considering the pleasure we feel in the apprehension of the beautiful we must come to a new understanding of the dynamic of communication. Concepts do not avail themselves to us in a conversation regarding the beautiful. We have distinguished between determinative judgments and reflective judgments earlier in this essay. We stipulated that a judgment of beauty is reflective and that we arrive at a judgment of beauty when our power of concepts and power of intuitions attain harmony. In a properly transcendental consideration, we realize that this relationship between understanding (i.e. power of concepts) and imagination (i.e. power of intuition) is strictly formal—that is, it is our ability to understand and imagine that makes this pleasure possible. What then are the conditions of the possibility of communicating such a judgment? It cannot be the passive reception of the sensible found in enjoyment, something that only yields the typically vapid conversations revolving around “nice” or “interesting.”

Sensus Communis Kant appeals to a sensus communis when disclosing the possibility of communicating judgments. The formal play between understanding and imagination is the very condition needed for the communication of beauty. Kant writes, “This [aesthetic] pleasure must of necessity rest on the same conditions for everyone” (Kant 1987, 159). All of us share this formal relationship between our imagination and understanding. Or, all of us have the same subjective conditions for the possibility of cognition. There is a common formal structure, and this is why Kant states that, someone who judges with taste (provided he is not mistaken in this consciousness and does not mistake the matter for the form, i.e., charm for beauty) is entitled to require the subjective purposiveness,

Genius

105

i.e., his liking for the object, from everyone else as well, and is entitled to assume that his feeling is universally communicable, and this without any mediation by concepts. (Kant 1987, 159) Again, this idea is merely formal. Kant is abstracting from any content, and indeed it is the abstraction from content that allows such immediate harmony. Though the content of our understandings and imaginings may differ, we all share common conditions for the possibility of cognition—a common sense (sensus communis). Kant emphasizes that although we speak of a sense of truth, or of a sense of decency, or of a sense of justice, we do not propose to understand these concepts through sensibility. The kind of sense about which Kant writes is the sense all human beings must have if they are to be called human. This common sense is “the very least that we are entitled to expect from anyone who lays claim to the name of human being” (Kant 1987, 160). It is a shared sense, and a formal understanding of it bids that “we compare our judgment not so much with the actual as rather with the merely possible judgments of others” (Kant 1987, 160). This is important because it recognizes that different judgments about the same thing may occur, but that the conditions for making judgments are always the same. We return now to the question regarding fine art and the means of social communication. We have stated that agreeable art does not yield determinate communicability; at best, we can expect idle conversation from agreeable art. Fine art is distinguished in its very capacity to strengthen and enhance social communication. How does one strengthen the form of his or her mental powers? Perhaps the mental powers are analogous to the muscles of our body. An athlete strengthens his or her muscles through repeated use in training. New muscles do not appear; rather, the form of the existing muscles are improved. The form of our aesthetic judgments is greatly influenced by the strength of our powers of understanding and imagination. The form of these powers, though shared by all people, can be in various states of strength or weakness depending upon the person. Fine art, by furthering the culture of our mental powers, opens up possibilities. A meaning or end that had otherwise gone unrecognized can become manifested in a work of art and then recognized as

106

Kant’s Concept of Genius

purposive. Consider a scenario where one sees a painting and is not particularly moved by it. Then, the viewer reads something about the work and upon the next viewing begins to appreciate the painting a little more. Or consider the opposite case, where, as sometimes happens with students of art, these viewers are so filled with biographical minutiae about the painting or painter that their imaginative responses are muted in favor of their understanding of the background material. In both cases we get an idea of the interplay between our understanding and imagination. Paintings or works of art can provide no conceptual proof of their meaning. The purposiveness that is presented does not have recourse to determinate cognition. Rather, what is altered is the very fabric of “man’s aptitude in general for setting himself purposes,” and that aptitude is what facilitates communication. What is the formal condition of the possibility for the communication of a reflective judgment? It is the sensus communis or the shared capacity for free play between understanding and imagination. Therefore, fine art, by means of presenting something in and of itself purposive, strengthens or expands the dynamic interplay between the formal relationship of our imagination and understanding, something which is common to all human beings. In our brief discussion of reflective judgment, as it regards teleology, we disclosed that nature is understood as a connection of appearances. Further, there arises diversity in nature, and the unification of the diversity or disconnected appearance depends upon the transcendental principle of the purposiveness of nature. In Kant’s discussion of fine art he insists that it must give the appearance of being the same as nature. Kant states, “Nature, we say, is beautiful [schön] if it also looks like art; and art can be called fine [schön] art only if we are conscious that it is art while yet it looks to us like nature” (Kant 1987, 174). Further, the purposiveness of the piece of fine art must not show itself. We know that an artist means something, or as Josef Brodsky asserts, “reaches for” something, but he or she does not control it beforehand. Rather, as Jacques Taminiaux states in his essay “Speculation and Difference,” the artist receives the rule “as an inspiration from nature” (Taminiaux 1993, 13). The aforementioned transcendental principle of purposiveness with regard to nature is operative here, though in a different aspect. We know that there is

Genius

107

some principle of unity inspiring a work of fine art, but the disclosure of the underlying unity (the purpose) is tantamount to proceeding with a universal as a guide; the freedom necessary for the imagination would thus be lost to cognition. In other words, the work of art would be subsumed under a determinate principle if the purpose is disclosed. Kant summarizes, Even though the purposiveness in a product of fine art is intentional, it must still not seem intentional; i.e., fine art must have the look of nature even though we are conscious of it as art. And a product of art appears like nature if, though we find it to agree quite punctiliously with the rules that have to be followed for the product to become what it is intended to be, it does not do so painstakingly. In other words, the academic form must not show; there must be no hint that the rule was hovering before the artist’s eyes and putting fetters on his mental powers. (Kant 1987, 174) One is reminded of Socrates’ claim in Ion that the poet is not taught to be a poet, but rather that the poet is somehow inspired or possessed, or Primo Levi’s poignant comment that “a child can’t become a violinist or else he remains a child violinist.” Kant, like Socrates and Levi, points beyond mere craftsmanship or the rote acquisition of rules. When Kant states that the academic form must not show itself in fine art he insists that the artist transcend the technical rules of his or her craft. Any rules will infringe upon the freedom of the aesthetic imagination. Any academic, social, or political forms that are transparent in a work of art shackle the mind rather than expand it. Kant, unlike Young and Herder, is an advocate of education; he just thinks that the rules learned must be refined out of the work itself. As we have seen, fine art follows nature by giving the appearance of being like nature. This leaves the impression that fine art is somehow subordinate to nature. However, before one rests with the knowledge of nature’s primacy, Kant stipulates a way in which fine art is superior to nature. Namely, it is superior in its ability to take ugly or unsavory things and make them beautiful. Kant writes, “Fine art shows its superiority precisely in this, that it describes things beautifully that in

108

Kant’s Concept of Genius

nature we would dislike or find ugly” (Kant 1987, 180). He reasons that disgust is the expected reaction to disease or the devastations of war; however, fine art has the ability to make such occurrences beautiful. Many images of Christ nailed to the cross fit this description, though the salvific message may complicate things. Benjamin West’s The Death of General Wolfe depicts the luminous death of a hero, Picasso’s Guernica is a hauntingly beautiful portrayal of the devastation of war, and the many paintings of the American Civil War provide just some of the examples one might think of to illustrate Kant’s point of fine art making distasteful events beautiful. Kant distinguishes nature and art by pointing out that “a natural beauty is a beautiful thing; artistic beauty is a beautiful presentation of a thing” (Kant 1987, 179). Such a distinction makes it possible for Kant to introduce taste into the mix of genius. A beautiful presentation is concerned with the form of something, and Kant states that “giving form to a product of fine art requires merely taste” (wird bloß Geschmack erfordert) (Kant 1987, 180). This is noteworthy because it comes on the heels of Kant’s telling us that fine art is the art of genius, and it dramatically points up Kant’s insistence that genius is more than a spontaneous, emotive force. Desmond calls this type of caveat by Kant a symptom of “Kant’s terror” (something we will address shortly). For the time being, let us concentrate on explicating Kant’s inclusion of taste with productivity. Taste has one definite consequence. It eliminates any idea that the artist creates spontaneously. In the opening lines of the essay “Cézanne’s Doubt,” Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes, “It took [Cézanne] one hundred working sessions for a still life, one hundred fifty sittings for a portrait. What we call his work was, for him, only an attempt, an approach to painting” (Merleau-Ponty 1993, 59). It was likewise said that Monet would lament his inability to capture his desired image. George Heard Hamilton wrote, Monet, one of the most conscientious artists, was continually, even increasingly, dissatisfied with his own achievements. Because his sensibility, as he said, ‘had become more acute with age,’ and the coloured visions which we see in his canvases were but dim reflections of what he saw in his mind’s eye, he was often discouraged by

Genius

109

the failure of his marvelously deft hand to realize his vision of the natural world. (Hamilton 1983, 34) Such wistfulness suggests that Monet’s endeavors were similar to what Merleau-Ponty recognized in Cézanne’s work—Monet, like Cézanne, merely made “attempts” to capture some image on canvas. Kant demonstrates a keen understanding of the artist’s habits when he writes, “The artist, having practiced and corrected his taste by a variety of examples from art or nature, holds his work up to it, and, after many and often laborious attempts to satisfy his taste, finds that form which is adequate to it” (Kant 1987, 180). Kant ends the passage quoted above on a sanguine note; unlike the toils of Cézanne and Monet which often left them with the feeling of having failed in their attempts, Kant believes that the artist indeed finds the form he is looking for; the rate of success of an artist is not important, however. What is clear is that Kant caught on to the “slow” and “painstaking” task of the artist. He writes, Hence this form is not, as it were, a matter of inspiration or of free momentum of the mental powers; the artist is, instead slowly and rather painstakingly touching the form up in an attempt to make it adequate to his thought while yet keeping it from interfering with the freedom in the play of these powers. (Kant 1987, 180–01) Despite taste’s prominent role, it does not have any ability to produce; production in fine art has to do with the interplay between genius, which gives the material, and talent, which is academically trained. After fine art is produced, taste enters into the equation when the artist judges his or her, as we have been calling it, attempt. We should also note that each attempt is trying to render something “adequate to [the artist’s] thought” or what Hamilton calls Monet’s “mind’s eye” or “vision.” This suggests a certain objectification—through production we get a product that might be adjudged according to taste. We might also note Kant’s comment that the form of a work of art is not simply a matter of “inspiration” or “free momentum of the mental powers.” This can certainly be read as a judgment against the Sturm und Drang’s predilection for embracing inspiration.

110

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Kant then abruptly shifts gears by considering things produced in general (Kant gives the examples of tableware, moral treatises, and sermons). We demand of these productions that they have “this form of fine art, yet without seeming studied” (Kant 1987, 181). In other words, there is an effortlessness that Kant finds important when considering these objects; what is concealed is the study and training that edify the producer’s talent. Kant ends the preceding quote by writing, “but we do not on that account call these things works of fine art” (Kant 1987, 181). Having the form of fine art and lacking evidence of studied labor is not the baseline standard for fine art; something more is needed. Kant somewhat enigmatically concludes the section on the relation of genius to taste by writing, “In fine art we include, rather, a poem, a piece of music, a gallery of pictures, and so on; and here we often find a would-be work of fine art that manifests genius without taste, or another that manifests taste without genius” (Kant 1987, 181). It is not very clear how Kant wants to define fine art. He seems to be juggling three different ways of defining fine art: (1) in relation to the product, that is, a poem, piece of music, or pictures, (2) defining art in terms of genius (recall his claim in §46 that fine art is the art of genius), and (3) the most perplexing, “a would-be work of fine art that manifests genius without taste, or another that manifests taste without genius.” In the first instance, Kant seems content to define fine art purely on the basis of the product. Poems and music would constitute fine art, whereas other products, say, furniture would be something different. It would be impossible to sustain a defense of this position because Kant concentrates so much of his analysis on the subject that an eleventh hour appeal to the object would be inconsistent. The second claim is quite consistent with what Kant has already explicated—namely that fine art is defined in relation to the creating subject. Furthermore, the creating subject is constituted by a free play of the mental powers (Gemütskräfte)—an amalgamation of the productive imagination, understanding, taste, and talent. The third case is the most puzzling and perhaps the least defensible, considering the foundation Kant has established in the preceding sections. The claim that fine art can manifest taste without genius is

Genius

111

problematic. According to Kant’s earlier statement that the “fine arts must necessarily be considered arts of genius” and “fine art is the art of genius” (§46), the claim that fine art could be manifested without genius is absurd. Perhaps Kant’s interest in asserting a role for taste blinds him to the contradiction in putting forward the possibility of fine art without genius. In any case, this discrepancy might easily be overlooked if we keep in mind the main point in the section. That is, as Gadamer puts it, “taste is a necessary discipline for genius” (Gadamer 1989, 53). Taste and genius mutually mediate one another, and fine art is a result of the mutual mediation. We should also note that his sense of the role of taste is yet another way in which Kant clashed with the Sturm und Drang. As Gadamer states, “[Kant] steadfastly maintained the concept of taste which the Sturm und Drang not only violently dismissed but also violently demolished” (Gadamer 1989, 57). We have now gotten to a point where we must more closely consider Kant’s understanding of genius. We have already seen evidence of genius: The evidence suggests that Kant is explicating genius in the midst of the powerful cultural force known as the Sturm und Drang, and that Kant is acutely aware of their thought. Accordingly, Kant is trying to rein in the excesses of the cult of genius, and this accounts for the phenomenon of what Desmond calls Kant’s terror.

Kant’s Explication of Genius For Kant genius is “the talent that gives the rule to art” (Kant 1987, 174). Talent is definitively a natural ability, and being so, it is subject to the transcendental principle of the purposiveness of nature discussed earlier. We may recall that the form of the purposiveness of nature “contains the basis for the unity of what is diverse in nature’s empirical laws” (Kant 1987, 19). This transcendental principle is operative with regard to genius. The talent, as given by nature, that is the source of fine art will have innumerable (one could even say infinite) manifestations; thus, the potential diversity like that evident in nature’s empirical laws shows itself in fine art. Kant states, “[G]enius is the innate mental predisposition (ingenium) through

112

Kant’s Concept of Genius

which nature gives the rule to art” (Kant 1987, 174) and “it must be nature in the subject (die Natur im Subjekte) (and through the attunement of his powers) that gives the rule to art” (Kant 1987, 175). Just as beauty’s communicability rests on the sensus communis, the rules of art rest upon the pillar of genius. We have already discussed the “rational deliberation” that precedes a work of art and the “production through freedom” that marks a piece of fine art’s enlivening spirit. In and through deliberation and free play, a work of art finds its rules, for, as Kant states, “every art presupposes rules.”

Definition Kant gives three defining characteristics to genius. They are: (1) originality, (2) exemplariness, and (3) nature. As we will see, while originality and exemplariness are relatively unambiguous, the characteristic of nature is more enigmatic, if only because nature for Kant is wide ranging and difficult to arrest. Kant states that the “foremost property of genius must be originality” (Kant 1987, 175). This definition, self-explanatory as it is, is distinguishable from the more traditional understanding of art as imitation; the reproduction or duplication of another work of art is simply not the product of genius. Without further distinction we realize that fine art could become mere novelty. For this reason Kant states that the work of art “must serve others . . . as a standard or rule by which to judge” (Kant 1987, 175). In other words, an exemplary work of art is an inspiring model which others may use as a guide, not as a blueprint or map. Whereas a blueprint gives specific directions, a guide merely provides possible courses of action or production. As Desmond points out, “Kant directs us to a tradition of originals” (Desmond 1998, 604–05). The first two characteristics leave us with a pretty clear picture of Kant’s understanding of genius. A production must be original and it must serve as a model of inspiration for those prospective artists who follow. A measure of ambiguity is added when we consider the characteristic of nature. In Chapter 2 we saw that nature can be considered in its different aspects. Kant does not specify which aspect might be applied to genius, but we certainly can rule out the mechanical. Regrettably,

Genius

113

Kant does not specifically say that the third characteristic of genius is the “technic of nature,” but we do know that the technical or technic is concerned with how things are fabricated. The scientific understanding of nature is concerned with “order and lawfulness,” and Kant recognizes that, Genius itself cannot describe or indicate scientifically how it brings about its products, and it is rather as nature that it gives the rule. That is why, if an author owes a product to his genius, he himself does not know how he came by the ideas for it. (Kant 1987, 175) Clearly then Kant is not speaking about the mechanical aspect of nature. As we discussed earlier, the mechanical is characterized by laws (Gesetz, Recht), and in the above cited quotation, we see that nature gives the rule (Regel) to art. The rules are not scripted according to lawfulness in the realm of the technic of nature, that aspect of nature that is concerned with making. Nature here is more mysterious and hidden, and it is fitting that Kant appeals to spirit (Geist) when discussing genius. As in a judgment of taste, there is no recourse to concepts or proofs or formulas. An artist, through freedom and deliberation produces a work of art, and then and only then, might one abstract a rule from the work. There is an analogy here. Much like a judgment of taste where the judgment cannot rely upon concepts, the rules governing a work of art are not available to us as they would be to a scientist demonstrating an experiment or proof. Kant suggests the role of a piece of art is one of being a model. He states, “the rule must be abstracted from what the artist has done, that is, from the product, which others may use to test their own talent, letting it serve them as their model, not to be copied [Nachmachung] but to be imitated [Nachahmung]” (Kant 1987, 177). We see a paradox in Kant’s use of the word imitation. He opens §47 with the remark that “genius must be considered the very opposite of a spirit of imitation” (Kant 1987, 178). Thus, his use of imitation seems contradictory. Pluhar’s footnote to the first of the above-quoted passages addresses this contradiction. Pluhar notes,

114

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Karl Vorländer, editor of the Critique of Judgment in the Philosophische Bibliothek edition, notes (v. 39a, 163, n. b) that Kant’s manuscript read “Nachahmung . . . Nachahmung” (“[not to be] imitated [but to be] imitated”), which was then “corrected” to the reading found here, but that Kant presumably meant to write, “Nachahmung . . . Nachfolge” (“[not to be] imitated [but to be] followed”), in line with what he says elsewhere: see esp. ak. 318 and 283.]. (Kant 1987, 177) Perhaps an example can help to illuminate this distinction between “imitated” and “followed.” A beast of prey stalks his quarry not by imitating the route of an elder, but by following the scent of his prey. If he simply imitates the path traversed by his elder then only luck could yield a meal. However, if he follows the method of his mentor he will be guided in each particular hunt by the scent of his prey. Consequently, he will traverse many different paths (wherever his quarry leads him). Following allows for much wider possibility, whereas imitation is restrictive. Our example is helpful in a different way as well. Each animal is moved by appetites that can only be regarded as natural. Similarly, the talent of genius is given by nature; an artist links him or herself with posterity through natural talent. When Taminiaux writes, “the creator finds inspiration in the works of the past, in that they give him or her the opportunity not merely to copy them, but to invent—with their help but beyond them—new examples” (Taminiaux 1993, 13) he is describing the artist that follows rather than imitates. The emphasis Kant places on natural talent does not eliminate the labor of learning technique. Kant is careful to point out that training and education are requisites for fine art. Kant states, “Genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art; processing this material and giving it form requires a talent that is academically trained” (Kant 1987, 178). Thus, we are left with this strange tension between the natural disposition that is genius and the studied technique of a craft. The imagination of the genius is used toward aesthetic ends when it is not constrained by concepts, but in learning technique, we must presume the use of concepts. Kant states,

Genius

115

When the imagination is used for cognition, then it is under the constraint of the understanding and is subject to the restriction of adequacy to the understanding’s concept. But when the aim is aesthetic, then the imagination is free, so that, over and above that harmony with the concept, it may supply, in an unstudied way, a wealth of undeveloped material for the understanding which the latter disregarded in its concept. (Kant 1987, 185) The genius studies his or her craft only so that he or she may present something “in an unstudied way.” This “unstudied” presentation links the production of genius with the judgment of taste. The work of a genius finds its inspiration from the exemplary works of the past, and in its surpassing quality, the work becomes an example for future artists to follow. Thus, the genius, through his or her original work, acts as a mediator for the exemplary works of the past by making exemplary work for future artists (geniuses). This mediation, as we might expect, is undertaken without the help of concepts. Indeed, it is “over and above that harmony with the concept” that this mediation takes place. It is the very realm that is opened up by the beautiful, or it is the realm to which the judgment of taste points. Thus, the work of genius is united with the quickening cognitive powers of a judgment of taste precisely in that ineffable realm that is beyond concepts. The general idea of what Kant means by genius is, in many ways, inherited. We have already seen that the notion of genius was already “in the air,” and that Kant was very much aware of the prevailing opinions on the subject. Furthermore, Kant clearly favored the thinking of Gerard (recall Kant calling Gerard’s study of genius the “best examination”) and was dubious of the Sturm und Drang. Desmond suggests that Kant’s misgivings about the Stürmers and Schwärmerei1 borders on rage. He writes, “[Kant] is beside himself at what he considers to be the ravings of the Schwärmerei and the Sturm und Drang. His reasonableness hides a passion that echoes the passion he chides in others” (Desmond 1998, 611). Kant’s passion is directed against an overly indulgent surrender to enthusiasm and an underdeveloped sense of the vital role of judgment, or more broadly, of our rational faculties. In order to rescue genius from the overwrought

116

Kant’s Concept of Genius

embrace of people like Young and Herder, Kant stipulated an important role for judgment in the machinations of genius. One might argue that Gerard has already done this, and indeed, that is a valid point; however, Gerard was not operating with the legacy of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason, a legacy which demanded that genius be addressed within the context of the limits of human understanding. When Kant undertook the writing of the third Critique, in order to understand how “judgment makes possible the transition from the domain of the concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom” (Kant 1987, 37), he did so within the architectonic of his previous work. Kant’s depiction of genius takes place both in the context of other eighteenth century theories of genius and in the context of his critical project. As Biemel points out, the major weight of Kant’s project in the third Critique is on natural beauty, and it is only in the commentaries that an attempt is made to give both the arts and natural beauty equal billing (Biemel 1959, 67). Furthermore, we must not forget what should be sufficiently clear by now, that the broadness of Kant’s understanding of nature reaches back significantly to the Critique of Pure Reason. And any understanding of genius must occur with an idea of nature that incorporates both the mechanical and technical aspects of it.

The Context of Genius When exploring the etymology of genius in Chapter One we called attention to the Latin roots of the word. Specifically, etymological definition #1 recalled the Latin meaning of genius as “an attendant spirit.” Kant too was aware of the Latin roots of genius, and he exploited the latent meaning of the Latin understanding. He writes, “the word [Genie] is derived from [Latin] genius, [which means] the guardian and guiding spirit that each person is given as his own at birth, and to whose inspiration those original ideas are due” (Kant 1987, 175). By attending to the Latin roots of genius, Kant attempts to reach beyond his contemporaries and deepen the meaning of the word. Of course, there is in Kant’s depiction a difference from the Latin roots that we saw so clearly in Shakespeare. Namely, in the orig-

Genius

117

inal Latin sense of the word, the guiding spirit led one to virtuous behavior; we said that there was an ethical valence to the Latin sense of genius. For Kant, the guiding spirit is concerned with production and originality, and not with valor and virtue. Nevertheless, he does pay homage to its roots, something that neither Young, Gerard, nor Herder explicitly do. In addition to Kant’s awareness of the Latin roots of genius, Kant is also aware of the writings and teachings of his contemporaries. Most notably and controversially, Kant disagreed with the tenets of Herder specifically and with the Sturm und Drang generally. Zammito cites J. Meredith’s comment on the origin of the third Critique that, “an attack on the leaders of the Sturm und Drang movement was almost certainly meditated from the start” (Zammito 1992, 349 n. 22). Zammito is uncompromising in his view that Kant was writing the third Critique in response to Herder and the Sturm und Drang. Here is a sampling of Zammito’s comments on the subject: under Herder’s leadership the Sturm und Drang paraded its claims to privileged insight as the inspiration of ‘genius.’ This Kant could abide neither personally nor philosophically. (8) The origins of the Third Critique lie in Kant’s bitter rivalry with Herder. (9) [Kant’s] hostility [toward Herder] can be traced through the original edition of the First Critique with its veiled references in the preface to “indifferentists.” (10) Herder and the Sturm und Drang were the main targets of Kant’s theory of art and genius. (10) Zammito recognizes that Kant was well aware of the popular conceptions of genius and that the Sturm und Drang was the influential force behind such popularity. If we take a look at portions of Kant’s writing in the third Critique, we can find support for Zammito’s argument. When commenting on art in general, we saw that Kant insists that some kind of restraint or mechanism is needed so that the artist does not lose himself in frivolity. He tells us that “[t]his reminder is needed

118

Kant’s Concept of Genius

because some of the more recent educators believe that they promote a free art best if they remove all constraint from it and convert it from labor (Arbeit) into mere play” (Kant 1987, 171). In his elucidation of genius, Kant reiterates the role rational consideration and academic training play in genius. Much like the mechanism of restraint, rational investigation and judgment serve to shape the impulses or material of genius. Kant is emphatic in dismissing any notions of unrestrained or untrained creativity. He writes, it is utterly ridiculous for someone to speak and decide like a genius even in matters that require the most careful rational investigation. One does not quite know whether to laugh harder at the charlatan who spreads all this haze, in which we can judge nothing distinctly but can imagine all the more, or rather laugh at the audience, which naively imagines that the reason why it cannot distinctly recognize and grasp the masterpiece of insight is that large masses of new truths are being hurled at it, whereas it regards the detail (which is based on carefully weighted explications and academically correct examination of the principles) as only the work of a bungler. (Kant 1987, 178) In a similar vein, he also writes, Now since originality of talent is one essential component (though not the only one) of the character of genius, shallow minds believe that the best way to show that they are geniuses in first bloom is by renouncing all rules of academic constraint, believing that they will cut a better figure on the back of an ill-tempered than of a traininghorse. (Kant 1987, 178) It seems more than plausible from the foregoing that Kant has in mind Herder and the Sturm und Drang when making these strident comments. The glorification of unrestrained and unlearned genius was very much a part of the ideology of the Sturm und Drang, and Herder espoused such ill-tempered creativity. It is just the dynamics of this disagreement that allows Desmond to rightly point out “the terror” involved with Kant’s embrace of genius.

Genius

119

Kant’s Terror In his article “Kant and the Terror of Genius,” Desmond considers Kant’s concept of genius an inherently equivocal one, and such equivocation, according to Desmond, is a symptom of Kant’s terror regarding the “potential unruliness of genius.” Throughout Desmond’s study he is careful to acknowledge the ambivalent position the Critique of Judgment occupies as it relates to the Enlightenment and Romanticism; in other words, the third Critique has an undeniable “influence on the Romantic movement, with its sanctification of originality, its apotheosis of the creative artist, its repudiation of the cold, lifeless abstractions of the scientific Enlightenment” and yet “Kant’s work itself gives all the appearance of a scholastic treatise; there seems to be nothing Romantic about it at all,” and “it carries many of the characteristics of eighteenth century Enlightenment” (Desmond 1998, 594). Thus, Desmond sketches the background conflict that makes the appropriation of the concept of genius a challenge. Such appropriation is a two-fold challenge for the modern reader. First of all, we have taken considerable care to sketch the background into which Kant was introducing his conception of genius. Understanding this background allows us to get an idea of how Kant’s ideas might have been received. As Desmond observes, “some of Kant’s utterances about genius fell on ears ready to hear them” (Desmond 1998, 594). In other words, among Kant’s contemporaries there were many who were eager to glorify out of hand the creative artist and any strains of originality. A kind of incipient Romanticism was already in the air. As we pointed out in our discussion of Edward Young, Young had already begun to reorient the discussion of art to an examination of the artist’s relationship to the work of art, rather than the more traditional approach of examining the work formally. Furthermore, and this is perhaps the more important point when considering the environment in which Kant was writing, Herder and the Sturm und Drang were not only captivated by Young’s new approach, but also sought to spread the word of genius. Understanding this we can see why Desmond completes his above quoted comment with the further remark that many of the “ears were differently attuned than Kant[’s]” (Desmond 1998, 594). Many ears were tuned to a notion of genius

120

Kant’s Concept of Genius

that emphasized the untempered, spontaneous impulses of the creative genius. To suggest, as Desmond does, that these ears were differently attuned than Kant’s is correct, though we should not conclude from that that Kant was not aware of this difference. Rather, we would do well to think that Kant’s awareness of the prevailing opinions made his statements regarding genius all the more pointed—he was keenly aware of his audience. The second part of the challenge pertains to Kant’s successors. There were those eighteenth century poets and philosophers who not only followed Kant historically, but who also found in Kant’s third Critique the intellectual means to accentuate both the creativity of individual artists and also genius’s ineffable connection to the originary powers of nature. Such poets and philosophers have dramatically altered the manner in which we understand the artist and genius. This is true despite the fact that Kant not only writes in a dry, analytical tone, but also that he takes care to temper the flights of genius by explicating the sober restraints that taste and judgment necessarily place on genius. As Gadamer point out, Kant’s successors contrive to radically alter the position genius plays in art. Gadamer writes of those who followed Kant: “From the standpoint of art the Kantian ideas of taste and genius completely traded places. Genius had to become the more comprehensive concept, and contrariwise, the phenomenon of taste had to be devalued” (Gadamer 1989, 56). Desmond adds, Kant might be seen to oscillate cautiously between [Romantic and Enlightenment sensibilities], though his successors are far less inhibited in letting loose the seemingly darker truth of Romanticism. We are the heirs of Kant in that regard: we oscillate between these two, often bewildered as to how to escape, now driven to one extreme, no[w] back to the other. (Desmond 1998, 596) An examination of the reception of Kant’s concept of genius is another study in itself. Suffice it to say that the reception of the concept of genius2 and the subsequent changes the concept underwent as it entered into everyday usage are complex and multi-dimensional.

Genius

121

To be sure, the radical change that focused the understanding of genius on creativity and originality began to take place before Kant, with Addison and the English literary critics; however, since the time of Kant the dilemma might well be described as one of “creative freedom” (a phrase used by Desmond). One might wonder about the extent to which we as human beings, or as selves, freely invent the things we produce. This question does not simply posit genius and its creative power as the dialectical opposite of imitation; rather it seeks to uncover the conditioning roles of language, culture, and education. As Desmond asks, “What is creative freedom? Might we not say that it is at work in imitation itself, imitation as implicitly original? Do we not have to think beyond any simple dualism of imitation and creation?” (Desmond 1998, 606). When, in “What is Enlightenment?” Michel Foucault observes, “Modern man, for Baudelaire, is not the man who goes to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he is the man who tries to invent himself” (Foucault 1984, 42), we can see that the question of creative freedom has bearing on contemporary questions regarding not only art, but the self. Again, these questions take us too far afield, but they begin to indicate a problem that extends from the shift in place, a reversal, that genius and taste underwent in the years after the appearance of the third Critique. To a certain extent, the historical privileging of genius over against taste may be construed as a victory for Herder and the Sturm und Drang. Charles Taylor is correct when he writes that Herder was the major early articulator of the “tremendously influential idea” of expressive individuation—Taylor writes, “Expressivism was the basis for a new and fuller individuation. Just the notion of individual difference is, of course, not new. Nothing is more evident, or more banal. What is new is the idea that this really makes a difference to how we’re called on to live,” and “Expressive individuation has become one of the cornerstones of modern culture” (Taylor 1989, 375–76). Consequently, it is fair to say that Herder and the Sturm und Drang, who championed the unlearned, emotive, originary genius, won the hearts and minds of the West to the dismay of Kant. The very thing that Kant was trying to combat, an overindulgence of genius, was what ended up being the more powerful narrative in western thought.

122

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Brancusi and the Aesthetic Aim Kant writes that the “mental powers whose combination (in a certain) relation constitutes genius are imagination and understanding” (Kant 1987, 185). In parsing out the relationship, Kant acknowledges a two-fold function of the imagination. We know from the first Critique that the imagination plays an important role in the schematism—“The schema is in itself always a product of imagination” (Kant 1929, 182); thus, Kant writes in the third Critique that “When the imagination is used for cognition, then it is under the constraint of the understanding and is subject to the restriction of the adequacy to the understanding’s concept” (Kant 1987, 185). However, the story is different when the imagination is used for aesthetic aims. In this case, “the imagination is free, so that, over and above that harmony with the concept (um noch über jene Einstimmung zum Begriffe), [the imagination] may supply, in an unstudied way, a wealth of undeveloped material for the understanding which the latter disregarded in its concept” (Kant 1987, 185). In order to understand how the imagination might supply material that is over and above concepts let us consider an article written by Mircea Eliade entitled “Brancusi and Mythology.” In the article Eliade asserts that Constantin Brancusi’s works of sculpture “are an extension of the world of Romanian folk mythology” (Eliade 1985, 94). The key word for Eliade here is extension because he would not want to suggest that there is a direct, rote link between the folk stories of Romania, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean and Brancusi’s work. Rather, Eliade suggests that Brancusi “looked for,” “interiorized,” and “rediscovered” the sources of a handful of themes that sought forms—themes like flight and transcendence. In such a rediscovery or interiorization, Eliade was able to go beyond the concept of flight or transcendence and explore “their mystery and artistic possibilities” (Eliade 1985, 96f). Examples of such exploration are Brancusi’s “Colonne sans fin” and the Birds cycle. This habit of perpetually returning to one or two themes is, says Eliade, “characteristic above all of folk and ethnographic arts, in which the exemplary models must be indefinitely reworked and ‘imitated’ for reasons that have nothing to do with ‘lack of imagination’ or the artist’s ‘personality’” (Eliade 1985, 99). The reference to folk art

Genius

123

notwithstanding, it seems that this is a perfect description of what Kant means by exemplary. As Kant would have it, genius makes something exemplary that other artists can use as a model or source of inspiration. Furthermore, there is no suggestion that such imitation is indicative of a creative lapse on the part of artist. We see in Brancusi’s sleek, polished forms the search for the essence of transcendence or flight as he continually seeks undeveloped material for thought and contemplation. Brancusi’s “Colonne sans fin” provides a great deal of material for Eliade’s reflections. A study of Romanian folklore would reveal that a column of the sky is a popular theme. As Eliade says, “The symbolism of the axis mundi is complex: the axis supports the sky and is also the means of communication between heaven and earth” (Eliade 1985, 99). The symbolism that Eliade talks about here is understandable to a modern reader in that he is able understand the facts about myths of yesteryear. However, if one went to look at Brancusi’s “Colonne sans fin,” and came away with merely the facts of a particular mythology, then the aesthetic experience would be compromised. As Eliade points out about Brancusi’s choice of using repeated rhomboids to constitute his column, “Brancusi succeeded in bringing out the inherent symbolism of ascension, since one’s imaginative response is a desire to climb this ‘tree of heaven’” (Eliade 1985, 100). “Imaginative response” is the key phrase in Eliade’s description; it is akin to what Kant is addressing when he talks of imagination’s freedom to go “above and beyond” concepts. A work of art gets beyond the mere concept to a realm of undeveloped material that provides much fodder for contemplation. Whenever the possibility of going beyond the realm of the understanding (and consequently concepts) is mentioned, we know that aesthetic ideas are not far away. Just as Brancusi habitually returned to the theme of transcendence, he also repeatedly addressed the theme of flight. Brancusi, of course, was never searching for the mechanics of flight; rather, he was looking for a way to embody flight in stone. It is, as Eliade acknowledges, “extraordinary that [Brancusi] succeeded in expressing that soaring, upward impulse by using the very archetype of heaviness, that ultimate form of ‘matter’—stone” (Eliade 1985, 101). The forming of the stone is an imaginative embodiment of flight, not a conceptual eluci-

124

Kant’s Concept of Genius

dation. Eliade quotes Ionel Jianou who attributes Brancusi’s success in “transforming his amorphous material into an ellipse with translucent surface, of a purity so dazzling that it irradiates the light around it and embodies, in its irresistible upward impulse, the very essence of flight” (Eliade 1985, 101). Consider the difference between “irradiates” and demonstrates—a distinction that is helpful in understanding the differences in the two roles Kant assigns to the imagination. Understanding uses demonstration, whereas imagination has a way of radiating meaning. By considering Mircea Eliade’s comments on Brancusi we have tried to give concrete examples of the ways in which imagination may be used for aesthetic ends. Kant concludes his explanation of the two-fold function of imagination we just discussed with a revealing comment. He writes, Genius actually consists in the happy relation—one that no science can teach and that cannot be learned by any diligence—allowing us, first, to discover the ideas for a given concept, and, second, to hit upon a way of expressing these ideas that enables us to communicate to others, as accompanying a concept, the mental attunement that those ideas produce. The second talent is properly the one we call spirit. (Kant 1987, 185–86) Accordingly, we must address the idea of spirit, but first, let us continue on with the theme of flight, albeit in a different vain.

Dove’s Cleaving the Air In the introduction to his first Critique, Kant uses the image of a dove “cleaving the air” (Kant 1929, 47) to help illustrate his intended goal of delimiting the foundations of knowledge. The image specifically deals with the charm of dogmatism; dogmatism is, for Kant, the historically irresistible temptation to forego critiquing the capacity of reason in favor of constructing a metaphysical edifice. In short, it is the alluring trap into which Plato falls when he extends

Genius

125

knowledge “outside the circle of experience.” Kant’s presents the image as follows: Misled3 by such a proof of the power of reason, the demand for the extension of knowledge recognises no limits. The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance (Widerstand), might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding. He did not observe with all his efforts he made no advance—meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand, to which he could apply his powers, and so set his understanding in motion. (Kant 1929, 47) The poetic image of the dove soaring in flight is instructive in several ways. It shows the need for some resistance “to serve as a support” for reason or, if we break down the German word Widerstand, to stand up against reason, and Kant claims the ultimate support or foundation is synthetic a priori principles. Kant employs the dove trope to help amplify the import of synthetic a priori principles in the first Critique. The image is also a beautiful one, and situated as it is in the midst of a dense introduction that proposes to find the limits of pure reason, its figurative suggestions tend to linger with the reader. This is all to the good because its meaning can reverberate throughout the first Critique and, arguably, throughout Kant’s critical project. Let us explore some of the possible ways we might exploit this image to our own ends. The image is called to mind in the first Critique in “The Transcendental Doctrine of Elements” where Kant later says that “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” (Kant 1929, 93) (Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind) (Kant 1956, 98). The claim that intuition and concepts mutually “resist” or, more positively, complement one another is vital to the Critique. The bird may wish for empty space, but the resistance is the very thing that makes flight possible in the first place. The idea that thoughts need to stand next to some content or

126

Kant’s Concept of Genius

that concepts need intuitions is of fundamental importance to the Critique of Pure Reason. Indeed, it is the marriage of concepts and intuition that demands the imagination (in the form of the schematism). The temptation that reason presents is often irresistible as is illustrated by Plato who “ventured out beyond [understanding] on the wings of the ideas” (Kant 1929, 47). As we know, we need some content to commingle with ideas, or else we are left with emptiness. A bird would not be able to fly in empty space for lack of resistance. The wings of ideas (fanciful musings) must be clipped by the sensible—domesticated by objects, as it were. We know that the (fine) artist needs both material (supplied by genius) and form (supplied by academic training) in order to make fine art. There is a complementarity between the two, according to Kant—they stand next to one another so that they might combine to produce something worthwhile. Kant writes, “Genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art; processing this material and giving it form requires talent that is academically trained, so that it may be used in a way that can stand the test of the power of judgment” (Kant 1987, 178). The light dove that cleaves the air in the first Critique wishes that there be no resistance so that he might be able to fly ever higher and ever faster on the wings of ideas. Kant insists that resistance itself is the very thing that enables the dove to hang in the air at all. In the third Critique, the vestiges of this image linger, though this time Kant is discussing the character of genius and its relationship to judgment and taste. The wings of ideas that were capable of taking Plato on flights of fancy in the first Critique are replaced here by wings that the artist/genius might use to make creative leaps of whimsy. Kant states, “Taste, like the power of judgment in general, consists in disciplining (or training) genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it civilized and polished” (Kant 1987, 188). Further on, sounding much like he does when he criticizes Plato’s attempt to “venture out beyond [understanding],” Kant says that “[Taste] introduces clarity and order into a wealth of thought, and hence makes the idea durable, fit for approval that is both lasting and universal (allgemeinen), and [hence] fit for being followed by others and fit for an ever advancing culture” (Kant 1987, 188). The idea needs something to make it

Genius

127

durable just as the idea in the first Critique needs some content or intuition to make it understandable. The German word Widerstand which we discussed in relation to the first Critique quotation, would be appropriate here as well. Genius needs taste to resist it or stand up against it in order for something universal or lasting to come from it, in order for it to be fit for others who share a common sense—that is, others who share like mental powers (Gemütskräfte). We have taken liberty in discussing flight in two very different ways. First, we used Mircea Eliade’s commentary on Constantin Brancusi’s work, specifically, his “Colonne sans fin” and Bird series to help illustrate Kant’s point that the aesthetic imagination can somehow go above and beyond concepts. That discussion made us acknowledge the importance of Kant’s “aesthetic idea” (something we will discuss later in this chapter). But, before we become enamored with the aesthetic imagination’s ability to go above and beyond concepts, we identified Kant’s clever use of the trope of flight in both the first and the third Critique. In both Critiques Kant endeavors to tame the unruliness that ideas inherently possess, if not resisted by content (in the first Critique) and taste (in the third Critique). These acts of resistance are the symptoms of what Desmond calls “Kant’s terror.” Clearly then, Desmond is correct in recognizing Kant’s equivocation in his statements regarding genius. Indeed, Kant’s equivocation has its roots precisely in his disagreement with Herder and the Sturm und Drang, and perhaps even that terror is directed at the fight that he had to fight. As we stated earlier, Herder and the Sturm und Drang had the dominant voice in Germany at the time and Kant had to engage Herder and Sturm und Drang in order to have any voice in the discussion. Kant’s terror is a result of the runaway train that is genius in the hands of the Sturm und Drang. Zammito writes that the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason “largely fell on deaf ears,” and consequently, “[t]he years 1781–90 constitute the decade of Kant’s struggle for recognition” (Zammito 1992, 8). Kant recognized one of the factors that prevented popular approval was the overwhelming influence of Herder and the Sturm und Drang. In fact, Zammito contends that Kant’s publisher Johann Hartknoch, who was also Herder’s publisher, told Herder in a conversation in 1783 that “Kant believed he could trace the “neglect” (Nichtbeachtung) of his Critique

128

Kant’s Concept of Genius

to Herder’s influence” (Zammito 1992, 9).4 What is clear is that Kant’s conception of genius differs greatly from the Sturm und Drang, and Kant was leery of an unrestrained embrace of spontaneous, emotive genius. As Zammito points out, Kant “warned” Herder against “an excessive indulgence of ‘genius’” in a 1768 letter (Zammito 1992, 35). In this environment, Kant was trying to explicate the capabilities of genius, and he saw his task as one of reining in a decidedly feral animal. When Kant is not stridently denouncing how “recent educators” and “charlatans” characterize genius, he accents the role of taste in genius. In §50 Kant begins the section with “Now insofar as art shows genius it does indeed deserve to be called inspired [geistreich], but it deserves to called fine art only insofar as it shows taste. Hence what we must look to above all, when we judge art as fine art, is taste, at least as an indispensable condition (condititio sine qua non)” (Kant 1987,188). We can see why Desmond speaks of a domesticated genius. Taste acts as a restraint against unencumbered fancy. Inspiration can only take an artist so far; one gets the feeling that just about anything can be called inspired. True fine art, on the other hand, requires the resistance of taste. Purely inspired work runs the risk of incoherence— a risk Kant could not abide. Despite Kant’s impulse to contain genius in some way, we should not overstate the domestication of genius, for genius still has the capability to explore the possible or merely thinkable. To illustrate this ability, let us go on to discuss the supersensible.

Supersensible When we concluded our sections on judgment and nature, we alluded to a concept known as the supersensible (übersinnlich). It is a somewhat enigmatic term used by Kant to escape one conundrum or another: When Kant divides nature into two different parts (mechanical and technical), he is left with the problem of uniting the two. In order to do this Kant uses the concept of the supersensible. When Kant presents the antimony of taste (§56–57), he appeals to the supersensible for a resolution. When Kant has to establish a standard or ground for the judgment of taste, he proposes the supersensible. As Paul Guyer points

Genius

129

out, “Nothing has prepared us for the connection of Kant’s aesthetic theory to the metaphysical distinction between appearance and thing in itself” (Guyer 1997, 301); nevertheless, Kant appeals to the supersensible as a unifying force in his aesthetics. Indeed, he even turns to the supersensible in his discussion of genius. If we digress for a moment to consider the idea of the noumena, we might get a better idea about what Kant means by the supersensible. Let us recall Kant’s explanation of the noumena in the first Critique where he defines (negatively) the noumena as “a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition” (Kant 1929, 268). Kant makes it clear that “the employment of the categories can never extend further than to the objects of experience” (Kant 1929, 270). He also refers to noumena as “intelligible entities” (Kant 1929, 267); however, it is clear that concepts cannot help us access the noumena. The inability of concepts to access “intelligible entities” or noumena leaves an opening for what is possible or the merely thinkable. Pluhar identifies the synonymous relationship between the noumenal and the supersensible. He writes, “no such synthetic a priori judgments are possible (i.e. justifiable) as regards the world as it may be in itself, i.e., the world considered as supersensible (or ‘intelligible’ or ‘noumenal’) i.e., merely thinkable” (Kant 1987, xxxiii). Thus, we see that the “merely thinkable” is a unifying force in Kant’s aesthetics. In order to marry the mechanical and technical aspects of nature, we must think or make intelligible the possibility that they are unifiable. Judgment is similarly grounded in a possibility—purposiveness. Kant writes, If we are to have a principle that makes it possible to reconcile the mechanical and the teleological principles by which we judge nature, then we must posit this further principle in something that lies beyond both (and hence also beyond any possible empirical presentation of nature), but that nonetheless contains the basis of nature, namely, we must posit it in the supersensible, to which we must refer both kinds of explanation. (Kant 1987, 297)

130

Kant’s Concept of Genius

The supersensible is a unifying concept that lies beyond appearances, yet remains the “the basis of nature.” The realm of the supersensible enables the mechanical and the systematic to be brought together. Kant’s solution to the antinomy of taste illustrates the importance of the supersensible quite neatly: in the antinomy of taste, Kant recognizes the tension in the claim that taste is not based on a determinate concepts, yet is valid for everyone. For Kant a claim to universal and necessary validity is predicated upon a concept. The understanding yields determinate concepts and reason yields indeterminate concepts. Kant claims that an example of an indeterminate concept is that of the supersensible. Furthermore, this concept of the supersensible is the concept upon which judgment rests when it makes a claim to universal validity (Kant 1987, 212). If we are consistent with Pluhar’s observation that the supersensible is the “merely thinkable” or the “intelligible,” then we conclude that the universal validity of judgment is based on what is “thinkable” or “intelligible.” Jaspers puts it this way: “Free play in judgments of taste gives me as a sensuous and rational being awareness of the area in which everything that is being for me is situated (the play of all the cognitive faculties); therein it makes me aware of the unknown root of the two stems (sensibility and understanding)” (Jaspers 1962, 79). The “unknown root” that Jaspers refers to is, of course, the supersensible, or what we have been referring to as the “thinkable” or “intelligible.” In other words, the “supersensible substrate of humanity” (übersinnliche Substrat der Menscheit) is the concept that makes a judgment of taste valid for everyone. Kant goes on to say, What is needed to solve the antinomy is only the possibility that two seemingly [dem Scheine nach] conflicting propositions are in fact not contradictory but are consistent, even though it would surpass our cognitive power to explain how the concept involved [i.e., how what the concept stands for] is possible. (Kant 1987, 213) The key here is the word possibility (Möglichkeit). As long as there is the possibility—and possibility can be understood as merely thinkable—then a concept undergirds aesthetic judgment.

Genius

131

As we stated, the supersensible is used by Kant in defining genius. The invocation of the supersensible in the context of genius amounts to what Zammito calls a “breathtaking metaphysical revision” (Zammito 1992, 288). In many ways Kant’s use of the supersensible simply amplifies his understanding of the relationship between genius and fine art. We already know that fine art is the art of genius. We know that nature works through genius and that genius finds the rule for art and, as Biemel points out, “the rule must be as original as that which it governs” (Biemel 1959, 80).5 We also know that taste supplies certain constraints to genius that prevent genius from nonsense. Now, with the connection to the supersensible, Kant uncovers another active capacity for genius. It is the ability to explore aesthetic ideas. Zammito writes that “Kant developed the conception of aesthetic ideas directly out of the notion of indeterminate concepts in Remark I to §57” (Zammito 1992, 287). That comment is where Kant expands his definition of genius beyond simply one who is responsible for fine art. He writes, Hence GENIUS can also be explicated as the ability to [exhibit] aesthetic ideas. The [explication] indicates at the same time why it is that, in productions of genius, art (i.e., production of the beautiful) receives its rule from nature (the nature of the subject) rather than from a deliberate purpose. For we must judge the beautiful not according to concepts, but according to the purposive attunement of the imagination that brings it into harmony with the power of concepts as such. Hence the subjective standard for that aesthetic but unconditioned purposiveness in fine art that is to lay rightful claim to everyone’s necessary liking cannot be supplied by any rule of precept, but can be supplied only by that which is merely nature in the subject but which cannot be encompassed by rules or concepts— namely, the supersensible substrate (unattainable by any concept of the understanding) of all his powers. (Kant 1987, 217) By widening his definition of genius to include aesthetic ideas, Kant retained a way for genius to engage in exploratory flights of fancy; that is, he did not emasculate genius totally when he insisted that

132

Kant’s Concept of Genius

taste, judgment, and the rational faculties had a role to play in genius. Aesthetic ideas left open a realm where the imagination could work in free play. This obviously gave aesthetic ideas an important role in defining genius. As Biemel writes, “The explication of genius brought innovation and expansion to the meaning of aesthetic idea” (Biemel 1959, 80). Let us now turn to aesthetic ideas and see how their meaning is expansive and innovative.

Aesthetic Ideas (Ästhetischer Ideen) Some ostensible works of fine art lack a certain Geist according to Kant. Geist is to be understood as “the animating principle in the mind” (Kant 1987, 182) and is irreducible to concepts. In fact, Kant calls aesthetic idea the “counterpart” (Gegenstück) of a rational idea. We might recall Plato’s Ion and Socrates’s insistence that “all the good poets who make epic poems use no art at all, but they are inspired and possessed when they utter all these beautiful poems” (Plato 1956, 18). To be sure, Kant is not making any appeals to the Muses or gods, nor would he suggest that there is not art (some mechanism) in making poetry; however, neither Kant nor Socrates reduce poetic production to a set of rules; whether a poet is possessed as Socrates would have it or an artist lends a certain spirit to a work of art as Kant would have, each suggests that artistic production reaches beyond the merely rational and enlivens through some means other than reason. Kant presents the contrast between something ordinary and something inspired thus: “A poem may be quite nice and elegant and yet have no spirit. A story may be precise and orderly and yet have no spirit. An oration may be both thorough and graceful and yet have no spirit” (Kant 1987, 182). Spirit, for Kant, is a key component to fine art. As Georgio Tonelli makes apparent, “Spirit concerns the intellectual content, i.e., it vivifies the intellect, gives much to think about, concerns the originality of ideas, viz., the subjectivity of intellectual laws or the peculiarity of concepts, and it is productive” (Tonelli 1966, 124). Spirit, therefore, is concerned with enlivening the intellect, originality and, in its productive capacity, it is concerned with what is thinkable.

Genius

133

In speaking of this spirit, Kant employs words like “animating” (beleben), as just quoted, and as well as the phrase “purposive momentum” (zweckmäßig in Schwung). In each case he is emphasizing a certain self-sustaining and self-strengthening play that this spirit is able to engender. Momentum suggests a movement, and purposiveness suggests a direction, but we are not given a determinate end for the play. It is not surprising to read that Kant writes of “creating another nature out of the material that actual nature gives” us (einer anderen Natur aus dem Stoffe) (Kant 1987, 182). Kant states that the animating principle “is nothing but the ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas” (Kant 1987, 182). Ideas are different from concepts. As Tonelli states, “Philosophy is a true home for ideas; ideas are capital in art too. They are not to be found in mathematics, except when a new method is introduced” (Tonelli 1966, 118). This suggests that the productive imagination, in its capacity to explore ideas, plays a particularly important role in philosophy and art because each is concerned with possible ways of being. Kant discusses the possibility of creativity in different places throughout the third Critique, as well as the Anthropology. He tells us about the productive and reproductive imagination. Each is creative in distinct and limited ways. At times, there seems to be something contradictory about Kant’s comments on creativity, but perhaps an exploration of his distinctions will serve us well. The Anthropology was written in the latter part of the 1790s. In it, Kant clarifies his conception of the imagination. He states, The imagination (facultas imaginandi), as a power to intuit even when the object is not present, is either productive or reproductive. As productive, it is a power of original exhibition of the object (exhibitio originaria), and hence of an exhibition that precedes experience. As reproductive, it is a power of derivative exhibition (exhibitio derivativa), an exhibition that brings back to the mind an empirical intuition we have had before. (Kant 1987, 91 n. 66) What is striking about this quotation is that Kant recognizes the imagination as “a power to intuit.” As we know from the first Critique, intuition is what puts knowledge in immediate relation to objects,

134

Kant’s Concept of Genius

and usually it depends on the presence of an object. Imagination, however, understood as a power to intuit, puts knowledge in relation to objects without depending on something given or present. Now, Kant is clear that this putting into presence can be either productive or reproductive. When the imagination is reproductive, it derives its manifestations from something that has already been experienced. Despite this distinction between productive and reproductive imagination, we should not automatically equate the productive imagination with creativity because Kant says we can also find out the source of the imagination’s material. By making this claim, that is, that we can always find out “[from where the imagination took] its material, Kant stops short of divorcing the imagination and nature completely. He states, The imagination, insofar as it produces imaginings involuntarily as well, is called fantasy. [So] (in other words) the imagination either engages in fiction (i.e. it is productive), or in recall (i.e., it is reproductive). But this does not mean that the productive imagination is creative, i.e., capable of producing a presentation of sense that was never before given to our power of sense; rather, we can always show [from where the imagination took] its material. (Kant 1987, 94 n. 73) This passage reveals the fundamental tension between genius and nature. Recall that in §47 Kant writes that “genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art” and that in §46 he writes that “Genius is the innate mental predisposition (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.” If we are to take Kant’s comment in Anthropology at face value, then we see that genius is the source of material, and that nature works through genius. Put another way, the often tenuous, sometimes circular, relationship between nature and genius is laid bare; neither nature nor genius maintains a place of priority. What is clear, however, is that the productive imagination gives us the means to surpass what is merely given. More specifically, the productive imagination has at its disposal aesthetic ideas. The ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas, or to “surpass nature” by using material given to us affords us entertainment (unterhalten). It breaks

Genius

135

the monotony. The quotidian is reconfigured in such a way as to give rise to “higher principles,” those higher principles found in reason. But, Kant makes a distinction. He states that these higher principles of reason “are just as natural to us as those which the understanding follows in apprehending empirical nature” (Kant 1987, 182). The first Critique shows that understanding is able to represent a given object to itself. This apprehension is made possible a priori through our intuition, which is comprised of space and time. However, the intuition is concerned with the empirical apprehension of nature; thus, it only allows us access to the “lower principles,” as opposed to the higher principles (höher Prinzipien).6 Kant is suggesting that intuition and the apprehension of objects in empirical nature are the lower principles in reason. The distinction between lower and higher principles of reason is united, or at least associated, by what Kant calls analogical laws. Kant writes, “[In using the productive imagination] we continue to follow analogical laws” (Kant 1987, 182). Analogy allows for one to make inferences or establish relationships between heterogeneous things (Kant 1987, 356). Pluhar explains Kant’s conception of analogy as a scenario where, we present the object of the idea [e.g. God] in terms of the relation [which of some other object, e.g. man, has] to its [effects or] consequences [Folgen] and which is the same relation that we consider the object itself as having to its consequences, and we do this even though the [two] objects themselves are quite different in kind. (Kant 1987, 226) Pluhar’s convoluted explanation might be better understood in a more typical fashion: a : b :: c : d where b and d are understood as the respective consequences of a and c. These analogical laws are operative in both the “higher” and “lower” principles of reason. Though both the higher and lower principles of reason participate in analogy, they differ in that this so-called higher principle is free from the law of association. The law of association is attached to the empirical use of the imagination (§49). According to Kant, “It is under this very law [of association] that nature lends us material”

136

Kant’s Concept of Genius

(Kant 1987, 182). In the General Comment on the First Division of the Analytic, Kant emphasizes that “everything comes down (alles auf den) to the concept of taste” (Kant 1987, 91).7 We have already seen that taste is an ability to judge beauty and is founded upon a freedom. Therefore, the power of judgment is not reproductive, but productive and spontaneous. As Kant makes clear in the General Comment, only a capacity that is reproductive or based on something empirical can be subject to the laws of association. Fundamentally, then, the laws of association deal with concepts (§59). Breaking free of the laws of association is important in that it allows one to go beyond nature in so far as nature is bound up with concepts or mechanical laws. The material of nature is transformed so as to go beyond nature (was die Natur übertrifft). It is this transformation that makes aesthetic ideas. Kant spends a great deal of time asserting the primacy of natural beauty. One is struck by the importance he places on natural beauty, and yet with aesthetic ideas and genius we are afforded the opportunity to go beyond the bounds of experience. Aesthetic ideas “strive toward something that lies beyond the bounds of experience,” (sie zu etwas über die Erfahrungsgrenze hinaus Liegendem wenigstens streben (Kant 1987, 182).8 Straining beyond the confines of experience amounts to an attempt to try to “approach an exhibition of rational concepts (intellectual ideas), and thus [these concepts] are given a semblance of objective reality” (Kant 1987, 182). Kant states that the reason that we may call these presentations ideas is that they are “inner intuitions to which no concept can be completely adequate” (Kant 1987, 182). Kant is here recalling his explication of intuition in the first Critique. We may recall that intuitions are a priori, thus completely free of the field of experience. In the first Critique Kant writes, “[I]ntuition is that through which [knowledge] is in immediate relation to [objects], and to which all thought as a means is directed” (Kant 1929, 65). Just as we direct our thoughts to intuitions, so do we direct out thoughts to aesthetic ideas. Aesthetic ideas are presented as if they are objective reality and therefore invitations to thought. One could substitute aesthetic idea for symbol when considering Paul Ricoeur’s comment (gleaned from Kant) that symbols are an “invitation to thought.” Indeed the function of aesthetic idea is to enliven the mind.

Genius

137

Kant is at his most poetic when discussing the dynamic of aesthetic idea. Perhaps predictably, he comments on the art of poetry to help him explicate the interplay of idea and thought. He says of the poet, A poet ventures to give sensible expression to rational ideas of invisible beings, the realm of the blessed, the realm of hell, eternity, creation, and so on. Or, again, he takes [things] that are indeed exemplified in experience, such as death, envy, and all the other vices, as well as love, fame, and so on; but then, by means of an imagination that emulates the example of reason in reaching [for] a maximum, he ventures to give these sensible expression in a way that goes beyond the limits of experience, namely, with a completeness for which no example can be found in nature. And it is actually the art of poetry that the power [i.e. the faculty] of aesthetic ideas can manifest itself to the full extent. Considered by itself, however, this power is actually only a talent (of the imagination). (Kant 1987, 183) One is struck by many points in this lengthy excerpt. First, we are reminded of the inchoate character of nature. Nature is an endless drive toward its end (teleologic purpose), and therefore it cannot provide us with a completed example of itself. Yet, the faculty of aesthetic ideas or the talent of the imagination can, indeed, provide a fully developed example of nature. Josef Brodsky says of Dostoevsky, that “his art is anything but mimetic; it wasn’t imitating reality; it was creating, or, better still, reaching for one.”9 Brodsky’s perspective on the creative artist is obviously a modern one—he takes the productive imagination for granted, still his choice of words is important. The metaphor of “reaching” suggests a movement beyond the merely given. Second, Kant’s comment on the poet suggests that “the realm of rational ideas invisible to beings” is akin to the supersensible; the realm where things can be merely possible or thinkable. The ability to exhibit these ideas is important because it takes on the role of the intuition. Kant makes it clear in the first Critique that concepts without intuition are empty, yet here we find the suggestion that aesthetic ideas are a means of occupying the emptiness.

138

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Kant goes on to consider the relationship between concepts and a presentation of the imagination. A particular presentation of the imagination can belong to a concept. The presentation is used to exhibit a concept, yet the presentation cannot be contained by the determinate concept. Kant writes, “It prompts so much thought as can never be comprehended within a determinate concept” (Kant 1987, 183). The concept is “aesthetically expanded” and one remembers anew Kant’s discussion of play. The concept is played with, set in motion as it were. The presentation by the imagination “makes reason think more . . . than what can be apprehended and made distinct in the presentation (though the thought does pertain to the concept of the object [presented])” (Kant 1987, 183). Aesthetic attributes are a means to make “reason think more than what can be apprehended.” Kant points out that aesthetic attributes are operative when certain forms express a concept’s relationship with other concepts. Some objects cannot be expressed adequately through concepts alone, and therefore, the imagination must augment the shortcomings of a rational idea. Kant uses an example of Jupiter’s eagle. The lightning bolt in his hand “is an attribute of the mighty king of heaven, and the peacock is an attribute of heaven’s stately queen” (Kant 1987, 183). These attributes allow the expression of something different from the mere content of a concept. They present “something that prompts the imagination to spread over a multitude of kindred presentations that arouse more thought than can be expressed in a concept determined by words” (Kant 1987, 183). Indeed, these attributes are an invitation to thought. These attributes yield aesthetic ideas; the expression of something beyond the content of a concept. Biemel writes, “In logical cognition, the imagination is in the service of the understanding, it stands ‘under the force of the understanding’; but in the artistic, the imagination frees itself from these shackles” (Biemel 1959, 79). We might think of this as a substitution for logical exhibition, but more importantly, it serves to “quicken (beleben) the mind by opening up for it a view into an immense realm of kindred presentations” (Kant 1987, 183–84). Kant seems to be aware of the Enlightenment’s insistence on logical demonstration, and as both Cassirer and Desmond remind us, Kant is very much an Enlightenment thinker, yet he recognizes the

Genius

139

inadequacies of such blind adherence to logical demonstration. In the realm of art we are most emphatically presented with the possibility of other ways of apprehending the world, or, to paraphrase Biemel, a new relation to being appears (. . . eine neue Weise, zum Seinenden in Bezug zu treten) (Biemel 1959, 79). Kant uses an excerpt from a poem by Frederick the Great to illustrate his point of aesthetic ideas surpassing rational concepts. The poem is replete with images of a setting sun, and a relationship is established between the first rays of light and the speakers own last sighs of life. Kant says of the poem, The king is here animating his rational idea of a cosmopolitan attitude, even at the end of life, by means of an attribute which the imagination (in remembering all the pleasures of a completed beautiful summer day, which a serene evening calls to mind) conjoins with that presentation, and which arouses a multitude of sensations and supplementary presentations for which no expression can be found. (Kant 1987, 184) The poem gives rise to contemplation; a multitude of feelings and associative presentations play with and go beyond the rational concept. In short, aesthetic attributes, the characteristic tool of aesthetic ideas, are the means an artist has to present the world. We know that mechanical nature must be bound by laws, but the mechanical cannot exhaust the restlessness or playfulness of the human mind. Aesthetic ideas are the means by which Kant escapes a purely rationalistic approach to the world; flights of fancy are possible for Kant, but they maintain a playfulness in the full sense of the word— there is a to and fro, a give and take, a thrust and parry. Our rational faculties and imagination engage in the play.

Appendix The relationship between genius and common sense (sensus communis) is a vital one for Kant. We have said that common sense refers to the capacity that we all have to cognize. We have also recognized the

140

Kant’s Concept of Genius

ability a human being has, through fine art (and thus, genius), “for setting himself purposes.” These two abilities can bring forth a tension; genius strikes out ahead of the common sense by means of aesthetic ideas. Thus, there is an inherent tension between genius and common sense. Kant certainly recognized that the form and content of our judgments will not always be identical (§39–40). Furthermore, we may suggest that his awareness of the prevailing common sense (and here we employ the word in its more pedestrian meaning of “public sentiment” or “prevailing opinions”) was what led him to such distinctions. Kant knew that “[o]nly in society is the beautiful of empirical interest” (Kant 1987, 163). Kant was well aware of the popular support the Sturm und Drang garnered in Germany and his awareness made him assert that a tension must exist between common sense and genius because if it does not, artistic expression may devolve into continuous attempts at originality for originality’s sake. So long as common sense accepts anything that comes along, artistic expression is compromised. So long as common sense is not in tension with genius’s sallies, then meaning is lost. If we return once again to our example of flight: genius needs common sense, like the bird in flight needs the resistance of air. The importance of resistance and tension can be illuminated in another manner. In our discussion of the Analytic of the Beautiful, we pointed out that play was an important concept. A relationship between play and resistance and tension seems obvious. Endemic to the ideas of play is resistance and tension. When at play, we engage in a struggle with our opponent or are in tension with ourselves and our ability to compete in a particular activity. The specifics of play will be determined by the game we are playing; what skills and abilities we employ will be determined by the game or activity. For Kant, play incorporates all of the cognitive faculties. The lively interplay between our imagination, understanding, and reason. To be sure, Herder, Young, and Gerard do not explicitly use this idea of play to describe the imaginative machinations in their respective discussions of genius; however, by means of comparison, we might do well to superimpose the ideas of play on their theories of genius. In such a thought experiment, predictably, Gerard would be most like Kant. Kant’s admiration for Gerard is clear, and we would even

Genius

141

suggest that Gerard’s insistence on the interplay of productive imagination, taste, and judgment were influential in the formulation of Kant’s theory. The cognitive faculties for Gerard would be much the same as the cognitive faculties for Kant. Genius requires them all. If we superimpose the idea of play on Young and Herder we would find something very different. The cognitive faculties are markedly different. Recall Young’s insistence that “genius differs from a good understanding,” that a relationship between learning and genius is antithetical, and that the creative powers wanders wild in a “fairy land of fancy.” Young willfully divorces learning and understanding from the machinations of genius. Play for Young does not incorporate acts of resistance; one gets the impression that Young’s genius is like the dove cleaving the air in the first Critique—he wishes that the air was not there so he could climb ever higher. Herder is certainly more equivocal than Young, though less so than Kant on the score of the cognitive faculties. Recall the metaphor of the prize fighter that Herder employs. Taste and genius are placed in positions of mutual resistance. The brash fighter, that is, genius, aggressively rushes into combat, while the craft of boxing, that is, taste, must catch up and learn the tricks of the trade in the midst of the bold forays. Certainly, there is the strong suggestion of play between taste and genius in Herder’s metaphor. However, we must also keep in mind Herder’s conflation of feeling and knowledge. As Herder reminds us in his letter to Caroline, “I am not here to think! but to be! to feel!/ to live! to rejoice!” Ultimately, we might say that Herder privileges the role of feeling over the roles of taste or understanding. Play for Herder is dominated by the powers of feeling, sense, and activity; thought is overwhelmed in their company and can offer only modest resistance to them.

Conclusion

To say that words undergo changes and transformations throughout history would be to state the obvious. For the most part, these linguistic changes take place without the explicit awareness of the language’s speakers. Occasionally, scholars or critics deem it worthy or necessary to examine these transformations as they are taking place. As works like Dr. Johnson’s monumental Dictionary of the English Language (1755) show, the eighteenth century was a time when such linguistic examinations were particularly popular. And although Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary notably omitted any mention of genius, as we have shown, genius is a word that underwent a great deal of transformation and scrutiny during this time period.1 Kant was very much immersed in the transformations that were taking place regarding genius. As Zammito puts it, “Kant’s exposition of genius takes its terms from the ‘conventional wisdom’” (Zammito 1992, 139). The “conventional wisdom” in Germany at the time was dominated by Herder and the Sturm und Drang. Furthermore, as we stated earlier, Kant had been influenced by Alexander Gerard’s examination of genius. His appreciation of Gerard notwithstanding, Kant’s explication of genius might best be understood as an act of resistance. We emphasized that Kant stressed resistance in his actual explication of genius and we can also say that Kant’s addressing the question of genius was an act of resistance itself—an act of resistance against the prevailing ideas about genius. The atmosphere in which Kant found himself writing was characterized by beliefs in a subject-centered freedom, or in the words of Louis Dupré, “The modern concept of subjectivity rests solidly on the idea of freedom, so much so that many consider autonomy the characteristic of the new age” (Dupré 1993, 120). To be sure, Kant

Conclusion

143

was very much a part of this modern conception of subjectivity. Indeed, Dupré asserts that Kant’s ethics completed a certain transition to a “privatization of freedom.” Dupré writes, “[Kant’s] withdrawal of morality from the physical and social order to the inward domain of consciousness completed what modern thought had prepared since its beginning, namely, a privatization of freedom” (Dupré 1993, 131). For Kant, of course, the “inward domain of consciousness” could determine the intention of an act, and ultimately, intention became the measure of morality, not any particular outcome of an act. Taylor recognizes this relationship between intention and freedom in Kant’s ethics when he writes, “[I]f the decision to act morally is the decision to act with the ultimate purpose of conforming my actions to universal law, then this amounts to the determination to act according to my true nature as a rational being. And acting according to the demands of what I truly am, of my reason, is freedom” (Taylor 1989, 363). Freedom is thus determined from within; insofar as the rational faculties determine an action, freedom is realized. Such a locus for freedom clashes with traditional depictions of nature. Both Dupré‚ and Taylor identify this thoroughgoing conflict that was erupting in the eighteenth century.2 The traditional role of nature was undergoing a great many changes. Dupré writes, The traditional rule of ethics—to live in conformity with the whole of nature—becomes hard to follow when the body is assumed to be an independent substance subject to the unchangeable laws of a mechanical universe. At that point the mind has nowhere to turn but to that internal realm where it can score none but “ideal victories.” (Dupré 1993, 131) This turning to the “internal realm” may aptly characterize Kant’s entire critical project. For our purposes, we might suggest that, in working out the machinations of judgment, Kant was trying to find the limits of the interplay between nature and freedom. As we mentioned in Chapter Three, Kant conceived of the Critique of Judgment as a nexus between the first and second Critiques, a nexus between nature and freedom respectively. Within the context of a discussion

144

Kant’s Concept of Genius

regarding nature and freedom and how judgment mediates between the two, genius is configured. It can be argued that the prevailing opinions about genius had disregarded the powerful influence nature had imposed on the discussion—recall that the above quoted line from Dupré reminds us that “an independent substance” is still subjected “to the unchangeable laws of a mechanical universe.” Herder and the Sturm und Drang were not interested in the determining role of a mechanical universe, or at least they were not concerned with integrating a mechanistic universe with a poetic universe. As Taylor points out, “Herder offered a picture of nature as a great current of sympathy, running through all things” (Taylor 1989, 369). This does not mean that Herder did not acknowledge the popular mechanical understanding of nature. As Pascal states, “[Herder] throws no doubt on the truth of the discoveries of Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Euler. On the contrary he pours scorn on the attempts of the Church and of theologians to suppress scientific investigation and its conclusions” (Pascal 1953, 96). Despite Herder’s endorsement of scientific investigation, he clearly privileges the poetics of Biblical narratives and other primitive poetry over the modern abstractions of science. Pascal writes, “[T]he validity of both the Mosaic and the Newtonian cosmology turns rapidly into an enthusiastic exposition of the superiority of the Genesis account.” And later Pascal states that Herder thought that the Hebrew account of creation was “fuller [and] truer, than the modern metaphysical, rationalist conception of God, because God is a living reality for these shepherds, vibrating throughout their whole being, not an abstract construct of their minds” (Pascal 1953, 97). Clearly then, Herder acknowledges the mechanical in nature, but he is uninterested in reconciling such abstractions with the spontaneous, emotive impulses of poesy. When genius “comes out of the hand of nature,” it is erupting from the “great current of sympathy” that Taylor mentions, not some mechanical law or abstraction. And furthermore, it is a matter of indifference to Herder to resolve any inherent tensions between these contrasting cosmologies. Kant was more circumspect. His first Critique had clearly outlined a mechanistic nature and he worked out conceptions of freedom and

Conclusion

145

judgment with this in mind. But, as we showed in Chapter Three, Kant sought a reconciliation between the part of nature determined by laws and the part of nature concerned with bringing something into being. That the third Critique served such an intermediary function is supported by Kant’s somewhat cryptic table shown at the end of the second introduction. The table is as follows: All the Mental Powers

Cognitive Power

A Priori Principles

Application to

cognitive power feeling of pleasure & displeasure power of desire

understanding judgment reason

lawfulness purposiveness final purpose

nature art freedom

(Kant 1987, 38).

Kant makes it clear that “the concept of a purposiveness of nature . . . makes possible the transition from pure theoretical to pure practical lawfulness, from lawfulness in terms of nature to the final purpose set by the concept of freedom” (Kant 1987, 37). Judgment, and specifically the a priori concept upon which it rests, that is, purposiveness, is the cognitive power that pivots between understanding and reason. Furthermore, the respective application for each cognitive power is important for understanding genius because art is the pivot point between nature and freedom. Thus, the maker of fine art (and it would seem art in general) serves as a vital link between nature and freedom. The possibility of reconciling the disparate elements of nature and freedom was predicated upon art just as the possibility of reconciling understanding and reason was predicated on judgment. As is apparent from the foregoing, Herder happily separated nature and freedom. The autonomous subject pursued a cosmology as he wished; it may be Newtonian mechanics, it may be Mosaic poetics, either one will do. The terror-stricken Kant, to use Desmond’s characterization, however, placed a great deal of weight on a reconciliation of nature and freedom. Dupré’s observation that “many consider autonomy the characteristic of the new age” implies that the free subject has the task of realizing that freedom. Kant could not abide a detached, free floating expressive individual that Herder so adored.

146

Kant’s Concept of Genius

As we saw, both Kant and Herder gave a role to taste in their respective discussions of genius. Recall Herder saying that genius must “go out ahead of taste” and in his metaphor of the prize fighter, Herder suggests that taste must reconcile the bold offensives of genius. In Herder’s other metaphor, we saw that taste served as a rudder to the ship that was genius. While these seem to suggest certain restrictions on genius, we soon realized that the very possibility of taste depends on genius and any restrictions are purely cosmetic. Kant on the other hand, has a much tighter grip on the rambunctious impulses of genius. And in this regard, Kant inherits from Gerard a healthy respect for the “rational faculties” and sought to integrate the various powers of the mind without privileging one over and above the others. The imaginative impulses of the artist must be harmonized with taste and judgment. The dynamic harmony that was so important to judgment is similarly important to genius. Now, what about Kant’s insistence that nature gives the rule to art through genius? As we saw in Chapter One, Romantic poets that followed Kant like Coleridge gave a particularly important role to nature in the production of art. Kant certainly suggests that genius is merely a vehicle for nature. He writes: “a product can never be called art unless it is preceded by a rule, it must be nature in the subject (and through the attunement of his powers) (und durch die Stimmung der Vermögen desselben) that gives the rule to art” (Kant 1987, 175). The “attunement of powers” not only suggests a harmony among the mental powers, but also harmony between subject and nature. Desmond is particularly aware of the tension that exists between nature and the self. He points out that,“[i]n one strand of Kant’s thinking, it is the self who gives the rule to nature; in another strand, however, it is nature that gives a rule to art through the self of genius.” In the mechanistic understanding of nature, the self clearly has a constitutive role in nature; in the artistic realm, nature actively works through the self. Desmond states that “we in late modernity have become uncertain how to answer” this tension between the self and nature (Desmond 1998, 595). We might suggest that Kant did not know how to solve this dilemma either; he had to have been aware of the tensions that persisted particularly in his explanations of nature. At one turn he restricts nature to that which is governable by laws and

Conclusion

147

at another he opens nature up to techne¯. This tension shows itself in the course of the explications of genius. As we have already stated, nature gives the rule to art through genius, and later, those rules can only be supplied “by nature in the subject,” namely the supersensible substrate. Desmond asserts that “We are the heirs of Kant, we oscillate between [Enlightenment and Romanticism].” In other words, we are caught between the Enlightenment’s strict insistence on rational intelligibility and Romanticism’s insistence on “creative sovereignty.” Desmond goes on to say: “We might say that Romanticism is the truth of Enlightenment relative to the self: It sees that the self cannot be rationalized in the same way as a supposedly mechanistic nature. Inevitably, the question will arise as to whether the self can be rationalized at all?” (Desmond 1998, 596). Despite all his attempts to “domesticate,” rein in, and control genius, Kant recognizes that the self cannot be rationalized in the same way in which he rationalized mechanistic nature. What this recognition does not lead to is an unencumbered embrace of the creative powers. In brief, he recycles, adds, subtracts, and some might say, confuses his discussion of genius. His inclusion of judgment and taste should not be understated, however; the key point to remember is that judgment and taste are powers of the mind that must be brought into play if any free play or harmony of the mental powers is to be found. This is the key difference between Kant and Herder and the Sturm und Drang. As we saw in Chapter One, Herder clearly emphasizes the feelings of genius to the point where taste is dependent upon genius for its very existence. Kant cannot be so frivolous. Perhaps, Desmond is correct to situate Kant in between Enlightenment and Romanticism; Kant’s transcendental project is wedged between the radical recognition that the subject “is an active source of intelligibility” and that the subject’s potential for being a source of intelligibility is a shared potential. In short, though each self is actively a source of intelligibility, it does not mean that intelligibility is a purely private affair; it is public. Thus, the importance of the idea of common sense in the third Critique—we all share the ability to attain a harmony of our mental powers. While Kant clearly asserts a nature that is governable by laws in the first Critique, it cannot be said that Kant timorously retreats from a deeply mysterious and concealed nature in the third Critique.

148

Kant’s Concept of Genius

Indeed, genius gives him a vehicle through which a hidden and mysterious nature strives for its end. As we pointed out by using Cézanne and Monet as examples, artists make attempts to depict ideas. These ideas are sought in a free play of the mental powers. We can see an identity between nature and genius emerge: just as the genius or artist reaches for a possible nature, nature yearns for its always mysterious end.

Notes

Introduction 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Jordan was the last athlete whose name was routinely attached to genius. I do not notice the word employed with respect to, say, Tiger Woods. In fact, we might suggest that the word “genius” has undergone a kind of democratization—if that is even possible. Woods’s relationship with his very hands-on father, his beginning golf at an extraordinary early age, his relationship with his swing coach, Butch Harmon, for many years, his work ethic that routinely finds him teeing off for practice rounds at sunrise, are the stuff of the Tiger Wood’s legend. It is not surprising that a common theme in recently published books like The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle (2009), Talentis Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin (2008), and Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008) is the method of practice. How one practices (coupled with opportunity) becomes the determining factor in whether or not one will become a genius. The tools of the trade in the above mentioned books tend to reflect the human sciences in our day, which is to say, data collection, statistical analysis, anecdote, and “objective” measures such as IQ (where one can be designated “genius” depending on her score) comprise the starting point for the interpretive mode of discourse. I should also add that although these books make no attempt to fit genius in with cognition in general, as Kant does, I have little doubt that Kant would have been attentive to such popular studies. As I hope to show, he was very much engaged with the popular discourse of his day. See E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art (Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1989) pp. 3–18. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Continuum, 1995) pp. 42–100. See M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953). See E. H. Gombrich, “Truth and the Stereotype: An Illusion Theory of Representation” in The Philosophy of the Visual Arts, ed. Philip Alperson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) 72–87. For a study of the reception of and transformations of the third Critique see Tracey Stark’s dissertation (completed at Boston College) entitled “The Emancipatory Potential of Kant’s Critique of Judgment: The Transfiguration of the Particular. See the Oxford English Dictionary (CD Rom), s.v. “genius.”

150

Notes

Chapter One 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10

11

All of the above information is taken from the Oxford English Dictionary (CD Rom), s.v. “genius.” Passages from Addison, Hume, and Burke in this paragraph are taken from the OED. Citations are as given in the OED. Interestingly enough Addison and Young were two of the principle authors who Johnson mined for words that might be included in his Dictionary. As we will see later in this chapter, Addison only makes brief references to genius, and Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition was published in 1759, four years after Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. See Allen Reddick’s The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary. See Logan Pearsall Smith’s study Words and Idioms. He credits Baumgarten with the invention of the word aesthetic. See also the OED’s entry on genius. My translation. See http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject. pl?c.778:1:0:-1:23.newfrantext1108.25561.25679.25916. ARTFL cites Diderot, Denis. “Eloge de Richardson” In Oeuvres Esthetiques. Edited by P. Verniere. Paris: Garnier, 1966. See paragraph 40. For Voltaire’s quote see http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/ getobject.pl?c.596:24:0:-1:2.newfrantext1108.203254.203276. ARTFL cites Voltaire. Lettres philosophiques. Edited by G. Lanson. Paris: Hachette, 1915–1917. See paragraph 172. Trésor de la Langue Française, s.v. “genie.” John Cottingham et al. translate Descartes’ essay “Regulae ad directionem ingenii” as “Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence.” Thus, the sense of the word that indicates mental capacity or inner aptitudes is evident in French as far back as the seventeenth century. See Descartes, René. “Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence” in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) pp. 1–19. See M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953). See also Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger, Edited by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) and Larthomas, Jean-Paul De Shaftesbury à Kant (Paris: Didier, 1985). All quotations taken from Larthomas are my translations. See The Moralists, Part I, Section II and Characteristicks Soliloquy I, 3. This quotation is taken from Logan Pearsall Smith’s Words and Idioms. He does not provide any reference for the passage. The historical information that makes up the first portion of this section is taken from Bernhard Fabian’s Introduction to Gerard’s An Essay on Genius. Logan Pearsall Smith, in his study Words and Idioms, lists ten books (p. 101) published on the subject of genius between the years 1754–69. They are Thomas Warton’s Observations on the Faerie Queene (1754), William Sharpe’s A Dissertation upon Genius (1755), Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), Joseph Warton’s An Essay

Notes

12

13

14

15 16

17

18

19 20

21

22 23

151

on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1757), Edward Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), Richard Hurd’s Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762). E. Capell’s Reflections on Originality in Authors (1766), William Duff’s An Essay on Original Genius (1767), Mrs. Montagu’s An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, and Robert Wood’s An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer (1769). Fabian points out that associationist psychology predominated in Gerard’s day, and its principle proponent was David Hume (xlii–xliii). We saw that although Gerard was indebted to Hume in the case of associationist psychology, Hume never sought to develop an explicit conceptualization of genius. My translation. Also found in the Introduction to Gerard’s An Essay on Genius, p. xlviii, Bernhard Fabian’s note #152. For more about the Ossian story see Clark’s Herder: His Life and Thought, 143f. See Ernst Cassirer’s Kant’s Life and Thought, 229f. See Roy Pascal’s The German Sturm und Drang for an analysis of the movement. Much of the material in this section is taken from Pascal’s study. All the quotations taken from Herder’s “Ursachen des gesunken Geschmacks bei den verschiednen Völkern da er geblühet” are my translations. The essay can be found in Johann Gottfried Herder Werke. Vol. 4. Frankfort am Main: Verlag, 1994. Charles Taylor. The Ethics of Authenticity, 28. Taylor quotes Herder at length. From Ideen, vii.I., Sämtliche Werke, Vol. XIII, ed. Bernhard Suphan, 15 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877–1913), 291. “Jeder Mensch haat ein eigenes Mass, gleichsam eine eigne Stimmung aller seiner sinnlichen Gefühle ze einander.” See Edith Hamilton’s Mythology for story. The problem of distinguishing whom exactly Herder is talking about is exacerbated by the fact that Herder uses a feminine noun, that is, die Göttin, to describe the one who shows Hercules the way. The German word for oracle is das Orakel, a neuter noun. Needless to say, die Göttin probably does not refer to Eurytheus, a man. Despite this though, Herder’s choice of characters is propitious. As quoted from Pascal. The quote is taken from Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente, 1775–8, Abschnitt 1, Frgt. 10. Werke iv, 198. See Pascal’s The German Sturm und Drang. As quoted from Pascal. The quote is taken from Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente, 1775–8, Abschnitt 2, Frgt. 2. Werke iv, 205.

Chapter Two 1

For further analysis see Anthony Burgess. Re Joyce (New York: W.W. Norton, 1965). Burgess brings out the nuances of Joyce’s thought. It is much too simple to dismiss Joyce’s aesthetics (or Aquinas’ for that matter) as purely objectivist. Plus, there is the problem of attributing Stephen’s ideas to Joyce.

152 2

Notes

It is perhaps unnecessary to note, but I want to relay a conversation I once had with a student about this paragraph in Kant. About five minutes into the conversation it became apparent to me that the student understood “quicken” here as “to make faster or more rapid.” This is not the sense of quicken that is in play here. Rather, quicken should be understood as “to enliven or to stimulate.”

Chapter Three 1

2

Zammito addresses Kant’s indecision on this point, but only in regard to technic’s relationship to the practical sphere and theoretical sphere. Zammito contends that there was a time when Kant situated the technic in the practical. See The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 132f. Pluhar notes that Kant’s use of technical “is derived from the Greek téchne, i.e., ‘art’ in the sense that includes craft” (Kant 1987, 390 n. 6).

Chapter Four 1

2

3

4

5

6

This was a fairly common moniker in Germany, perhaps best translated as “enthusiasts.” One might think of a nature lover. See Gadamer’s Truth and Method especially, “The Subjectivization of Aesthetics.” Taylor’s Sources of the Self and Ethics of Authenticity. M. H. Abrams’s The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Also, Tracey Stark’s dissertation entitled The Emancipatory Potential of Kant’s Critique of Judgment: The Transfiguration of the Particular. In Introduction B, Kant uses the word eingenommen which means to be fond of, or partial to. Norman Kemp Smith translates here eingenommen as “misled.” This translation gives the correct impression that one’s enthusiasm or fondness for, in this case reason, sometimes makes one overlook its (reason’s) limits. In Introduction A, Kant uses the word aufgemuntert (from aufmuntern – to encourage or cheer) which Smith, in a footnote, translates as “encouraged” (Kant 1929, 47). Zammito acknowledges that some Kant scholars doubt the veracity of the account of this conversation between Hartknoch and Herder; however, given the material that does exist, it seems entirely plausible, likely even, that Kant would hold this opinion. See Zammito, 349, n 29. All the quotations taken from Biemel’s “Die Bedeutung von Kant Begründung der Ästhetik für die Philosophie der Kunst” are my translations. The essay can be found in Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte 77. Köln: Kölner Universitäts-Verlag, 1959. Kant does not use the term “lower principles.” We use it only descriptively to distinguish it from the higher principles or what Kant calls the principles that reside higher up in reason (die [Prinzipien] höher hinauf in der Vernunft liegen).

Notes 7

8

9

153

Meredith translates this as “everything runs up into the concept of taste.” See p. 85. Meredith translates this as “strain after something out beyond the confines of experience.” See p. 176. As quoted from Jonathan Schell’s “Paradise” in Granta 21, Spring 1987 (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Granta Publications, Inc., 1987) pp. 201–19.

Conclusion 1 2

See above, Chapter One, footnote 4. For fuller accounts of this conflict and, more broadly, the roots of modernity see Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), Chapter Five and Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989) Chapter Twenty.

Bibliography

Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. Adams, Hazard, ed. Critical Theory Since Plato. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1864. Allan Arkush. Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment. New York: State University of New York Press, 1994. Allison, Henry E. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983. Aquinas, St. Thomas. “The Summa Theologica.” In Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas. Edited by Anton C. Pegis. New York: The Modern Library, 1945. Arendt, Hannah. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982. ARTFL. The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language. http://artfl.uchicago.edu. October, 2009. Biemel, Walter. “Die Bedeutung von Kant Begründung der Ästhetik für die Philosophie der Kunst.” In Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte 77. Köln: Kölner Universitäts-Verlag, 1959. Burgess, Anthony. Re Joyce. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1965. Cassirer, Ernst. Kant’s Life and Thought. Translated by James Haden. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981. Clark, Robert T. Jr. Herder: His Life and Thought. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Eolian Harp.” In English Romantic Writers. Edited by David Perkins. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967. Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Aesthetics. Vol. 1, Complete Works, Selected Letters and Posthumous Writings, Edited and translated by Gerd Hemmerich and Wolfram Benda. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag—Günther Holzboog GmbH & Co., 1981. —Aesthetics. Vol. 2, Complete Works, Selected Letters and Posthumous Writings, Edited and translated by Gerd Hemmerich and Wolfram Benda. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag—Günther Holzboog GmbH & Co., 1989. —Moral and Political Philosophy. Vol. 1, Complete Works, Selected Letters and Posthumous Writings, Edited and translated by Gerd Hemmerich and Wolfram Benda. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag—Günther Holzboog GmbH & Co., 1987. Crowther, Paul. “Judgment, Self-Consciousness, and Imagination: Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Beyond.” In Kants Ästhetik. Edited by Herman Parret. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998.

Bibliography

155

Descartes, René. “Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence.” In Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Desmond, William. “Kant and the Terror of Genius: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism.” In Kants Ästhetik. Edited by Herman Parret. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. Duff, William. An Essay on Original Genius. Gainesville, FL: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1964. Dupré, Louis. Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Eco, Umberto. The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. Translated by Hugh Bredin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Eliade, Mircea. Symbolism, The Sacred, and The Arts. Edited by Diane ApostolosCappadona. New York: Crossroads, 1985. Eliot, T. S. Four Quartets. New York: Harvest Book, Harcourt, 1971; London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1944. Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment?” In Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Translated by Nicholas Walker. Edited by Robert Bernasconi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. —Truth and Method. 2nd ed. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 1989. Gerard, Alexander. An Essay on Taste. Gainesville, FL: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1963. —An Essay on Genius. Edited by Bernard Fabian. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1966. Gombrich, E. H. “Truth and Stereotype: An Illusion Theory of Representation.” In The Philosophy of the Visual Arts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. —The Story of Art. 15th ed. Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1989. Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claims of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. New York: New American Library, 1969. Hamilton, George Heard. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880–1940. New York: Penguin Books, 1983. Hardin, James and Schweitzer, Christoph E., eds. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 97: German Writers from the Enlightenment to Sturm und Drang, 1720–1764. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1990. Herder, Johann Gottfried. Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Translated and with an introduction by Frank E. Manuel. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968. —Selected Early Works, 1764–1767. Translated and with an introduction by Ernest A. Menze and Michael Palma. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. —On World History: An Anthology. Edited by Hans Adler and Ernest A. Menze. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997.

156

Bibliography

—“Ursachen des gesunken Geschmacks bei den verschiednen Völkern da er geblühet.” In Johann Gottfried Herder Werke. Vol. 4. Frankfort am Main: Verlag, 1994. Hofstadter, Albert and Richard Kuhns, eds. Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Jaspers, Karl. Kant. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Edited by Hannah Arendt. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1962. Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowdell. Carbondale, IL.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. —The Critique of Judgement. Translated by James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952. —The Critique of Judgment. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987. —Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Lewis White Beck. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. —Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin’s, 1929. —Education. Translated by Annette Churton. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1960. —Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Band 3, Werkausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1956. —Kritik der Urteilskraft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1990 —Menschenkunde: Oder philosophische Anthropologie. Leipzig: Die Expedition des europäischen Aufsehers, Fr. Ch. Starke, 1831. —Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Translated by Ted Humphrey. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1983. —Immanuel Kants Werke: Briefe Von Und An Kant, 1749–1789. Vol. 9. Edited by Hermann Cohen and Ernst Cassirer. Berlin: Verlegt bei Bruno Cassirer, 1918. Kearney, Richard. The Wake of Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Koepke, Wulf. Johann Gottfried Herder. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1987. Larthomas, Jean-Paul. De Shaftesbury à Kant. Paris: Didier, 1985. Makkreel, Rudolf. Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the Critique of Judgment. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Mendelssohn, Moses. Philosophical Writings. Edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. “Cezanne’s Doubt.” In The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetic Reader. Edited by Galen A. Johnson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993. Mitzka, Walther, ed. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1963. Morton, Michael. Herder and the Poetics of Thought. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989. Musil, Robert. The Man Without Qualities. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage International, 1996.

Bibliography

157

Nahm, Milton. Genius and Creativity: An Essay in the History of Ideas. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966. Pascal, Roy. The German Sturm und Drang. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1953. Plato. Great Dialogues of Plato. Translated by W. H. D. Rouse. New York: New American Library, 1956. Reddick, Allen. The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary 1746–1773. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Schell, J. “Paradise” in Granta 21 (Spring ). Harmondsworth: Granta Publications Ltd., 1987. 201–19. Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Toronto, ON: Bantam, 1988. —Macbeth. New York: Signet, 1982. —The Tempest. New York: Signet, 1987. Smith, Logan Pearsall. Words and Idioms: Studies in the English Language. London: Constable and Company, 1933. Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Sussman, Henry. The Aesthetic Contract: Statutes of Art and Intellectual Work in Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Taminiaux, Jacques. “Speculation and Difference.” In Poetics, Speculation, and Judgment. Translated by Michael Gendre. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. Taylor, Charles. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. —Sources of the Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. —The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Tonelli, Georgio. “Kant’s Early Theory of Genius Pt. 1 (1770–1779).” In Journal of the History of Philosophy 4 (April 1966): 109–32. Warnock, Mary. Imagination and Time. London: Blackwell Publishers, 1994. Young, Edward. “Conjectures on Original Composition.” In The Complete Works Poetry and Prose. Vol. 2. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968. Zammito, John H. The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

This page intentionally left blank

Index

Aberdeen Philosophical Society 30, 32 Abrams, M. H. 14, 16 Adams, Hazard 22–3 Addison, Joseph 6, 11–12, 18–23, 25, 30, 34, 38, 42, 58, 121 aesthetic idea 73, 76, 123, 127, 131–40 versus rational idea 132 Allen, Woody 2 Amadeus 2 American Civil War, paintings of 108 Analytic of the Beautiful 66–80 Aquinas, St. Thomas 63, 73 Arendt, Hannah 88, 93–4 Aristotle 73 art, Kant’s conception of 99–111, 146–7 aesthetic 102 agreeable 100, 102, 105 fine 8, 102–3, 105–11, 128, 145 artist 2–4 as craftsman 3 Kant’s conception of 106–9, 112–14, 117, 126 Aufklärung 43, 45–7, 57, 119–21, 138, 147 Baudelaire, Charles 121 Berlin school 45 Biemel, Walter 79, 116, 131–2, 138–9 Brancusi, Constantin 122–4, 127 Brodsky, Josef 106, 137 Burke, Edmund 11–12 Campbell, George 30 Camper, Peter 100 Cassirer, Ernst 45–7, 51, 82–4, 138 Cézanne 108–9, 148

Christ 108 Clark, Robert 44–5, 49, 51 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 33, 146 common sense 17, 67, 77–9, 104–12, 127, 139–40, 147 communicability 102–6, 112 universal 71–5, 77–8 concepts 102–5, 114–15, 122–3, 125–7, 129–33, 136–9 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Third Earl of Shaftesbury 12, 14–19 Copernican revolution or turn 14, 60, 63, 83 craft 35, 42, 100–1, 107, 114–15, 141 Critique of Practical Reason (second Critique) 88, 91, 101, 116 Critique of Pure Reason (first Critique) 7–8, 27, 60–1, 64, 75, 79, 82–98, 116–17, 122, 124–7, 129, 133, 135–7, 141, 144–5, 147 Crowther, Paul 86 Crumb 2 culture, Kant’s conception of 102–3, 126 da Vinci, Leonardo 101–3 Dedalus, Stephen 63 Delphic oracle 53 Descartes 3, 86, 144 Desmond, William 26, 60–1, 86–7, 108, 111–12, 115, 118–21, 127–8, 138, 145–7 Diderot, Denis 13 disinterestedness 17–19, 68–9, 79 dogmatism 124–5 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 137 Dupré, Louis 142–5

160

Index

Eco, Umberto 63 Eliade, Mircea 122–4, 127 Eliot, T. S. 103 Enlightenment see Aufklärung Euler 144 Eurytheus 53 Exemplary 74, 77, 79, 112–15, 122–3

Hegel, G. W. F. 45 Hercules 52–6 Herder, Johann 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 23, 27, 33, 41, 43–57, 65–6, 81, 99, 107, 116–19, 121, 127–8, 140–2, 144–7 Homer 20, 44, 74 Hume, David 11–12, 27–30, 73

Fabian, Bernhard 31–2, 37 Foucault, Michel 121 Frederick the Great 139 freedom, and art 99–101 and modern subjectivity 142–3 Flaubert, Gustave 2

ideal of beauty 73–80 imagination 3–5, 104 free play of 71, 77, 79, 110, 115, 122 function of 122–4 Kant’s definition of 64, 133 productive 34–5, 133–7 reproductive 133–6 as source 4–5, 37–8 Ion 107, 132

Gadamer, Hans-Georg 4n.3, 36, 111, 120 Galileo 82–3, 144 Gombrich, E. H. 4, 101 Geist see spirit genius characteristics of 112–13 and common sense 139–40 as disposition or inclination 11–13 as divine 49–57 eccentricizing 2 as ethical guide 10–13, 52, 117 etymology of 9–14, 116 evil 11, 13, 15 French roots 13–14 German roots 13 as national character 13, 50–1 as native intellectual power 13, 51 as original creator 13, 51, 120–1 and the rule 111–12 scientific versus artistic 35–7 Gerard, Alexander 6, 8, 12, 14, 22, 24, 27–43, 54, 58, 65–6, 81, 115–17, 141–2, 146 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 45, 47–8, 55, 57 Gregory, John 30 Guyer, Paul 65, 67, 68, 128–9 Hamann, Johann 47–8, 51 Hamilton, George Heard 108–9, 111 Hardin, James 57 Hartknoch, Johann 128

Jaspers, Karl 65, 85, 87, 130 Jerry Springer 2 Jianou, Ionel 124 Johnson, Dr., Dictionary 13, 142 Judgment, as compared to taste 41–3 determinate 41, 59–80, 104, 130 Gerard’s conception 41–3 Gerard’s influence 38–41 Kant’s conception of 58–80 reflective 41, 59–80, 104, 106 teleological 62–5 Jordan, Michael 1–2 Julius Caesar 9–10 Jupiter’s eagle 138 Kearney, Richard 3–5 Klingler, Friedrich 47 Klingler, Maximillian 45 Larthomas, Jean-Paul 16 Lavater, J. C. 55–6, 101 law, as contingent 60–1 see also nature, law of Lenz, Reinhold 47–8 Levi, Primo 107 Lord Shaftesbury see Cooper, Anthony Ashley Macbeth 9–10 Mahler, Gustav 45

Index Makkreel, Rudolf 72 Manuel, Frank 50–1 Mendelssohn, Moses 46–7 Merck, Johann 47–8 Meredith, J. 117 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 108–9 Michelangelo 74 momentum of rational powers 109 Monet, Claude 108–9, 148 Musil, Robert 1 Nahm, Milton 31–2 nature as diverse 59–64 and freedom 142–5 law of 7, 59–62, 81–4, 113, 145–6 mechanical 7–8, 82–7, 94–5, 98, 112–13, 116, 128–30, 136, 139, 144, 147 and modern subjectivity 143 purposiveness of 7, 62–5, 67, 73, 87–90, 106–7, 111, 129, 145 technical (technic) 7–8, 33, 35, 81, 84, 86–98, 116, 129 versus art 99, 108 Newton, Isaac 7, 13, 83, 87, 144–5 Nietzsche, Friedrich 34 Noumena 129 Ossian 43–4, 48 Pascal, Roy 46–8, 54–6, 144 Picasso, Pablo 108 Pindar 20 Plato 124–6, 132 play 100–4, 106, 109–10, 112, 118, 130, 132–3, 138–9, 140–1 Pluhar, Werner 58, 75, 93, 113–14, 129–30, 135 Pollock 2 Prometheus 16–19 purposive momentum 133 purposiveness 62–5 see also nature, purposiveness of formal 73 without a purpose 66–7, 103, 106–7

161

Reid, Thomas 30 Renaissance art 2–3 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste 45 representation 62, 64, 68, 70–2 Richardson, Samuel 23 Ricoeur, Paul 49, 136 Romanticism 119–20, 147 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 46 schematism 95, 122, 126 Schlapp, Otto 79 science, versus art 99–102 Sensus Communis see common sense Shaftesbury see Cooper, Anthony Ashley Shakespeare 9–11, 15, 20, 25, 27, 32, 48, 116 Shine 2 Skene, David 30 Socrates 107, 132 Spiele see play and imagination, free play of spirit (Geist) 5, 9–13, 15, 32, 38–9, 52, 100–1, 112–13, 116–17, 124, 132–3 Stewart, John 30 Storm and Stress see Sturm und Drang Stravinsky, Igor 45 Sturm und Drang 6, 8, 18, 23, 27, 45–8, 55, 57, 109, 111, 115, 117–19, 121, 127–8, 140, 142, 144, 147 Styron, William 2 sublime 17 supersensible 66, 81, 88, 98, 128–31, 137 symbol 75–7, 136 system of philosophy, Kant’s system of rational cognition 90–4 Taminiaux, Jacques 106, 114 taste 108, 128, 131–2, 136, 141 antinomy of 130 Gerard and 41–3 Herder and 43, 49–56 and judgment 41–3, 59 Taylor, Charles 4–5, 44, 45, 51, 100–1, 121, 143–4

162 technic, of nature 84, 87, 89, 90–2, 94–5, 97, 113 see also nature, technical teleology 58, 62, 77, 81, 89, 90 see also Judgment, teleological The Tempest 11 Tonelli, Georgio 31, 132–3 Trail, Robert 30 übersinnlich see supersensible Voltaire 13 Vorländer, Karl 114

Index Warnock, Mary 3–5, 28 West, Benjamin 108 Young, Edward 6, 12, 14, 22–7, 31, 33, 41–2, 58, 81, 107, 116–17, 119, 140–1 Zammito, John 6, 27, 31, 57, 66–7, 80, 92n.1, 97, 117, 127–8, 131, 142 Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck see purposiveness without a purpose