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KANT'S CONCEPT OF REFLECTIVE JUDGMENT Sumangali Rajiva A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto O Copyright by Sumangali Rajiva 1999 National Library Bibliothbque nationale 1+1 of,,, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliogaphic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellirigtori OttawaON KlAON4 OtfawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains owoership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels rnay be printed or othewïse de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT KANT'S CONCEPT OF REFLEC'IWE JUMfMElYT Surnangali Rajiva, Doctor of Philosophy 1999 Graduate Department of Philosophy in the University of Toronto In the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason Kant develops models of knowledge and morality in which we know and exist in a world of sensible appearances while dso belonging to a world of transcendent morality. This creates a gulf for us between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. In the Critique of Judgment Kant develops an account of reflective judgment as taste, whereby the experience of beauty bridges the gap between these two worlds. Evaluating the success of Kant's account requires us first to understand the conditions taste as reflective judgment rnust meet in order to mediate between knowledge and morality and secondly to ask whether it dws meet these conditions. The thesis begins by examining sections of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Pracfical Reason in order to unearth a Kantian mode1 of the requirements of a successfûl mediator. The discussion then focuses on whether taste as reflective judgment and its concept of purposiveness wîthout purpose meet these requkements. A major challenge ta this is the relationship between reason and taste as reflective judgment; the goal of the discussion is to show that this relationship is not an obstacle to its mediation of knowledge and morality but, instead, that it helps to preserve the autonomy that makes the experience of beauty a bridge between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. .. II TABLE OF CONTENTS .. ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 11 REFERENCES TO KANT'S WORKS ............................................................................. iv INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One Mediation in the Schematism............................................................... 26 Chaprer Two Non-Schematic Mediation in the Use of Pure Theoretical and Pure Prac ticai Reason........................................................................................ -71 ChapterThree Reflective Judgment and the Concept of Purposiveness without Purpose ..................................................................................................... 1 1 1 Chapter Four The Heautonomy of Taste in the Analytic of the Beautifid and the Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgments......*........ ...... ........................ 162 Chapter Five The Diaiectic: The Supersensible Substrate and Beauty as the Symbol of Morality ........................................ ......................................................... 2 12 CONCLUSION ................... ,.. ..................................................................................... 244 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 25 1 References to Kant's Works Al1 English references to the Critique of Judgment are to the translation by Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987) and will be cited in the text dong with the page numbers from Volume V of the Akademie Textausgabe in Kant Gesamrnelte Schrifren (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968). The order of citation will be Akademie pages, sections in the main text, and page number in Pluhar. References to the Firsr Introduction to the Critique of Judgment are to Pluhar's translation in the same volume as his translation of the Critique of Judgment and will be cited as FI followed by the page in Volume XX of the Akademie Textausgabe, sections in the text, and the page nurnber in Pluhar. AI1 English references to the Critique of Pure Reason are to the translation by Norman Kemp Smith, (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1965, fiom 19291, and will be cited in the text of the paper following the standard A and B references to the fmt and second editions respectively. German references are to Volumes III and IV of the Akademie Textausgabe. Al1 English references to the Critique of frac! ical Reason are to the translation by Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-MerriII, 1956) and wiil be cited by page number in the text after the page numbers fiom Volume V of the Akademie Textausgabe. All other references to works by Kant will be given in the page notes. INTRODUCTION In Kant's critical philosophy, there are three higher cognitive faculties or powers, understanding, judgment, and reason. The critique of our cognitive powers, fiequently referred to by Kant as the critique of pure reason', investigates and sets limits to what these cognitive powers can achieve a priori, as distinct fiom theü normal, merdy logical and purely formai synthesis of empirical reality. (Ak.176-1 77, sec.111, Pluhar 16) The results of such investigation in the Critique of Pure Remon are the justification of the application of concepts of pure understanding to empirical reality and the correspondhg restriction of such concepts in their theoretical use to empirical use objectively or constitutively; the first Critique also restricts the ideas of pure reason to regufafive theoretical employment, outlining their possible constitutive practical use, and prohibiting their constitutive theoreticai employment. The resdts in the Critique of Pracrical Reason are the systernatic justification of the faculty of pure practical reason as the faculty of mordity whose practical use is objective and constitutive. As a result of both the restrictions placed on pure reason and the role given to it as pure practical reason: ...an immense gulf is fixed between the domain of the concept of nature, the sensibIe, and the domain of the concept of fieedom, the supersensible, so that no transition fiom the sensible to the supersensible (and hence by 'In the third Critique he expressly subdivides the critique of pure teason into critiques, respectively, of pure understanding, pure judgment, and pure reason. means of the theoretical use of reason) is possible, just as if they were two different worlds.... (Ak.175- 176, sec.11, Pluhar 14- 15) Although Kant refers to the gulf between the sensible and the supersensible, this implies other dualities as well. For example, he speaks, in the First Introduction to the third Critique, of judgment mediating between laws of nature and laws of fieedom (FI, Ak.202, sec.11, Pluhar 39 1-392) and between understanding as the faculty of cognition and reason as the faculty of desire (FI, Ak.207-208, sec.111, Pluhar 396). And, given his discussion in section II of the Introduction, it is clear that this connection of nature and fieedom through judgment will also be a connection of appearances and things in themselves, though not a connection that will generate theoretical or practical cognition (Ak.175-1 76, sec.11, PIuhar 14- 15). In the Critique of J'entKant resolves these different dualities through the faculty of judgrnent, just so far as it is independent of understanding as the faculty of knowledge and reason as the faculty of morality but also comected to both. Therefore, I will take as the site of my discussion the general duality between knowledge as invoiving nature, appearances, and the sensible, and morality, as involving freedorn, things in themselves, and the supersensible; the focus of the discussion of mediation will be the respective faculties involved, in their substantial relation to these areas. As a faculty located between reason and understanding logically, judgment should be able to provide us with a pure transcendental mediation between pure reason and pure understanding, by way of a type of judgrnent Kant calls reflective judgment, in contrast to determining judgment, which is not independent of either understanding or reason. 3 Through reflective judgment we are able to think of kedom and nature as united in ourselves aesthetically and in nature teleologically. In contrat to judgment that determines, judgment that reflects has its own principles and its own modus operandi. It has a technical p~cipleof nature, the pnnciple of the purposiveness without purpose of nature, and it operates by organizing the subject rather
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