Judging Appearances: A Phenomenological Study of the Kantian sensus communis

173 Pages·2000·11.08 MB·English

by  Edward Eugene Kleist (auth.)

JUDGING APPEARANCES
PHAENOMENOLOGICA
SERIES FOUNDED BY H.L. VAN BREDA AND PUBLISHED
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HUSSERL-ARCHIVES
156
EDWARD EUGENE KLEIST
JUDGING APPEARANCES
A Phenomenological Study
of the Kantian sensus communis
Editorial Board:
Director: R. Bernet (Husserl-Archief, Leuven) Secretary: J. Taminiaux (Centre
d'etudes phenomenologiques, Louvain-Ia-Neuve) Members: S. IJsseling (Husserl
Archief, Leuven), H. Leonardy (Centre d'etudes phenomenologiques, Louvain-Ia
Neuve), U. Melle (Husserl-Archief, Leuven), B. Stevens (Centre d'etudes pheno
menologiques, Louvain-Ia-Neuve)
Advisory Board:
R. Bernasconi (Memphis State University), D. Carr (Emory University, Atlanta),
E.S. Casey (State University of New York at Stony Brook), R. Cobb-Stevens
(Boston College), J.F. Courtine (Archives-Husserl, Paris), F. Dastur (Universite de
Nice), K. Dusing (Husserl-Archiv, KOln), l. Hart (Indiana University, Bloomington),
K. Held (Bergische Universitat Wuppertal), D. lanicaud (Universite
de Nice), K.E. Kaehler (Husserl-Archiv, KOln), D. Lohmar (Husserl-Archiv, KOln) ,
W.R. McKenna (Miami University, Oxford, USA), l.N. Mohanty (Temple University,
Philadelphia), E.W. Orth (UniversiUit Trier), B. Rang (Husserl-Archiv, Freiburg i.Br.),
P. Ricceur (Paris), K. Schuhmann (University of Utrecht), C. Sini (Universita degli
Studi di Milano), R. Sokolowski (Catholic University of America, Washington D.C.),
E. Straker (Universitiit KOln), B. Waldenfels (Ruhr-Universitat, Bochum)
EDWARD EUGENE KLEIST
Loyola University, New Orleans
JUDGING APPEARANCES
A Phenomenological Study
of the Kantian sensus communis
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4020-0258-8 ISBN 978-94-011-3931-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3931-1
Transferred ta Digital Print 2001
Printed an acidfree paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000
No part of the material proteeted by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
Die schonen Dinge zeigen an,
dass der Mensch in die Welt passe ...
(Kant, Rejlexionen zur Logik)
CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
CHAPTER I I INTRODUCTION: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH
The Problem of Harmony and Ground 4
Objections to a Phenomenological Study of Kantian Aesthetics 6
Precedents for the Phenomenological Interpretation 7
Rationale for a Phenomenological Approach 9
CHAPTER II I PHENOMENOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION 15
First Moment: Kant's Analysis of Disinterestedness 15
Second Moment: Universality without Concept 17
A. Aesthetic Universality 17
B. Feeling and Judgment 21
C. Felt awareness ofH armony in Aesthetic Reflective Judgment 22
D. The a priori Basis ofS ensibility 24
Third Moment: Purposiveness without Purpose 25
A. Preliminary Remarks 25
B. Purposiveness without Purpose: Phenomenological Analysis 30
C. Auto-affection and Hetero-affection in Aesthetic Contemplation 38
D. Purposiveness as the Principle ofJ udgment 40
E. Purposiveness and Purpose in Art 42
Fourth Moment: Exemplary Necessity 44
CHAPTER III I THE INDETERMINACY OF GROUNDS (KANT AND LEIBNIZ) 48
Kant's Appropriation of Leibniz before the Critique ofJ udgment 48
A. Pre-critical Writings 49
B. Critique ofP ure Reason 51
1. The Second Analogy ofE xperience 51
2. The Amphiboly oft he Concepts ofR eflection 51
3. The Third Antinomy 53
4. The Ideal ofP ure Reason 54
C. Leibnizian Pre-established Harmony in Kant's Development
through the Critique of Pure Reason 59
D. The Role oft he Principle ofS ufficient Reason in
Kant's Moral and Political Writings up to 1790 63
The Problem of Appearance and Ground in Leibnizian Aesthetics 68
VII
VllI CONTENTS
Indeterminacy and Appearance in the Critique ofJ udgment 70
A. Indeterminacy in the Harmony ofI magination and Understanding 72
B. The Indeterminate Norm of the Idea ofa Common Sense 78
C. Arendt's Interpretation oft he Idea ofa Common Sense 79
D. The Indeterminate Concept ofa Supersensible Substrate
of Humanity and Nature 83
E. The Heterogeneity ofS ensibility and Understanding 88
1. Appearance and Diversity 90
2. The Response to Eberhard 91
3. Harmony and Perspective in
Leibniz and Kant 95
Appendix: Excerpts from the Latin Version of the Monadologie 96
CHAPTER IV I BEING MINDFUL OF APPEARANCE:
RECEPTIVITY, NEUTRALIZATION, DISCURSIVITY 97
Sensibility 97
The Faculties of Representation 103
Imagination 105
Imagination and Neutralization 108
The Discursivity of Human Understanding as "Thinking" [Denken]:
Kant's Rejection ofIntellectual Intuition/Intuitive Understanding III
The Discursivity of Reason in Thinking, Contemplation and Desire 115
A. History oft he Concept of Contemplation 115
B. Kant's Retrieval oft he Concept of Contemplation 118
C. Contemplation and Genius 120
D. Discursivity and Contemplation 121
E. Aesthetic Contemplation and the Power ofD esire:
The Social and Moral Fruits of Taste 126
CHAPTER V / CONCLUSION 135
Kant and Humanism 135
Maxims of Common Human Understanding 138
BIBLIOGRAPHY 144
INDEX 154
PREFACE
This study examines a set of motifs in Kant's aesthetics that previous
interpreters, particularly within the phenomenological tradition, have brought
to light but not fully explored. As such, the present work attempts to fill out
certain lines of Kant's Critique of Judgment from a phenomenological
standpoint. This interpretive standpoint emphasizes appearance, judgment,
and ground/reason, in order to understand Kant's argument leading to the
idea of a sensus communis. The reader will find an insistent direction to the
present interpretation of Kant, which emphasizes phenomenological themes
over systematic concerns. This emphasis guides my historical placement of
Kant's aesthetics with respect to Leibniz and Shaftesbury, while the historical
argument itself serves as a confirming fulfillment of the phenomenological
interpretation. Hopefully, this interpretive circle will prove enlightening.
The aim of my phenomenological approach is twofold. First, the approach is
oriented towards revealing the matters themselves, that is, appearance,
judgment and the idea of a sensus communis. Second, my approach attempts
to reconstruct Kant's place in the history of philosophy, reconnecting his
thought to the Humanist tradition and drawing attention to the fecundity that
his thought (and this tradition) holds for the Twenty-First Century.
For ease of reference I provide in footnotes the original of texts I quote in
translation. I retain the spelling and punctuation of the critical editions from
which I quote. Therefore, I do not modernize the spelling and punctuation in
Kant's German and Leibniz's French, nor do I correct orthographical
inconsistencies which occur in Kant's Gesammelte Schriften and in the
Gerhardt edition of Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz. I do use modern spelling for German and French terms in the body
of my text.
Many persons have made this book possible. Acknowledging time as the
most precious gift, I am greatly indebted to the liberality of my mentors. The
intellectual generosity, and the always judicious and perspicacious advice of
my director, Jacques Taminiaux, proved invaluable to the creation of this
work. I am grateful to William J. Richardson for providing a model of
philosophical rigor, and also for his exemplary teaching and friendship.
Richard Cobb-Stevens offered many insightful comments on both the content
and style of this work, and has provided encouragement throughout.
x PREFACE
I would also like to acknowledge the support of Boston College, especially
for a Teaching Fellowship and a Dissertation Fellowship, which were crucial
in the formative stages of this book.
Edward Eugene Kleist
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH
A richly woven connection between the contemplation of appearances and
the act of judgment lies dormant in the Western philosophical tradition.
Hannah Arendt has brought to our attention the pre-platonic sense of theoria
as the viewing of an appearing action or imitation of action such as tragic
drama by perspectivally situated spectators. The dramatic ritual would
provide a forum for the practice of the spectators' judgment, a practice
echoed in the function of the chorus within the drama. As is well known,
Plato gave quite a different sense to the word theoria, retaining the semantic
component of visibility as the vehicle for a philosophical metaphor connected
with other metaphors of vision such as idea and eidos. Two faces emerge
from the meaning of theoria in Plato's own use: a mystical and a dialectical
aspect. 1 The mystical aspect exerted a far more profound influence on
Neoplatonism, which could be said to begin already in Aristotle's conception
of nous as thought thinking itself and which secures a firm place in Plotinus's
mystical fusion of Platonic ascent and Aristotelian teleology. 2 In Plotinus the
dialectical aspect of theoria disappears and has no further significant
influence upon the Neoplatonist tradition before Leibniz.3 Plato himself had
objected to the judgmental nature of theoria in the pre-platonic sense because
that earlier meaning had made theoria the source of doxa, meaning both fame
and opinion. The development of Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Leibniz
had left this pre-platonic meaning dormant. Typically in the Neoplatonism
1 Robert Joly, Le theme philosophique des genres de vie dans "antiquite classique (Brussels:
1956), esp., pp. 100-104.
2 John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One. A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus
~Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967).
See A.J. Festugiere, Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon (Paris: Librairie
Philosophique 1. Vrin, 1936). According to Joly, op. cit., Festugiere downplays the dialectical
aspect of Plato's conception of contemplation.
1