KANTS CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT TRANSLATED, WITH SEVEN
INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS NOTES, AND ANALYTICAL INDEX BY JAMES CREED
MEREDITH M. A, N. U. I., SEN, MOD. T. C. D. Yea, what were mighty
Natures self 1 Her features, could they win us, Unhelped by the
poetic voice That hourly speaks within us WORDSWORTH. OXFORD AT THE
CLARENDON PRESS 1911 PREFACE IT seems a strange fact that the works
which have exerted the greatest and most permanent Influence are
those of which it is most difficult to give a final and conclusive
interpretation. Is it that the philosophic mind merely amuses
itself looking for the answers to riddles the solution of which
destroys the interest, so that it is not so much misinterpretation
as explana tion that great philosophers have to fear Or is it that
philosophers propose questions which depend upon higher categories
than those of common understanding, with the natural result that
their point of view is but imperfectly comprehended by lesser minds
Or is it simply that the works that have exerted most influence are
those which are most comprehensive and many-sided, and that
different critics seize upon different aspects of the whole, and
throw the emphasis on different points It is not necessary to
attempt to answer these questions generally, or further than
affects Kants Aesthetics. Certainly no work has exerted an equal
influence on the subsequent history of aesthetics, and yet it has
been most variously interpreted. However, while critics differ as
to Kants meaning on many essential points, they seem to be mostly
agreed that the chief source of strength in the work lies in its
comprehensiveness and its method. How they have been able to arrive
at this conclusion inthe face of their own criticisms, is a
different matter. For they have for the most part attempted to show
that the work as a whole involves an important modification of
Kants fundamental position of critical idealism, and that in its
different parts it betrays considerable hesitation and vacillation
of opinion on vital questions, and, moreover, frequently falls into
flagrant incon sistency. f - 9 3 O VI Preface The present volume,
in seeking to give some assistance to students in so much of Kants
Critique of Judgement as deals with the problems of aesthetics,
aims particularly at suggesting interpretations which may help to
free Kants argument from such charges without, however, in any way
implying that Kant is likely to be followed entirely on all points
on which, his meaning is understood. Certainty the
comprehensiveness of Kants account is one of its most striking
features. Its chief merit does not lie in the number of interesting
and illuminating observations which are made f or i n the great
majority of these Kant was anticipated but in the number of
different points of view which are co ordinated, and the divergent
rays of thought which are brought into a common focus. It is not so
much Kants views on this or that question that are calculated to
impress the reader, as their systematic connexion, and the feeling
that behind each of them lies the entire strength of his whole
critical philosophy. It is this that makes a sympathetic critic
especially anxious to reconcile apparent inconsistency between
positions of any importance. Kant is, further, frequently charged
with begging the point at issue. But he neither begged the points
which most of his critics suppose to be those inissue, nor did he
attempt to prove them in the usual manner. The originality of his
method consisted in the way in which he changed the issue from a
question of fact and actuality to one of mere possibility. Thus in
his aesthetics he never begged the question that there are pure
aesthetic judgements in the-peculiar sense in which he uses the
term. He adopted the course of formulating the conception of a pure
aesthetic judgement and of proving that such a judgement is
possible...
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