This page intentionally left blank KANT’S THEORY OF TASTE This book constitutes one of the most important contributions to recent Kant scholarship. In it, one of the preeminent interpreters of Kant, Henry E. Allison, offers a comprehensive, systematic, and philosophically astute account of all as- pects of Kant’s views on aesthetics. Since the structure of the book maps closely on to the text of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment(the first and most important part of the Critique of Judgment), it serves as a kind of commentary, with chapters serving as companion pieces to the different sections of Kant’s work. This makes the book useful to both specialists and students tackling the Critique of Judgmentfor the first time and seeking an au- thoritative guide to the text. The first part of the book analyzes Kant’s conception of reflective judgment and its connections with both empirical knowledge and judgments of taste. The second and third parts treat two questions that Allison insists must be kept dis- tinct: the normativity of pure judgments of taste, and the moral and systematic significance of taste. The fourth part considers two important topics often neg- lected in the study of Kant’s aesthetics: his conceptions of fine art, and the sub- lime. No one with a serious interest in Kant’s aesthetics can afford to ignore this groundbreaking study. Henry E. Allison is Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His two most recent books, both published by Cambridge University Press, are Kant’s Theory of Freedom(1990) and Idealism and Freedom(1996). MODERN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY General Editor Robert B. Pippin, University of Chicago Advisory Board Gary Gutting, University of Notre Dame Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Humboldt University, Berlin Mark Sacks, University of Essex Some Recent Titles: Frederick A. Olafson: What Is a Human Being? Stanley Rosen: The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra Robert C. Scharff: Comte after Positivism F. C. T. Moore: Bergson: Thinking Backwards Charles Larmore: The Morals of Modernity Robert B. Pippin: Idealism as Modernism Daniel W. Conway: Nietzsche’s Dangerous Game John P. McCormick: Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism Frederick A. Olafson: Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics Günter Zöller: Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy Warren Breckman: Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory William B lattner: Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism Charles Griswold: Adam Smith and the Virtues of the Enlightenment Gary Gutting: Pragmatic Liberalism and the Critique of Modernity Allen Wood: Kant’s Ethical Thought Karl Ameriks: Kant and the Fate of Autonomy Alfredo Ferrarin: Hegel and Aristotle Cristina Lafont: Heidegger, Language and World-Disclosure Nicholas Wolterstorff: Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology Daniel Dahlstrom: Heidegger’s Concept of Truth Michelle Grier: Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion KANT’S THEORY OF TASTE A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment HENRY E. ALLISON Boston University    Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521791540 © Henry E. Allison 2001 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2001 -  isbn-13 978-0-511-06091-5 eBook (Adobe Reader) -  isbn-10 0-511-06091-2 eBook (Adobe Reader) -  isbn-13 978-0-521-79154-0 hardback -  isbn-10 0-521-79154-5 hardback isbn--13 978-0-521-79534-0 paperback -  isbn-10 0-521-79534-6 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. To Renee