Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Art, Morality, Fecundity

Implicit in Kant's systematization of Art in relation to Morality is that the value of the former ultimately consists in its function as cultivating the latter, e. g. Poetry as Moral fable or parable.  Accordingly, while much of the 3rd Critique is devoted to isolating the supersensible components of Aesthetic experience from the empirical, much less attention is paid to distinguishing Art from pedantic Moral sermonizing.  The main ingredient for the latter exposition is present in Kant's theory--what might be called the 'fecundity' of Aesthetic ideas, i. e. their "rich material" (#47), that "prompts much thought" (#49).  However, the development of such an exposition would seem to conflict with Kant's marginalization of Genius, the source of such fecundity.  Furthermore, since the animating principle of Genius is Spirit, according to Kant, and Spirit is supersensible, a more elaborate analysis of Fecundity would require an explanation of the relation between Spirit and Reason, which seems lacking in his system as is.

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