Art, Morality, Play

Schopenhauer's criticism of and alternative to Kantian Morality is based on the premise that Contemplation, not totalizing Reason, is the basis of impersonal experience.  Likewise, his Aesthetic Theory diverges from Kant's in its replacement of universal Communicability with Selflessness.  In other words, regardless of its insights, his Aesthetic Theory, like Kant's, consists in the moralization of an individual's engagement with a certain class of objects.  In contrast, a theory of Art that is free from such prejudices could begin, as Kant does, with the analysis that Aesthetic experience is fundamentally constituted by the exercise of cognitive faculties, with its philosophical systematization proceeding next with an examination of other types of Play, e. g. puzzles and games.