CHID495, Spr-2010 reading guide
Reading Guide: CPJ, Intro
I. On the Division of Philosophy
Concept of Nature, Concept of Freedom
 If philosophy has to do with rational principles for cognizing things by means of concepts, then the division of
philosophy into theoretical and practical is done by the “concepts that refer the principles of this rational
cognition to its object”: the concept of nature and the concept of freedom
Technically Practical, Morally Practical
 Our will stands under these two concepts in practical reason, and if an action of our will is grounded in a
concept of nature [sensible conditions] it is called “technically practical,” if in the concept of freedom [a
supersensible principle], “morally practical” (60-1)
II. On the Domain of Philosophy
Legislation: Understanding and Reason (62)
 Theoretical legislation (~judging) through concepts of nature takes place through the Understanding
 Practical legislation through the concept of freedom takes place through Reason
 Only in the practical domain is Reason legislative; in the theoretical it can only draw inferences (Reason is
regulative only)
 Understanding and Reason constitute two domains, but legislate on the same territory of experience
**A Special Case in the Practical: THE TECHNICAL** (62)
 Note: we can see Kant implying a special case here in practical legislation, since it is free to choose to affirm a
determining ground in the concept of freedom, by which the will is morally practical, or in a concept of
something in nature, by which it is technically practical
The Incalculable Gulf: The Ground of the Unity of Sensible and Supersensible in Us? (63, bottom)
 Kant comments that there MUST be some unity, some possible connection between:
a. what grounds the supersensible causality of nature (which we can have no cognition of)
[and]
b. our particular causality in Freedom, which we experience as real in experience of nature
 Question: What is the principle of the relation between the two domains of our experience?
III. The Power of Judgment
The Intermediary between Understanding and Reason (64)
 The power of judgment (a faculty of our power of Feeling) is the ground of the relation of Understanding
(cognition) and Reason (desire, will)
 Judgment claims no special field of objects, it is purely relational, and hence must contain some principle for
SEEKING laws in experience
 Note: thus, we finally have a full picture of the powers of mind (“faculties of the soul”): Cognition, Feeling,
Desire, which might also be described loosely as knowing (which is theoretical), apprehending (which is
technical), and willing (which is practical)
Kant’s Hypothesis (66)
“It is therefore to be suspected at least provisionally that […] transition from understanding to reason”
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CHID495, Spr-2010 reading guide
IV. The Power of Judgment as Apriori Legislative Faculty
Judgment is a Bi-Modal Faculty of Thinking: Determining and Reflecting (66-67)
 Judgment in general is thinking of particulars under some universal (~a process of generalization)
 Judgment is Determining when the universal is already given
 Ex. You already have a concept of the letter “X,” and this particular X can be subsumed under that
general concept you already have – this is a determining judgment, which moved from universal to the
particular
 Comment: In these cases we do not need a special principle to guide our judgments since the pure
concepts of the understanding (categories) and our empirical concepts of common understanding (which
are learnt and historical, like the letter “X”) can simply apply themselves; But, what grounds the
possibility of this judgment?
 Judgment is Reflecting when the particular alone is given
 Ex. You perceive some object, force, etc. that it not identifiable by a priori or empirical concepts, laws,
rules, etc. you already have available – it is NEW: this is a case for reflecting judgment, which moves from
the particular to the universal
 Comment: This is the final ground of all thinking for Kant, and it is only on the possibility of this mode of
judgment that we can acquire new concepts or apprehend experience that cannot be reduced to concepts
and laws of nature.
KEY PASSAGE: p. 67-68 “The reflecting power of judgment [….]”
(read this passage 20 times, it is one of the most important in all of Kant, since its precise reading protects against
the multitude misreading that have plagued his reception)
On the Concept of Purposiveness of Nature
1. An a priori principle of reflecting judgment is required to explain the possibility of a system of experience in
accordance with particular laws of nature (and not just the universal laws of appearances our understanding
prescribes to given sense).
2. The principle of reflecting judgment does NOT give a law to nature, only to judgment in the individual
3. The principle is the “purposiveness of nature in its multiplicity,” and the concept of “purposiveness of nature”
represents particular empirical laws in nature AS IF an understanding (an intelligence) contained the ground
of the unity of their manifold in experience. That is, in reflection we seek empirical principles by way of
necessarily positing purposiveness of their form, but we can NEVER ascribe such purposive action to nature
itself: it is only a means of apprehending the regularity of nature as a system of possible experience.
4. This is NOT an argument for Intelligent Design, which does ascribe ends to nature so as to claim nature was
designed for those ends.
5. Note the word ANALOGY – the concept of purposiveness of nature is only conceived as analogous to
“practical purposiveness” (technical or moral, as above), but is “ENTIRELY DISTINCT”
V. Principle of the Formal Purposiveness of Nature is a Transcendental Principle of Judgment
Formal Purposiveness of Nature is a Transcendental Principle (68-9)
 The principle of judgment is a transcendental one, not a metaphysical one (such as free will)
 The ground of the possibility of positing principles of nature for research into its infinitely multiple empirical
laws of particular beings and forms cannot be in the moral law OR the universal laws of our cognition of
possible objects of sense (which are static because constrained by our form of sense)
The Principle is not Psychological (69)
 The principle is not a law of the psychological subject of empirical thinking
 The empirical principles we posit are not describing what must happen, but HOW THEY OUGHT TO BE
JUDGED
 Note: this subjective principle of judgment this does NOT refer to a psychological subject, but the logical
subject of judging
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CHID495, Spr-2010 reading guide
Infinite Novelty of Nature (70)
 In the CPR we discovered the grounds of determining judgment (the categories applied to the formal
conditions of intuition), but this cannot possibly explain/account for the unity of our experience into a system
and our ability to apprehend novelty in empirical causes
 Objects of empirical cognition can still be causes “in infinitely many ways,” and these infinitely diverse causes
must also have necessary laws, but we have “no insight at all into this necessity” (70)
 THUS: “we must think of there being in nature … a possibility of infinitely manifold empirical laws, which as
far as our insight goes are nevertheless contingent (cannot be cognized a priori)” (70)
 THEREFORE: “we judge the unity of nature in accordance with empirical laws and the possibility of the unity
of experience (as a system in accordance with empirical laws) as contingent” (70)
Judgment Presupposes Systematicity of Empirical Laws (70-2)
 See “But since such a unity […]” (70)
 See “Now this transcendental concept of purposiveness […]” (71)
 See “This agreement of nature […]” (72)
 Thus the power of judgment has in itself the a priori principle of the possibility of nature, prescribing to itself
(heautonomy) a law (of the specification of nature) in reflection on nature, of experience as a system
VI. Combination of Feeling of Pleasure with Concept of Purposiveness of Nature
Pleasure of Attaining Aims (73-5)
 Attainment of every aim in judgment is combined with a feeling of pleasure:
a. If the condition of the aim is an a priori representation, then the ground is universally valid
b. (implied): If the condition of the aim is not an a priori representation (if, a material desire, a concept of
the good, etc.) then it is only valid for the individual judging subject
 The “discovered unifiability” is “the ground of a very noticeable pleasure” (74), but as they (empirical laws,
such as principles of light, gravity, etc.) are naturalized in common understanding they no longer produce
pleasure of attainment
 The possible discoverable empirical laws are infinite (empirical field of inquiry is boundless), and reflecting
judgment determines no empirical laws absolutely: See p.74-5 “For it is a command […] boundaries is
possible”
VIII. Aesthetic Representation of Purposiveness of Nature
Aesthetic Property vs. Logical Validity (75)
 That which in the representation of the object constitutes its relation to the subject, is the aesthetic property
of the representation
 That which in the representation of the object serves or can serve for the determination of the object for
cognition, is its logical validity
 Both of these are present in the cognition of an object of the senses
Feeling is the Subjective Aspect of Representation that Cannot Be an Element of Cognition (75)
 Feeling (of pleasure and displeasure) is that which in the representation of objects cannot become an element
of the cognition at all
 Thus, the purposiveness the precedes cognition of an object that is immediately connected with that object is
our subjective representation that cannot be part of the cognition that follows
Apprehension of the Form of an Object without Relation to a Determinate Concept (76)
 We apprehend the form of an object of intuition in imagination, and if this is unintentionally brought into
accord with the understanding (the form of our intelligence) through a given representation, then we judge
the object as purposive for the reflecting power of judgment
 This judgment is aesthetic and is not grounded on any available concept of the object. Aesthetic judgment is
non-cognitive: it determines no concepts, only feeling.
 See p.76 “For that apprehension of forms [….. end of paragraph]”
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CHID495, Spr-2010 reading guide
Aesthetic Judgment of Taste (AJT) and the Beautiful (76)
 Taste is the faculty for aesthetic judging (a mode of reflecting judgment) through the pleasure felt in the
apprehension of the purposive form objects
 Beautiful objects are those which, in mere reflection on its form in our imagination accords with our
understanding, is the ground of a pleasure in the process of representation of the object
 An aesthetic judgment of taste of a beautiful object asserts a universally VALID pleasure, which is to say every
reflecting judgment can attain the feeling (but may not in any single instance)
 No concept can be used to understand, much less determine necessarily the feeling with the object one has
judged as beautiful; the connection is only felt “through reflected perception” (76, bottom)
AJT: Contingent, yet Universal Validity (77)
 AJTs do not claim apriori, universal validity (they cannot be valid without the EXPERIENCE of representing
the object in reflected perception
 Therefore, AJTs are universally valid, but contingent on a subject having an empirical experience of the
object
 What is expected of other by this judgment is not a cognition, but a feeling of the intelligibility of the object
The Pleasure is Dependent on Empirical Representation in an Individual Judgment (77)
 See p.77 “The pleasure in the judgment of taste […]”
 There is no apriori access to the validity of the feeling in an AJT, one “must try it out”
 BUT, the determining ground is not empirical (grounded in sensation), but the formal purposiveness of the
object in reflection for our faculties of apprehension (imagination and understanding)
 THUS, while dependent on empirical experience, it is not determined by the empirical intuitions of the object
Division of the Aesthetic Judgment: Beautiful and Sublime (77-78)
 The “susceptibility to a pleasure from reflection on the form of things (of nature as well as art) … indicates not
only a purposiveness of objects in RELATION TO the reflecting power of judgment … in the subject, but also
[a purposiveness] OF the subject regarding form or formlessness of objects:
 AJTs of Beauty concern the purposiveness of objects in relation to our reflecting judgment
o ~feeling of the intelligibility of objects, of the amazing order of experience
 AJTs of Sublime concern the purposiveness of the subject itself apprehending objects in reflecting judgment
o ~feeling of your own infinite intellection (as spirit) in an object, of the living infinity of the universe
VIII. Logical Representation of the Purposiveness of Nature
Two Forms of Purposiveness: Subjective and Objective (78)
 A given object in experience can be represented in judgment on:
a. a “subjective ground, as a correspondence of its form in its apprehension prior to any concept” in order to
unite the intuition with concepts in general (imagination <> understanding)
b. an “objective ground, as a correspondence of its form with the possibility of the thing itself” in accordance
with a concept of it which precedes and grounds the form
Two Representations of Purposiveness: Natural Beauty and Natural Ends (79)
 natural beauty is the presentation of the concept of formal (subjective) purposiveness, which is judged
through Feeling (indicating an aesthetic correspondence of Imagination and pure Understanding)
 natural ends are the presentation of the concept of a real (objective) purposiveness, which are judged through
Understanding and Reason (indicating a logical accordance with concepts)
Thus, Two Forms of Reflecting Judgment: Aesthetic and Teleological (79-80)
 We need a critique of judgment in two forms: aesthetic and teleological
 The aesthetic judgment is ESSENTIAL because it is the ground of the possibility of our understanding finding
ANY intelligibility in nature whatsoever; see p. 79 “In a critique of the power […]”
 AJ is a special faculty judgment by heautonomous principle
 TJ is the reflecting power of judgment in general, but proceeding in accordance with concepts; in application
is belongs to theoretical cognition, but with respect to “certain objects of nature” [hint: self-organizing beings]
it proceeds in accordance with principles of AJ (80)
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