Kant on beauty and biology : an interpretation of the Critique of judgment / Rachel Zuckert.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 388-395) and index.

The problem : the unity of the diverse -- Reflective judgment and its principle : preliminary remarks -- The analytic of teleological judgment : purposive unity is the 'highest formal unity' -- A merely subjective principle : time and the 'peculiarities' of our intellects -- Beautiful objects : subjectively purposive form -- Aesthetic pleasure : the feeling of subjective, projective temporality -- The free harmony of the faculties : purposiveness as the principle of aesthetic Beurteilung -- The justification of aesthetic judgment : purposiveness as the principle of reflective judging.

Print version record.

Kant's Critique of Judgment has often been interpreted by scholars as comprising separate treatments of three uneasily connected topics: beauty, biology, and empirical knowledge. Rachel Zuckert's book is the first to interpret the Critique as a unified argument concerning all three domains. She argues that, on Kant's view, human beings demonstrate a distinctive cognitive ability in appreciating beauty and understanding organic life: an ability to anticipate a whole that we do not completely understand according to preconceived categories. This ability is necessary, moreover, for human beings to gain knowledge of nature in its empirical character as it is, not as we might assume it to be. Her wide-ranging and original study will be valuable for readers in all areas of Kant's philosophy. Book jacket.

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