German Literature and Critical Thought 1750-1832 (401-0-20)
Topic
Toward an Aesthetics of Singularity: Kant's Critiq
Instructors
Samuel Weber
847/491-8296
Kresge Hall, Room 3335
Office Hours: By email appointment
Meeting Info
Online: Mon 12:00PM - 2:50PM
Overview of class
In a famous note to the first section of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant remarks that "only the Germans" persist in associating the notion of "aesthetics" with the "criticism of taste." He argues that this is based on the "false hope […] of bringing the judgment of the beautiful under rational principles. […] It would be advisable, therefore, to drop the name in that sense […]" Scarcely ten years later, in his Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant grudgingly revises his view and seeks precisely to construe "the faculty of taste (Geschmacksvermögen) as an aesthetic power of judgment" from a "transcendental point of view" (in transzendentaler Absicht). In so doing, Kant acknowledges that the major challenge to defining a transcendental principle of aesthetic judgment consists in its "immediate relation [to] feelings of pleasure and displeasure." How the immediacy of this relation might derive from a principle that is neither psychological nor empirical, but transcendental and a priori, constitutes the enigma -- "das Rätselhafte" - that his Critique seeks to resolve.
But Kant had no illusions concerning "the great difficulty involved in resolving a problem that nature has rendered so complex (verwickelt hat)." I suggest that nothing less is involved in this "complexity" than the task of rethinking the way singularities - events that don't conform to established general schemes - can be communicated and shared. Which is to say, encountered and experienced collectively. The seminar will retrace the contours and trajectory of Kant's response to this encounter with the singular, through a close reading of the first part of Kant's Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment. In the process, the interdependence of knowing and feeling will be reexamined in relation to a notion that plays no obvious role in Kant's lexicon (although it will later for Freud), namely, tension.
Learning Objectives
Students will be expected to have developed an understanding of how the idea of "singularity" -- which is different from "individuality" and "uniqueness" -- relates to aesthetics in general and literature and language in particular. In this respect they will hopefully discover how Kant's so-called "Third Critique" marks a decisive historical turning-point with implications not just for "aesthetics" but for social life in general.
Class Materials (Required)
Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge UP, 2000
For those who know German: Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, Reclam Verlag, 2024