The Green Meadow. Kant´s new Definition of the Modal Concept of Existence in the First Moment of the “Analytic of the Beautiful”
- DOI
- 10.5922/0207-6918-2015-3-ENG-2
- Pages
- 28-35
Abstract
Contrary to the standard view in the Kant literature, I argue that the concept of “existence” is the real focus of Kant’s investigation in the “First Moment” of the “Analytic of the Beautiful” in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. That is, “existence” is not a secondary or subordinate part of a more general discourse concerning the “disinterestedness of aesthetic judgment”. Rather, the whole characterization of the judgment of taste as a “judgment of an object grounded on a delight in it which is without any interest” shall be considered here as a means to constructing a new definition of the modal concept of “existence”. More generally, the four moments of the “Analytic of the Beautiful” contain preliminary work on the modal concepts of existence, possibility, necessity — and, of course, contingency, which is very important because it is required for the definition of the very special modal status of the “maxims of judgment”.
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