Abstract

Outlines Immanuel Kant's conception of an aesthetic judgement and his classification of aesthetic judgements, and then expounds and examines Kant's various claims about aesthetic judgements of natural beauty. Kant's problematic identification of the distinctive pleasure of the beautiful is rejected; obscurities in his notion of a judgement of dependent beauty are identified; his classification of aesthetic judgements is deemed incomplete; and his claim that there is an ideal of human beauty is shown to be unconvincing. Explains what Kant means by pleasure in the beautiful not being an interest and shows that Kant is right to characterize it as being disinterested.