Abstract

Kant suggests that the chief advantage of his theory of taste over Hume’s is its a priori rather than empirical foundation. But his claim to have provided such a foundation for judgments of taste is questionable, and, in the end, both authors ground judgments of taste in a canon of proven or classical objects of taste rather than in determinate principles of taste. However, Kant does go beyond Hume in sketching a theory of aesthetic production, as well as reception in the form of his theory of artistic genius, according to which works of genius can be exemplars for the originality of subsequent artists as well as stimuli for the free play of imagination and understanding in their audiences.