Cognitive Interpretation of Kant’s Theory of Aesthetic Ideas

Abstract

The aim of my paper is to argue that Kant's aesthetic ideas can help us to overcome cognitive limitations that we often experience in our attempts to articulate the meaning of abstract concepts. I claim that aesthetic ideas, as expressed in works of art, have a cognitive dimension in that they reveal the introspective, emotional, and affective aspects that appear to be central to the content of abstract phenomena. I Most of us share the intuitive feeling that abstract concepts are harder to understand than concrete, empirical concepts. 1 This is evident, for example, from the feelings of insecurity and struggle that we experience each time we try to explain the meaning of concepts such as truth, love, hopelessness, or vulnerability. 2 Ralph Ellis nicely describes this experience: 'When we begin to say what we mean by "in love", most of us find ourselves struggling, questioning and revising what we think we mean by it […] There was an unsureness, a hesitance, a fear of saying what we did not mean, or not being able to say what we did mean.' 3 Yet we do not experience any difficulty in grasping the meaning of Cognitive Interpretation of Kant's theory of Aesthetic Ideas I thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their generous comments. Special gratitude is reserved for Sam Stoner, who provided valuable insight and suggestions. 1One should bear in mind the distinction between abstractness and abstraction. Even though all concepts are abstracted from experience, not all of them are abstract concepts. Category members of abstract concepts are non-material, non-concrete, and non-sensory-perceivable objects in contrast to superordinate concepts (like the concepts of animal, furniture, artefact, and so forth), whose members are all concrete and sensory-perceivable objects.