Immanuel Kant 
Critique of Judgment 

This 1790 polemic by one of philosophy’s most important and influential figures attempts to establish the principles that support the faculty of judgment. Kant’s third critique — after
Critique of Practical Reason and
Critique of Pure Reason — remains one of the most important works on human reason. The
Critique of Judgment informs the very basis of modern aesthetics by establishing the almost universally accepted framework for debate of aesthetic issues.

As in his previous critiques, Kant seeks to establish
a priori principles. The first part of this work addresses aesthetic sensibility. The human response to specific natural phenomena as beautiful, he asserts, is a recognition of nature’s harmonious order that corresponds to a mental need for order. The critique’s second half focuses on the apparent teleology in nature’s design of organisms. The philosopher declares that the mind is predisposed to find purpose and order in nature, and this predisposition forms the main principle underlying all our judgments. Although this could be interpreted as an argument in favor of a creator, Kant insists that a supernatural dimension or the existence of God cannot be proven — such considerations lie beyond the realm of reason, solely within the province of faith.

Table of Content

Editor’s Introduction

Preface

Introduction

I. Of the division of Philosophy

II. Of the realm of Philosophy in general

III. Of the Critique of Judgment as a means of combining the two parts of Philosophy into a whole

IV. Of Judgment as a faculty legislating a priori

V. The principle of the formal purposiveness of nature is a transcendental principle of Judgment

VI. Of the combination of the feeling of pleasure with the concept of the purposiveness of nature

VII. Of the aesthetical representation of the purposiveness of nature

VIII. Of the logical representation of the purposiveness of nature

IX. Of the connexion of the legislation of Understanding with that of Reason by means of the Judgment

First Part: Critique of the Aesthetical Judgment

First Division: Analytic of the Aesthetical Judgment

First Book: Analytic of the Beautiful

First Moment of the judgment of taste, according to quality

1. The judgment of taste is aesthetical

2. The satisfaction which determines the judgment of taste is disinterested

3. The satisfaction in the pleasant is bound up with interest

4. The satisfaction in the good is bound up with interest

5. Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of satisfaction

Second Moment of the judgment of taste, viz. according to quantity

6. The Beautiful is that which apart from concepts is represented as the object of a universal satisfaction

7. Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by means of the above characteristic

8. The universality of the satisfaction is represented in a judgment of Taste only as subjective

9. Investigation of the question whether in the judgment of taste the feeling of pleasure precedes or follows the judging of the object

Third Moment of judgments of taste, according to the relation of the purposes which are brought into consideration therein

10. Of purposiveness in general

11. The judgment of taste has nothing at its basis but the form of the purposiveness of an object (or of its mode of representation)

12. The judgment of taste rests on a priori grounds

13. The pure judgment of taste is independent of charm and emotion

14. Elucidation by means of examples

15. The judgment of taste is quite independent of the concept of perfection

16. The judgment of taste, by which an object is declared to be beautiful under the condition of a definite concept, is not pure

17. Of the Ideal of Beauty

Fourth Moment of the judgment of taste, according to the modality of the satisfaction in the object

18. What the modality in a judgment of taste is

19. The subjective necessity, which we ascribe to the judgment of taste, is conditioned

20. The condition of necessity which a judgment of taste asserts is the Idea of a common sense

21. Have we ground for presupposing a common sense?

22. The necessity of the universal agreement that is thought in a judgment of taste is a subjective necessity, which is represented as objective under the presupposition of a common sense

General remark on the first section of the Analytic

Second Book: Analytic of the Sublime

23. Transition from the faculty which judges of the Beautiful to that which judges of the Sublime

24. Of the divisions of an investigation into the feeling of the sublime

A. Of the Mathematically Sublime

25. Explanation of the term ‘sublime’

26. Of that estimation of the magnitude of natural things which is requisite for the Idea of the Sublime

27. Of the quality of the satisfaction in our judgments upon the Sublime

B. Of the Dynamically Sublime in Nature

28. Of Nature regarded as Might

29. Of the modality of the judgment upon the sublime in nature

General remark upon the exposition of the aesthetical reflective Judgment

Deduction of [pure] aesthetical judgments

30. The Deduction of aesthetical judgments on the objects of nature must not be directed to what we call Sublime in nature, but only to the Beautiful.

31. Of the method of deduction of judgments of Taste

32. First peculiarity of the judgment of Taste

33. Second peculiarity of the judgment of Taste

34. There is no objective principle of Taste possible

35. The principle of Taste is the subjective principle of Judgment in general

36. Of the problem of a Deduction of judgments of Taste

37. What is properly asserted a priori of an object in a judgment of Taste

38. Deduction of judgments of Taste

39. Of the communicability of a sensation

40. Of Taste as a kind of sensus communis

41. Of the empirical interest in the Beautiful

42. Of the intellectual interest in the Beautiful

43. Of Art in general

44. Of beautiful Art

45. Beautiful Art is an art, in so far as it seems like nature

46. Beautiful Art is the art of genius

47. Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation of Genius

48. Of the relation of Genius to Taste

49. Of the faculties of the mind that constitute Genius

50. Of the combination of Taste with Genius in the products of beautiful Art

51. Of the division of the beautiful arts

52. Of the combination of beautiful arts in one and the same product

53. Comparison of the respective aesthetical worth of the beautiful arts

54. Remark

second Division: Dialectic of the Aesthetical Judgment

55.

56. Representation of the antinomy of Taste

57. Solution of the antinomy of Taste

58. Of the Idealism of the purposiveness of both Nature and Art as the unique principle of the aesthetical Judgment.

59. Of Beauty as the symbol of Morality

60. Appendix: Of the method of Taste

Second Part: Critique of the Teleological Judgment

61. Of the objective purposiveness of Nature

First Division: Analytic of the Teleological Judgment

62. Of the objective purposiveness which is merely formal as distinguished from that which is material

63. Of the relative, as distinguished from the inner, purposiveness of nature

64. Of the peculiar character of things as natural purposes

65. Things regarded as natural purposes are organised beings

66. Of the principle of judging of internal purposiveness in organised beings

67. Of the principle of the teleological judging of nature in general as a system of purposes

68. Of the principle of Teleology as internal principle of natural science

second Division: Dialectic of the Teleological Judgment

69. What is an antinomy of the Judgment?

70. Representation of this antinomy

71. Preliminary to the solution of the above antinomy

72. Of the different systems which deal with the purposiveness of nature

73. None of the above systems give what they pretend

74. The reason that we cannot treat the concept of a Technic of nature dogmatically is the fact that a natural purpose is inexplicable

75. The concept of an objective purposiveness of nature is a critical principle of Reason for the reflective Judgment

76. Remark

77. Of the peculiarity of the human Understanding, by means of which the concept of a natural purpose is possible

78. Of the union of the principle of the universal mechanism of matter with the teleological principle in the Technic of nature

Appendix: Methodology of the Teleological Judgment

79. Whether teleology must be treated as if it belonged to the doctrine of nature

80. Of the necessary subordination of the mechanical to the teleological principle in the explanation of a thing as a natural purpose

81. Of the association of mechanism with the teleological principle in the explanation of a natural purpose as a natural product

82. Of the teleological system in the external relations of organised beings

83. Of the ultimate purpose of nature as a teleological system

84. Of the final purpose of the existence of a world, i.e. of creation itself

85. Of Physico-theology

86. Of Ethico-theology

87. Of the moral proof of the Being of God

88. Limitation of the validity of the moral proof

89. Of the use of the moral argument

90. Of the kind of belief in a teleological proof of the Being of God

91. Of the kind of belief produced by a practical faith

General remarks on Teleology