Enlightening Thought

Abstract

In the history of Western philosophy, Immanuel Kant is one of the first modern thinkers to take the imagination seriously. This chapter outlines Kant's development of the concept in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Aesthetic judgment. Kaag highlights the difference between the two treatments of the imagination (in its reproductive, productive and creative capacities). In line with many Kant scholars, Kaag suggests that many of the conclusions presented in the third Critique address questions about human knowing and human feeling expressed in the first and second Critiques. In his analysis of Kant, Kaag focuses on the way that aesthetic common sense and genius are developed in the Critique of Aesthetic judgment, paying particular attention to Kant's claim that genius is an ingenium (a gift of nature). Here, Kant is suggesting a point of continuity between human culture and nature, a point that will be vitally important to post-Kantian philosophers, especially C.S. Peirce.