Kantianism and the Judgement of Beauty in Light of the Problem of True Totality and its Basis in the Forms and Structures of Social Existence

Abstract

This article provides a Hegelian–Marxist appreciation of Kant's aesthetic standpoint, specifically the judgement of the beautiful. However, it seeks to show how the judgement of the beautiful evolved from the need to reconcile the noumenal–phenomenal divide that had developed in and through Kantianism more broadly. In addition, it aims to locate the noumenal–phenomenal distinction as one that had emerged in its own right from the problem of totality that inflicts and underpins the history of philosophy in the modern period—from Descartes onwards. The author hopes to demonstrate that the judgement of the beautiful involves the first genuine resolution to the problem of totality and dualism in the modern Western period. Kant is able to raise the totality in a coherent and organic whole, a totality that is not dependent on some absolute principle like God, asserted deus ex machina from the outside, in order to guarantee the unity of two separate and opposed spheres. The Kantian resolution, however, is achieved only in the realm of the aesthetic. The remainder of the article is devoted to describing how Kant was unable to resolve the noumenal–phenomenal problem at a more fundamental ontological level because he was unable to posit a historical solution of the Hegelian kind. Finally the author endeavours to indicate that such ahistoricity is more than an unhappy coincidence, but rather a necessary consequence of the fact that the historical form that had the potentiality to neutralise the (dualistic) character of class society at the level of social existence had not yet come into being. To put it in the Marxian refrain, a ‘universal class’ had yet to develop.