Scattered reflections

All the specificities through which an object can become aesthetic, can be put under many categories which perform onto our passive or active capacity - according to their objective differences as well as their different subjective relationships -, a different form of pleasure, not bluntly according to their intensity but rather also to their value and are, for the goal of the beautiful arts, also of unequal utility, namely, the specificities of the pleasant, the good, the sublime and the beautiful.

Among these specificities, the sublime and the beautiful are alone specific to art. The pleasant is not worthy of it and the good is, at least, not its goal; for the goal of art is to enjoy and the goal of the good, be it theoretical or practical, can and may serve the sensibility not as a means.

Only sense enjoys the pleasant and it differs, in that aspect, from the good which pleases the sheer reason. It pleases through its material, for only the substance can appeal to sense, anything that is form, pleases only reason.

The beautiful pleases, in truth, through the medium of sense, through which it differs from the good, however, it pleases reason through its form, through which it differs from the pleasant. The good, can people say, pleases through the mere reasonable form, the beautiful through the form similar to the reasonable one, the pleasant through really not any form. The good will be thought, the beautiful contemplated, while the pleasant will only be felt. The first one pleases in its concept; the second one in its apparition, the third one in its material sentiment.

The interval between the good and the pleasant is most obvious. The good extends our knowledge because it creates and supposes a concept from its object; the ground of our pleasure lies in the subject if immediately, pleasure itself is a condition in which we find ourselves. The pleasant, to the contrary, brings about really not any knowledge of its object and grounds itself also not on any. It is only pleasant through the fact that it will be felt and its concept disappears completely as soon as we think about the sensitivity of sense, or also only changes it. To a human being who feels the frost, is a warm wind pleasant; this same person, however, will seek a cool shade in the summer heat.

In both cases, however, people will concede that the person has made correct judgments. The objective is completely independent from us and what comes out to us, today, as true, practical, reasonable; will appear to us also so in twenty years (supposing that we today have made the correct judgments). Our judgment about the pleasant is modified as our situation vis-�-vis its object changes. It is, hence, not a specificity of the object but rather is born only from the relationship of an object to our sense � for the sensible state is a necessary condition of the same object.

The good, to the contrary, is already good before it is presented and felt. The specificity through which it pleases, exists perfectly for itself, without needing our subject, when, immediately, our pleasure on this same subject lies on a sensitivity of our being. The pleasant, can people say in that aspect, exists only because it is felt, the good, to the contrary, is felt because it exists.

The difference existing from the state of beautiful to the pleasant, no matter how great it is by the way, is less obvious. It is, in that aspect, comparable to the pleasant in the sense that it must always be reserved to the senses, because it pleases only in the appearance. The beautiful is further, in that aspect, comparable to the pleasant in the sense that it does not create nor suppose any knowledge of its object.

It differs, however, again very much from the pleasant because it pleases through the form of its appearance but not through the material feeling.

It pleases, in truth, really the reasonable subject, so far as the same subject, at the same time, is sensible; however, it pleases also the sensible, only, so far as the same subject is, at the same time, reasonable. It pleases not only the individual but also the human genre and if it relates its existence immediately only through its relationship to the sensibly reasonable being, hence, it is independent from all the empirical determinations of sensibility and it remains the same, even if the private state of the subject changes. The beautiful has, hence, precisely that in common with the good, wherever it deviates from the pleasant and retreats precisely there from the good wherever it approaches the pleasant.

Under the good is to be understood the one subject in which reason recognizes adequacy to its theoretical and practical laws. It can, however, perfectly agree the namely subject with the theoretical reason and hence, be contradicting the practical reason in its highest degree. We can disapprove the goal of an endeavour and yet, admire the purposefulness of the same endeavour. We can despise the enjoyments which the voluptuous person makes as a goal of his life and yet, praise the cleverness in the choice of his means and the decisiveness of his principles. What pleases us only through its form is good and it is absolute and good without any condition if its form, at the same time, is also its content. Also the good is an object of sentiment, however, not an immediate one, such as the pleasant, and also not a mixed one, such as the beautiful. It arouses not desires as the first one, and not inclination as the second. The pure presentation of the good can only inspire consideration.

After establishing the difference between the pleasant, the good and the beautiful, it is clear that a subject can be unattractive, imperfect, indeed, even morally dubious and can yet be pleasant, yet please the sense; that a subject can be outraging the sense and can yet be good, yet please reason; that a subject, according to its inner existence, can be outraging according to its moral feeling and yet can please in the contemplation, yet be beautiful. This is so because in all these different presentations, another mental capacity and another manner of dealing is at play.


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Author's Note

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