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The First Moment — Disinterested Pleasure

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Abstract

In the First Moment Kant is primarily concerned to maintain that whereas pleasure in the agreeable and the good are ‘interested’ pleasures, pleasure in the beautiful is ‘disinterested’. The fact that pleasure in the good counts as ‘interested’ for Kant should be noted, since noting it forestalls a too facile reading of what he means by ‘disinterested’. The definition which concludes the First Moment includes along with the characterisation of beauty in terms of disinterested pleasure, specific reference to the aesthetic as distinct from aesthetic value. The way in which we must consider something when we are aiming to judge whether it is beautiful or not is disinterestedly, and what we judge when we judge that it is beautiful, is that it pleases when it is considered in that way.

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Notes and References

  1. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 42; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §2, p. 204, lines 22–4.

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  2. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 49; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §5, p. 210, lines 20–1.

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  3. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 43; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §2, p. 204, line 30-p. 205, line 8.

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  4. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 48; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §4, p. 209, lines 10–12.

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  5. Bernadetto Croce, Aesthetic, translated Douglas Ainslie (London, 1909) ch. iii, pp. 36–7.

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  6. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p.55; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §8, p. 215, lines 14–5.

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  7. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 48; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §4, p. 209, lines 9–10.

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  8. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 224; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §59, p. 353, line 37-p. 354, line 4.

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  9. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, pp. 43–4; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §2, p. 205, lines 31–6.

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  10. Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1979) pp. 361–73.

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  13. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 48; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §5, p. 209, lines 19–21.

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  14. Marshall Cohen, ‘Appearance and the Aesthetic Attitude’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVI (1959) p. 920.

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  15. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, translated E. F. J. Payne (New York, 1958) vol. 1, p. 198.

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  16. See Chapter 4 (p. 27).

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  17. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 44; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §3, p. 205, lines 26–7.

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  18. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 45; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §3, p. 207, lines 9–10.

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  19. See Chapter 4 (p. 27).

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  20. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, pp. 49–51; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §5, p. 210, lines 26–7.

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  21. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, pp. 51–2; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §7, p. 212, lines 12–19.

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  22. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 45; Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §3, p. 207, lines 2–3.

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  23. Meredith, Aesthetic Judgement, p. 54 (my emphasis); Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, §8, p. 214, lines 10–15.

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© 1987 Mary A. McCloskey

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McCloskey, M.A. (1987). The First Moment — Disinterested Pleasure. In: Kant’s Aesthetic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08796-9_5

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