The Review of Metaphysics

Volume 70, Issue 1, September 2016

On the Primacy of the Spectator in Kant’s Account of Genius

This essay argues that §49 of Kant’s third Critique pursues the question of the nature of genius through an analysis of the spectator’s response to beautiful art. It presents and defends a spectator-centered interpretation of §49’s opening paragraphs, which clarifies Kant’s notion of aesthetic ideas and reveals that beautiful art provokes a productive imaginative activity in its spectators. This interpretation is significant because it elucidates the character of Kant’s account of genius and his understanding of art criticism. Moreover, it suggests that the imagination’s productive activity may provide a certain satisfaction to theoretical reason’s natural but unrequited desire for knowledge of the transcendent.