IV. KANT
In Kant the term “play” occurs so often in the
discussion of art that some commentators have been
led to exaggerate the
importance in his system of “the
free play of
imagination” or of ideas. Yet while no
well-articulated theory
can be attributed directly to
Kant, it remains true all the same that the
connections
among play, art, and freedom to be found explicitly
in the
Critique of Judgment are the primary source
of
Schiller's position, and therewith of all subsequent
views on the question
before us—to the possible exclu-
sion of “surplus energy” theories.
The point of departure lies in the significance of
“freedom” in Kant's position. Cognitive judgments are
bound by the necessity of their conformity to the
modalities by which the human mind forms concepts,
i.e., by the
forms of intuition and the categories. These
impose a logical structure on
concepts and the relations
among them that in turn leads to the uniformity
of
the knowledge possessed by all minds and thus justifies
the claim
for the possibility of a science of the phe-
nomenal world. Ethical judgments, while not bound
by fact (which
would make ethics merely empirical)
are bound by the nature of reason such
that certain
“ideas of pure reason” are binding on
all rational minds
so that, on Kant's view, a science of ethics is
also
possible.
But aesthetic judgments are not bound in either of
these ways: they are not
referable back in any neces-
sary way to
concepts depending on experience, nor
are they such as to be uniform for
all rational minds.
They are necessarily subjective (Critique of Judgment—
hereafter CJ—Bernard
trans., §2, p. 39). Satisfaction in
the beautiful must not only be
distinguished from
cognition and morality, but also from sensory
pleasure
(§3, 40) which exerts its own tyranny. In all these
cases
we have an interest in the existence of the object that
gives
rise to these judgments and feelings; but aesthetic
judgment is
disinterested and contemplative, i.e., it is
free of constraint whether
coerced by fact or logic or
pain and pleasure: “The cognitive
powers, which are
involved by this representation, are here in free
play,
because no definite concept limits them to a definite
rule of
cognition” (§9, 52).
It should be noted that, at the same time that Kant
stresses the freedom
(and therewith the subjectivity)
of aesthetic judgment, he is not prepared
to abandon
altogether the notion of the uniformity of such judg-
ments (they ought
to be necessary and universal): “We
are conscious that this
subjective relation, suitable for
cognition in general, must be valid for
everyone, and
thus must be universally communicable, just as if it
were a definite cognition, resting always on that rela-
tion as its subjective condition” (ibid.). And
this leads
him to claim a “universal subjective
validity” that
restores the possibility of rational discourse on
aesthetic
judgment.
In the “Analytic of the Sublime” (ibid.) Kant returns
to the question of play as it more specifically applies
to art. We find him
here furnishing support to those
who find the notion of art as play
profoundly offensive.
Indeed, as we noted earlier, art is often viewed as
play
only when it is intended to disparage both; but where
art is
assigned a nobler role, there is a tendency to
emphasize the rational
(cognitive and ethical) aspects
at the expense of play. Kant's position
reflects the
dialectical tension of these extremes. In §43 he
draws
distinctions between art and nature, science, and
handicraft on the one hand, but warns (p. 147) against
“many modern educators” who “believe that the
best
way to produce a free art is to remove it from all
constraint,
and thus to change it from work into mere
play.” What redeems
art from this charge, as we see
from numerous other passages, is that the
ideas with
which imagination plays must have appeal to under-
standing and reason: so much for the
content of art;
as to its form, “e.g., in poetry there must be
an accu-
racy and wealth of language, and also
prosody and
measure.” Kant's rationalism and formalism are
not
lightly to be cast aside, and thus we find him balancing
the
claims of freedom against those of the rule of reason
which may be thought
by those “modern educators”
(to say nothing of even
more modern artists) to con-
strict
imagination within the framework either of drab
representationism or of
decaying forms:
[Poetry] plays with illusion (Schein), which it
produces at
pleasure, but without deceiving by it; for it declares
its
exercise to be mere play, which however can be purposively
used by the understanding
(§53, p. 171).
A final observation before we continue to trace the
later fate of these
influential ideas. In the Critique of
Pure Reason
(A141-42 = B180-81) we read that while
... the image is a product of the empirical faculty
of
reproductive imagination, the schema of
sensible concepts,
such as of figures in space, is a product and, as it
were,
a monogram, of pure a priori imagination, through which,
and
in accordance with which, images themselves first
become possible.
This doctrine of schematism strongly suggests Kant's
philosophical motives
for retaining a rational founda-
tion for
art. It is that the mind can propose forms to
itself that in turn make
images of particulars possible;
but given the structure of the human mind
and its
uniformity, there are limitations as to the forms that
can be
entertained, and these have (or ought to have)
universal appeal,
constituting the basis for communi-
cation
and meaningfulness. Yet he clearly confused
historically and culturally
determined forms (e.g., in
poetry and painting) for existentially
determined ones,
and so placed fortuitous restrictions on what might
properly constitute art as well as on the power of
imagination to propose
other forms (whether in art or
in science). We may therefore expect to find
in his
successors an attack on these restrictions, as well as
on the
necessary uniformity of human rationality. The
farthest-reaching attack,
however, will derive from
implications of his metaphysics that he could
hardly
have foreseen (e.g., the unknowability of the thing-
in-itself and the “as
if” aspects of our explanations of
reality).