| Sumario: | This collection of essays by one of the preeminent Kant scholars of our time transforms our understanding of both Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. Kant is still widely regarded as the father of the aesthetics of formalism and the doctrine of art for art's sake. Guyer shows, however, that Kant treats the disinterestedness of taste that is the core of his aesthetic theory as an experience of freedom and thus creates an essential connection between aesthetics and the interests of morality. At the same time Guyer reveals how Kant's moral theory includes a distinctive place for the cultivation of both general moral sentiments and particular attachments even on the basis of the most rigorous principle of duty. The scope of the volume is broad. Kant's thought is placed in a rich historical context including such figures as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Burke, and Kames, as well as Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Schiller, and Hegel. Topics treated include the sublime, natural versus artistic beauty, genius and art history, and duty and inclination. These essays (half published here for the first time) extend and enrich the account of Kant's aesthetics in the author's earlier book, Kant and the Claims of Taste (1979). They will be of particular interest to all Kant scholars, professional philosophers concerned with aesthetics and ethics, intellectual historians, and students of German literature.
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