Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 7 Number 1, April 2006
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Christian Helmut Wenzel. An introduction to Kant’s aesthetics: core concepts and problems. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. xiii, 183 p. ISBN 1-4051-3036-9 (paperback, 16.99 pounds); ISBN 1-4051-3035-0 (hardback, 50.00 pounds).
Reviewed by
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
One of the most significant contributions to the study of philosophical aesthetics is Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). While powerful as a single tome, it is the third in a series of critiques that Kant developed during the 1780’s, the first being his Critique of Pure Reason (1781, second edition 1787) and his Critique of Practical Reason (1788). Many writers and scholars have tried to comb its depths and meanings in order to understand and find meaning related to the topic of aesthetic judgment. Hence this book is a welcome guidebook and companion to assist in the deciphering of Kant’s work.
The author makes quite clear that this is not a book intended for Kant scholars; indeed, it is written for students of philosophy in higher education and other related fields such as literature and art. No knowledge of Kant is required, and the author avoids any discussion of secondary literature, except to provide titles for suggested reading at the end of every section within the chapters. In the Introduction, Wenzel sets up the semantics and terms that Kant uses, such as “aesthetics” and “moments.” There are four “moments” that Kant focuses upon in his Critique that assist in the judgment of taste, and Wenzel spends the next four chapters explaining each one: disinterestedness, universality, purposiveness, and necessity. Once Wenzel has thoroughly described these “moments,” he moves on to other topics that Kant addresses, such as fine art, nature, genius, and beyond beauty. In the last chapter, the author discusses two topics that have always been difficult to understand with Kant: what about the ugly, and can there be beauty and genius in mathematics? Not only does Wenzel guide the reader through the morass of Kant’s reasoning, but he provides a superb summary and overview of everything that is discussed in the previous 140 pages at the end of the book, in a concise eight pages. Finally, a glossary of terms and an extensive bibliography are also given.
I have personally always had problems trying to understand the reasoning and explanations behind Kant’s philosophy of aesthetics, and Wenzel’s book is a well-written “Kant for Dummies” that is appropriate for both beginning and advanced students of philosophy. I wholeheartedly recommend it.