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Unveiling the Aesthetic in Nature: A Response to Gordon Graham’s Aesthetic Argument for the Existence of God in “Nature, Kant, and God”
Abstract
The chapter responds to Gordon Graham’s aesthetic argument for the existence of God as presented in his essay “Nature, Kant, and God”. Drawing on Kant’s moral argument, Graham argues that it is a necessary presupposition of man’s intuition about the intrinsic value of nature – its “magnificence” – to assume a divine being as the guarantor of the ultimate harmony between “useless” nature and human welfare. In this response I will, first, highlight some differences between Kant’s and Graham’s uses of the terms “aesthetic ideas,” “genius” and “the sublime.” Second, with reference to Kant’s interpretation of the figure of the goddess Isis, I will highlight a tension in Kant’s view of nature that, I suggest, also underlies Graham’s premises. This tension consists of (and assumes) a basic conflict between, on the one hand, a sense of awe and respect for nature’s mystery and otherness and, on the other, a need and desire to grasp and utilize it. I will argue that this tension is rooted in a dichotomous model of nature that fails to acknowledge that humans are themselves part of nature and, together with nature, part of a larger multi-dimensional order of creation. I will draw on Reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd’s critique of Kant to show how an emphasis on the Creator-creation distinction and the multi-dimensionality of the order of reality can reconceive “magnificence” as an aesthetic dimension. This conception allows for a broadening of the conception of human welfare to include the need for aesthetic contemplation and experience.
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This paper draws on some lines of thought in Kant’s Critique of Judgment to construct an aesthetic counterpart to the moral argument for the existence of God that Kant formulates in the Critique of Practical Reason. The paper offers this aesthetic version as a theistic way of explaining how the natural world can be thought valuable independently of human desires and purposes. It further argues that such an argument must commend itself to anyone who is as deeply committed to the preservation of nature as to the promotion of justice.
This paper draws on some lines of thought in Kant's Critique of Judgment to construct an aesthetic counterpart to the moral argument for the existence of God that Kant formulates in the Critique of Practical Reason. The paper offers this aesthetic version as a theistic way of explaining how the natural world can be thought valuable independently of human desires and purposes. It further argues that such an argument must commend itself to anyone who is as deeply commited to the preservation of nature as to the promotion of justice.
Though our time is often said to be post-religious and post-metaphysical, many continue to seek some encounter with otherness and transcendence in art. This book deals diversely with the issues of art, origins, and otherness, both in themselves and in philosophical engagements with the works of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Addressing themes such as eros and mania, genius and the sublime, transcendence and the saving power of art, William Desmond tries to make sense of the paradox that too much has been asked of art that now almost nothing is asked of it. He argues that there is more to be said philosophically of art, and claims that art has the power to open up mindfulness beyond objectifying knowledge, as well as beyond thinking that claims to be entirely self-determining.
Acknowledgments Note on sources and key to abbreviations and translations Introduction Part I. Kant's Conception of Reflective Judgment: 1. Reflective judgment and the purposiveness of nature 2. Reflection and taste in the introductions Part II. Te Quid Facti and the Quid Juris in the Domain of Taste: 3. The analytic of the beautiful and the quid facti: an overview 4. The disinterestedness of the pure judgment of taste 5. Subjective universality, the universal voice, and the harmony of the faculties 6. Beauty, purposiveness, and form 7. The modality of taste and the sensus communis 8. The deduction of pure judgments of taste Part III. The Moral and Systematic Significance of Taste: 9. Reflective judgment and the transition from nature to freedom 10. Beauty, duty, and interest: the moral significance of natural beauty 11. The antinomy of taste and beauty as a symbol of morality Part IV. Parerga to the Theory of Taste: 12. Fine art and genius 13. The sublime Notes Bibliography Index.
Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is both one of the most rewarding of all philosophical works, and one of the most difficult. Norman Kemp Smith's translation is immensely valuable, not simply because he rendered Kant's language into readable English, but also because his own extensive understanding of the Critique made him acutely aware of the pitfalls of translation. The text followed is that of the second edition of 1787, and a translation is also given of all first-edition passages which in the second edition have been either altered or omitted. For this reissue of Norman Kemp Smith's classic translation, renowned Kant scholar Gary Banham has contributed a unique, extensive bibliography of secondary resources. Combined with Howard Caygill's context-setting introduction and guide to further reading, this reissue provides the definitive edition of this cornerstone of Western intellectual history.
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