Kant's Conception of Genius

Kant's Conception of Genius

As part of his Critique of the Aesthetic Judgement, Kant sets out to

explain what constitutes a fine work of art, and in doing so he asserts

that "fine arts must necessarily be regarded as arts of genius." (page

168, 'The Critique of Judgement', Immanuel Kant). He then goes on to

justify this, and to explain what genius consists of, and how a work of

genius is arrived at.

Kant begins by stating that for the representation of any work of art

to be possible, it must have certain rules at its foundation. However,

with fine art, the beauty of the object is judged independently of any

concept, and therefore a work of fine art cannot have been derived from

any rule which had a concept as its basis. From this it follows that "fine

art is only possible as a product of genius", where "genius is a talent for

producing that for which no definite rule can be given." (page 168). It

follows from this notion of genius that as no definite rule can be given,

the author will not be able to explain how the ideas that created the fine

work of art came to them.

Kant now goes on to make an important distinction between the

work of a genius and the work of what he terms "a man of brains." (page

169). As rules cannot be laid down to enable others to create works of

genius, the work of genius differs crucially from the work of a scientist.

We may refer to Newton as "a man of brains...[but] all that Newton has

set forth in his immortal work on the Principles of Natural Philosophy

may well be learned...but we cannot learn to write in a true poetic vein."

(page 170). Scientists can explain the steps that they followed and

methods that they used to reach their discovery, but no f...

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as geniuses. We even use the term 'intellectual genius' in doing so, a

phrase that on Kant's account would be seen as contradictory. To give

a recent example, the work of Stephen Hawking is described as that of

a genius.

In conclusion, while Kant's conception of genius is very well

structured and argued, and while I do fully accept his explanation of the

faculties of the mind that constitute genius, and his distinction between

the genius of the artist and the method of the scientist, I find many of

his other suggestions either unconvincing, or based on dubious

grounds.

Bibliography:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kant, I. The Critique of Judgement (Clarendon Press, Oxford,

1991)

-All page numbers of quotations used in this essay refer to this

edition of 'The Critique of Judgement'.