Schematism and Free Play: The Imagination’s Formal
Power as a Unifying Feature in Kant’s Doctrine of the Faculties
Jackson Hoerth·
Temple University/ Tyler Junior College, USA
Abstract
The
role of the imagination within Kant’s Critical framework remains an issue for
any attempt to unify the three Critiques through the Doctrine of the
Faculties. This work provides a reading of the imagination that serves to unify
the imagination through its formal capacity, or ability to recognize harmony
and produce the necessary lawfulness that grounds the possibility of judgment.
The argument of this work exists in 2 parts. 1) The imagination’s formal
ability is present, yet concealed, as early as the Schematism in the Critique
of Pure Reason and reaches its fullest exposition in instances of
harmonious free play in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. 2) This
formal capacity is key to not only demonstrating the imagination as an
original, unified, and independent faculty across Kant’s Critical framework,
but also serves as grounds for the purposiveness of nature – a key aspect of
Kantian aesthetics.
Key words
Imagination, Purposiveness, Reflective Judgment,
Schematism, Harmonious Free Play
I. Introduction
The role of the imagination within Kant’s Critical
framework and its value as a faculty alongside the understanding and reason has
remained an open question in not only Kantian scholarship but even within
Kant’s own works. Despite the contentious status of the imagination, there are
several features of the imagination that serve as a ground for any
investigation into this mysterious aspect of Kant’s transcendental project.
First, the imagination is most immediately recognized in its role in the
synthesis of sense data with the concepts of the understanding. That is, Kant
clearly intended the imagination to bear a close relationship with the faculty
of the understanding. Second, the imagination retains a certain connection to
sensibility, which is seen not only in its ability to prepare sense material
for conceptual application but also its role in aesthetic judgment, which is
primarily sensible as a felt reaction to beauty and the sublime. Finally, as
demonstrated in Kant’s treatment of aesthetic and teleological judgments, there
is a connection between the imagination and reason. What these features of the
imagination suggest is a broader ‘Doctrine of the Faculties’ at work within
Kant’s Critical system – a doctrine that requires an analysis of the
relationships between understanding, reason, and the imagination.[1]
That Kant intends for this
relationship to be neither static nor uniform across the Critiques is
clear. Each Critique offers a different orientation of the faculties. That is,
the relationship between understanding, reason, and the imagination will differ
in the uses of pure reason, practical reason, and judgment. Further, it is
important to note that while each faculty provides a certain legislative role,[2] this does not mean that the other faculties cease to
be useful, or have no role to play under the direction of another faculty;
rather, each faculty maintains a particular and irreducible character
regardless of its use in pure reason, practical reason, or judgment. To
understand Kant’s transcendental project is to understand these orientations
between the faculties since they and their relation to each other are the
sources of our representations. As such, this doctrine provides a way to not
only work through each particular Critique, which is a benefit in itself, but
it also sheds light on an important unifying thread across all three texts and
brings the full value of Kant’s project to the foreground.
With this broad sketch, we can
now begin to consider the particular issue of this work, the role of the
imagination within Kant’s Critical framework. A clear and unified picture of
each faculty is key to not only understanding each Critique in an individual
sense but developing a unified picture of all three texts as well. Therefore,
in this work I intend to demonstrate a connection between the imagination in the
Critique of Pure Reason and The Critique of the Power of Judgment
that will serve as a way to dispel the mystery behind this transcendental
faculty and provide a more unified picture of the imagination across Kant’s
Critical philosophy.
In this paper, I will argue
that the imagination demonstrates an essential formal capacity, the ability to
produce its own forms or lawfulness. Further, this formal capacity is key to
provide a unified picture of the imagination that both maintains its status as
an independent faculty and maintains its unity as a faculty from the first Critique
to the third Critique. This formal capacity can be seen, albeit in the
service of the understanding, in the ‘Schematism’ section of the Critique of
Pure Reason; and, this formal capacity can be later more clearly recognized
in the imagination’s harmonious free play in the Critique of the Power of
Judgment. Together, I argue, this formal capacity from one text to another
provides the key to establishing the imagination as an independent and unified
faculty across Kant’s Critical philosophy.
II. The First Critique Imagination –
Transcendental Deduction and Schematism
The imagination emerges in the Transcendental
Deduction as a faculty capable of mediating between our sensible capacities and
the understanding in the subjective deduction, and as the grounding for the
connection between cognition and the unity of apperception in the objective deduction.
However, the Deduction focuses on the logical foundations for this process, or
on the possibility of a unity between apperception, concepts, and the intuited
manifold. What is of particular interest is how this actually occurs in the
formation of experience. That is, how it comes to be that a concept can be
applied to a representation of an object and taken into the consciousness to
form experience. So, while the Deduction establishes the imagination as part of
the foundation for this possibility, along with the unity of apperception as
grounding the affinity between consciousness and cognition, it is the
Schematism that considers the application of the concepts to actual experience.
That is, once Kant has established the necessary lawfulness of nature in terms
of the understanding, and grounded its connection in the unified consciousness,
the next step was to show how this can be applied to the production of real,
objective, experience. Towards this end, we will begin by considering Kant’s
chapter in the Critique of Pure Reason
titled, “On the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding.” While
this chapter is included in the first Critique
as an element of judgment, I find it to be especially useful in further
clarifying the power of the imagination and additionally serving as a
springboard into the imagination in the third Critique.[3]
Kant expresses the requirement
for the unity of intuitions and concepts as, “the concept must contain that
which is represented in the object that is to be subsumed under it,” but Kant
also notes, “pure concepts of the understanding, however, in comparison with
empirical (indeed in general sensible) intuitions, are entirely un-homogeneous,
and can never be encountered in any intuition” (Kant 2000, A137/B176).Therefore,
there must be a ‘third thing’, to use Kant’s words, that guarantees the
homogeneity, or fit, between what is intuited by sensibility and the concepts
of the understanding. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that the concept
contains what is represented by the object sensibly, therefore rendering the
concept empty. This third thing, however, must in some sense be, at once, both
amenable to the sensible representation and
the concept or, as Kant says, “intellectual
on the one hand and sensible on the
other” (Kant 2000, A138/B177). Considering Kant’s description of the
imagination in the Deduction, the faculty of the imagination fits too well into
these parameters to simply be a coincidence.[4]
Let us first turn to the role
of the imagination in the formation of schema. In the Schematism, we see a
definition of both the schema and schematism:
pure
concepts a priori, in addition to the
function of the understanding in the category, must also contain a priori formal conditions of
sensibility (namely of the inner sense) that contain the general condition
under which alone the category can be applied to any object. We will call this
formal and pure condition of the sensibility, to which the use of the concept
of the understanding is restricted, the schema
of this concept of the understanding, and we will call the procedure of the
understanding with these schemata the schematism
of the pure understanding (Kant 2000, A139/B178-A140/B179).
Schemata contain the sensible conditions for the
application of the concept to the object of representation. Much like Kant’s
claims in the Subjective Deduction, sensible intuitions need to be shaped into
an amenable form for our conceptual apparatus. Here, we are given schemata as
the actual features that bridge the gap between represented objects and our
concepts. That is, the Schematism moves from the logical processes of the
faculties into the actual application of concepts onto objects of experience. Essentially,
it is the same process from the Deduction to the Schematism – the formation of
cognition; however, this distinction serves to not only clarify the purpose of
the Schematism but sheds light on the function of the imagination as well. It
is also worth noting here that Kant indicates a procedure, schematism, in which
the understanding operates upon a schema of a represented object. The
imagination comes into play when Kant specifically names the schema as “always
only a product of the imagination” (Kant 2000, A139/B178-A140/B179) That is,
like in the A-Deduction, the imagination’s activity is once again made clear
not simply as a mediating factor between our sensibility and concepts, but as
grounding their necessary unity, since the schema, as a product of the
imagination, contain the formal conditions for the application of a concept to
an object of sense. However, unlike the
Deduction, the imagination in the Schematism focuses on the real unity between
sensibility and the concepts, or a concept’s ability to be actually applied to
an object of sense, rather than the necessary conditions grounding their
application.[5] To reiterate the point for emphasis, the schema provided
by the imagination are not then a mediating, incomplete image somewhere between
sense and concept. Rather, they are the forms of the imagination that condition
the unity of sense and concept, making their homogeneity possible. Or, we can
understand the form here as that which serves to guarantee the fit between
sensible object and concept. In this way, Kant’s formulation of schemata
provides an early example of what, I argue, the imagination exhibits fully in
the third Critique –the ability to provide
the formal conditions for experience. Certainly, this capacity is limited and
subsumed in the cases outlined in the Schematism; however, the Schematism lays
the groundwork for the workings of the imagination in Kant’s later explanation
of reflective judgment in the third Critique.
There will be more to say on
the connection between the imagination’s role in the Schematism and its
relation to aesthetic judgments later. For now, the importance of the
imagination through its role in the Schematism demonstrates its position as an
independent faculty within the framework of the first Critique. That is, Kant reiterates at the beginning of the
Schematism that there is a gap between the application of concepts to sensible
objects, a gap that reflects the problem in the Deduction, as that between the
grounding of sensibility and thought.[6] In the Deduction, the imagination’s synthetic
capacities served to bridge the gap; in the Schematism, the imagination’s
ability to form schemata to guarantee the relation between concept and sensible
object provided a similar connection. Viewed in this way, the Schematism
demonstrates an overlooked power of the imagination, a capacity that is veiled
by its relation to the understanding in the formation of cognition. However, I
argue that this capacity still represents a formal capacity that can be seen
with more clarity later in the Critical project. That is, the imagination in
the Schematism reveals a form-shaping capacity to sensible experience that
reflects its treatment as an independent and unified transcendental faculty
that retains its essential functions across the Critiques.[7]
Concluding
the section with my analysis of the Schematism, I suggested that the Schematism
demonstrates the imagination as a form-shaping faculty through its focus on the
application of concepts to objects. While
Kant does not represent the full power of the faculty of the imagination in any
section of the Critique of Pure Reason,
the ground is there for a highly involved faculty that goes beyond reproduction
and mere facilitation between sensibility and the understanding. Instead, the
imagination is a critical, unifying faculty for the possibility of experience,
demonstrated in its grounding of pure apperception with the lawful manifold. Put
another way, the imagination as early as the Schematism demonstrates an active,
productive capacity in the formation of cognition, rather than simply acting as
a reactive facilitator between sense and the understanding. Further, in terms
of the real application of concepts to representations, it demonstrates a
limited form-shaping capacity, albeit at this early stage in the service of the
understanding. This is the extent of the imagination that we can read from the
first Critique. We will see in the following
sections how Kant brings about the full determination of the imagination in the
third Critique. This complete
demonstration will reveal that the imagination serves a formal role in
aesthetic judgments.
III: Schematism and the Bridge between Pure Reason and
the Power of Judgment
I will now turn to the task of bridging the gap, so to
speak, between the imagination as it appears in the Deduction and Schematism,
and the imagination in its fullest capacity in the third Critique. Since Kant does not directly discuss schematization in the
third Critique, my claim that this
provides a bridge between the two texts requires clarification before moving
onto the imagination in reflective judgment. Earlier, I argued the Schematism
is related to the Deduction on the grounds that the latter deals with the
possibility of applying concepts to intuition, while the former deals with
their actual application. In this way, schemata make possible the homogeneity
between sensible objects and out concepts, without being reduced to either component.
Another way to put this is that schemata make sensibility rule-governed by
serving as the necessary condition unifying the heterogenous aspects of our
experience, namely sensibility and the concepts of the understanding. As Kant
writes in the Introduction to the Analytic of Principles:
The
peculiar thing about transcendental philosophy is this: that in addition to the
rule (or rather the general condition for rules), which is given in the pure
concept of the understanding, it can at the same time indicate a priori the case to which the rule
ought to be applied… it must at the same time offer a general but sufficient
characterization of the conditions under which objects in harmony with those
concepts can be given, for otherwise they would be without all content, and
thus mere logical forms and not pure concepts of the understanding (Kant 2000,
A135/B174-A136/B175).[8]
In the Schematism, which directly follows, Kant offers
these conditions for the actual application of concepts to sensible objects, where
the sensibly given is sufficient in reference to the concepts, thereby giving
them content and significance. What Kant indicates as a requirement then for
the actual application of concept to sensible object is a ‘condition’ for
harmony between the object and our concept. That is, Kant is making the fairly
uncontroversial claim that if there is sensibility on one end and the concepts
of the understanding on the other, then there must be some condition which
makes possible their synthesis into experience. With that harmony between
sensibility and concept, experience is possible.[9] The faculty responsible for recognizing and making
use of instances of this harmony, I argue, is the imagination.
This does not mean, however,
that the Schematism is the final word on the imagination’s power within Kant’s
framework. It is merely the final word on the imagination’s power within
cognition. It does, however, provide an avenue for the imagination beyond the
limits of cognition in the first Critique. To clarify, the imagination’s role
in the Schematism is to offer instances of harmony for the application of a
concept of the understanding. This is general power of judgment as Kant
conceives of it in the Critique of Pure
Reason as, “the faculty of subsuming under rules, i.e., of determining
whether something stands under a given rule or not” (Kant 2000, A132/B171). The
third Critique – The Critique of the Power of Judgment – has more to say on the
subject of judgment. Judgment in the Schematism was guided by a rule towards the
goal of applying a concept of the understanding to an object of sensibility.
However, now crossing the gap from the imagination in the Schematism to the
imagination of reflective judgment, Kant puts us in the position to consider
the imagination, not merely as the faculty guided by the goals of the
understanding but guided by something entirely different. Yet, as the same
faculty of the Deduction and Schematism, it maintains a connection with the
sensible given and the harmony between the given and the concepts.
Before going into my
consideration of the imagination in the third Critique, it is important to explain why the gap between the
imagination in the Deduction and Schematism, and the imagination in reflective
judgment needs to be bridged at all. I contend that without a bridge between
the imagination as a synthetic faculty of the understanding and the imagination
as a free faculty in reflective judgment, there is a risk of splitting the
imagination into two distinct faculties, where the operations of the imagination
in the Deduction and Schematism illuminate nothing in terms of free play. What
is at stake if we do not consider this bridge is twofold: 1) It puts in
jeopardy the establishment of a unified picture of the imagination across
Kant’s Critical framework; and 2) it ignores the key functions of the
imagination in the first Critique as
a synthesizing faculty and as the faculty at work overcoming the gap for the
real application of concepts to objects of experience. Both of these are
important features of the imagination that ultimately shed light on what Kant
hopes to achieve for the faculty in the third Critique.
We see this hard division of
the imagination in Makkreel’s interpretation of the imagination. That is, in
order to gain access to a free and independent imagination, Makkreel sees fit
to largely sever the connection between the imagination across the first and
third Critiques. Beyond the textual
implications that bring into question the unity of Kant’s Critical framework,
my concern goes further in suggesting that Makkreel’s reading splits the
imagination into two separate faculties. That is, the interpretive imagination
of the third Critique retains no link
with the schematizing imagination of the first Critique. We can begin to see this towards the beginning of his
analysis of the imagination in the third Critique.
Makkreel writes, “the extent to which the conditions of the first Critique can be transferred to the third
Critique is limited by the different
functions assigned to the imagination in its aesthetic setting” (Makkreel 1990,
p. 49) Under the conditions of aesthetic judgment, the imagination is not
restricted to remaining the handmaiden of the understanding, or simply
providing a reading of sensibility amenable to our conceptual application.
However, Makkreel takes the next step to claim that the actions of the
imagination in the first Critique are
not really applicable to the imagination in the third Critique is questionable to the effect of suggesting that if they
exhibit different functions to the point of not being applicable across
different experiences, they may not be the same faculty.
The root of Makkreel’s
division is the imagination’s synthetic activity in the construction of
sensible experience. Recall that in the formation of experience, the
imagination is subsumed by the goals of the understanding to shape sensible
material into an image that can under conceptual ordering. Makkreel takes this
to be the synthetic capabilities of the imagination, evinced by the quote, “The
fact that Kant concludes that all synthesis is a function of the understanding
means only that imagination is subservient to the understanding insofar as it
synthesizes” (Makkreel 1990, p. 42). Therefore, any synthetic activity of the
imagination is evidence of the imagination being subsumed by the understanding.
Therefore, Makkreel must make a clean break between the imagination as a
synthetic faculty and the imagination as an interpretive faculty. That is, the
interpretive imagination must not demonstrate any of its synthetic capacities
in the case of aesthetic experience.[10] This is a problem because in the first Critique, the imagination is revealed to
us through its synthetic capacities, or its ability to synthesize sense
material into an image for the understanding. That is, in the explication of
his doctrine of the faculties, Kant introduces the imagination as a faculty for
synthesis. To remove this aspect of the imagination for aesthetic judgments
risks the continuity of the imagination as a single faculty between its
cognitive capacities and its aesthetic employment.[11]
To conclude this section, I
will remark on how my view avoids a sharp division between the first and third Critiques, thereby providing a more
comprehensive and unified picture of the imagination within Kant’s framework.
The key feature to this is recognizing that the imagination in the Schematism
demonstrates a form-bringing capacity, even while in the service of the
understanding. In the connection between sensible objects and their concepts,
the imagination, through the schemata, offers the conditions under which the
objects can be reconciled with our concepts. These, as I have already argued,
are not the rules themselves, which are the result of the understanding, but
rather the conditions for the applications of these rules.[12] So, even in the first Critique, we can determine a form-bringing capacity of the
imagination, even when guided by the specific rules of the understanding. It is
a power granted to the imagination in judgment; and, the first Critique simply describes it in terms of
empirical judgment. This capacity will carry over into reflective judgment, as
we will see in the following section. What is worth noting for now, however, is
that taking into account the form-bringing capacity of the imagination avoids
the need to draw a strong division between the imagination in two of Kant’s key
texts. This 1) supports my claim that the imagination represents a unified and
comprehensive faculty across Kant’s framework, and 2) demonstrates the
importance of the imagination as a form-bringing faculty in that it not only
exhibits this ability in the third Critique,
which we will soon see, but also earlier in the first Critique.
IV. Reflective Judgment, Aesthetic Judgment and the
Imagination’s Formal Role
The previous section offered the form-shaping capacity
of the imagination in the Schematism as the bridge connecting its function for
cognition in the first Critique to its abilities for reflective judgment
in the third Critique. My view has the benefit of providing not only an
independent capacity for the imagination, but also avoided a possible division of
the imagination suggested by Makkreel’s interpretation. Therefore, I argue for
a faculty of the imagination that demonstrates its own capabilities that are
independent of the understanding and a faculty that is unified across Kant’s
Critical framework. The feature that both reveals the independent aspects and
serves as a connection through Kant’s framework is the imagination’s ability to
bring form to judgment, whether that role is bringing relevant sense date for
conceptual application in the formation of cognition, or, as we will see, in
reflective judgment. Now, we will see how the imagination’s form-bringing
ability is revealed as a power of the independent imagination and not simply a
function in service of the understanding. This is done through Kant’s
conception of reflective judgment in the Introduction to the third Critique.
In the Schematism, the
imagination’s activities are directed by a rule of the understanding. That is,
the imagination’s power to provide form is determined by its role to ground the
conditions for the application of a concept to the sensible manifold. This,
however, is not the final word on the power of the imagination, as exhibited in
reflective judgment. Briefly, reflective judgments are distinguished from
cognition in that no rule, or concept, is previously given. Rather, a
reflective judgment begins at the particular and searches for a universal. This
is different from the mechanism of cognition, which presents a concept to guide
the imagination, as we saw with its schematic activity. In instances of
reflection, however, there is no concept to determine the activity of the
imagination. Instead, reflective judgment reflects on the connection, or fit,
between our conceptual apparatus in general with sensible intuitions.
Therefore, reflective judgment reveals not a new capacity of the imagination,
but one that is merely obscured by the determinate aspects of cognition.[13] It is the general accord between our conceptual
apparatus and sensible nature that is the subject of the imagination’s activity
in reflection. As such, the imagination maintains its ability to produce the
conditions for the connection between sensibility and the understanding but
does so guided by its own general lawfulness rather than by a determined
concept of the understanding. The role of the imagination remarkably remains
the same. Reflective judgment maintains the form-shaping capacity of the imagination
that appears in the Schematism; however, under reflective judgment, this
ability to produce, or shape, the formal condition for the connection between
our concepts and sensible intuitions is not determined by a concept. It is an
expression of the imagination’s formal role, now independent of the
understanding.
With the imagination’s freedom
in reflective judgment described in general, we can now discuss a specific type
of reflective judgment, namely aesthetic judgments. Kant describes these as judgments
where “in the mere reflection understanding and imagination mutually agree for
the advancement of their business,” and “for which, further, no determinate
concept of the object at all is required nor is one thereby generated, and the
judgment itself is not a cognitive judgment” (Kant 2008, 20:221). There are two
points here that tie back into my earlier explication of the imagination’s
formal capacities. First, aesthetic judgment maintains an agreement, or
harmony, between the imagination and understanding, just as there was with
cognition. However, and this is the second point, this agreement is not based
on the concept. That is, the imagination is not guided in its capacities by a
concept of the understanding; rather, the imagination engages in mutual
advancement with the understanding.[14] Like in the Schematism, the imagination recognizes
harmony between sensible nature and a system of order; however, unlike the
Schematism, this harmony is independent of any specific concept of the
understanding. The understanding, if you recall, provides the order for the
imagination in the Schematism. Kant points to this ground between the
imagination and the understanding when points out before the quoted passage
above that in an aesthetic judgment, the apprehension of the manifold by the
imagination agrees with the concept of the understanding, yet the specific
concept is undetermined.[15] This frees the imagination from the guidance of the
understanding while retaining its earlier capacity to recognize harmony between
sensibility and our conceptual order. In this way, aesthetic judgments
represent the first time that the imagination’s dual role capacity is revealed
without the laws of the understanding obscuring its true activity.[16] In short, even without the concept acting as a force
of proof for the imagination’s activity, the form of its amenability to nature
is still recognized and produced, as we see in aesthetic judgments. Further, it
is in this reflective activity that we can see the power of the imagination’s
ability to shape form, or conditions, that unify the sensible manifold with our
concepts.
Before continuing into the formal
role of the imagination and its abilities in terms of harmonious free play, it
is worth noting a potential objection with this position. The potential
objection is that in providing a formal aspect of experience, the imagination
demonstrates a particular law, or rule – an ability Kant strictly reserves for
reason and the understanding. I admit that the imagination in its formal role reveals
a lawfulness, while not a specific law, as would be the case of the
understanding.[17] That is, the imagination is engaged in reflective
judgment, and thereby demonstrates the lawfulness of this capacity. As we saw,
the form provided by the imagination in aesthetic judgment is not determinate
in the same manner as the law provided in cognition. In this way, the
imagination is not legislative in the same sense as the understanding. Instead,
the harmony between the imagination’s lawfulness in reflective judgment and the
understanding in aesthetic judgment points beyond the experience of nature as a
mechanism and to an artistic view of nature.[18]
This section has demonstrated
that reflective judgment best reveals the formal capacity of the imagination
due to the lack of determination by a concept of the understanding. That is,
reflection shows a capacity of the imagination that is fundamental, even though
it is largely hidden in cases of cognition. This ability of the imagination is
its capacity to recognize harmony between the sensible manifold and our
conceptual ordering and shape the grounds or conditions for their unity. Reflective
judgment, and aesthetic judgment in particular, provided an opportunity to see
this as a power of the imagination through its lack of a determinate concept.
Further, the imagination’s ability to independently shape the form for
aesthetic judgment resulted in a kind of lawfulness for our capacity of
reflective judgment. It is the nature of this lawfulness that will show the
full extent of the imagination’s formal capacity made evident in the case of
nature’s purposiveness and the free harmony of the faculties.
V. Nature’s Purposiveness and the Lawfulness of the
Imagination
The previous section referenced the mutual agreement
between the imagination and understanding in cases of aesthetic judgment in
order to solidify the connection between the form-shaping power of the
imagination in service of the understanding and the free formal powers
demonstrated in aesthetic reflection. Now, I will examine this mutual agreement
in terms of the imagination and understanding as faculties, and what is reveals
as valuable for aesthetic judgments.
Imagination in its formal capacity
demonstrated it was capable of producing form, or its own lawfulness, without
the determination of a concept. This, of course, does not mean the imagination
is unfettered in aesthetic reflection to spontaneously produce forms at its
will; rather, the imagination retains its unique position as a faculty rooted
both in sensibility and our conceptual ordering – a position that it holds from
the first Critique. The idea of the imagination demonstrating lawfulness
in aesthetic reflection does not exclude the presence of a concept. Rather, the
difference between a reflective judgment and a determinate judgment in this
regard is the force of proof carried by the concept. That is, in reflective
activity like aesthetic judgment, the concept carries no force of proof. For
example, we might say a rose is beautiful, but it is not the concept ‘rose’
itself that proves this judgment. We do, however, still utilize the concept
‘rose’ to determine a sensible experience, even though the experience exceeds
the concept. What is more interesting, however, is that the imagination’s
relation to sensibility also serves as a guide, even in aesthetic judgment,
since the products of the imagination remain sensible.[19] It is this connection that will bring into focus the
benefit of the imagination’s lawfulness in reflective judgment as revealed
through its dual role.
Aesthetic
judgment, as a result of judgment’s reflective capacity, requires a principle.
However, unlike cognition, where the concept determines the judgment, aesthetic
reflection receives its guiding principle from itself, namely the purposiveness
of nature.[20] Nature’s purposiveness, stated briefly, is the
principle that nature itself is ordered in a manner that is amenable to our
power of judgment. That is, nature, independent of our conceptual ability to
order experience, follows a discoverable and lawful pattern. Kant expresses
this as, “Nature specifies its general
laws into empirical ones, in accordance with the form of a logical system, in
behalf of the power of judgment” (Kant 2008, 20:216). This principle,
however, is not meant as an objective determination of sensible nature.
Instead, it is a principle adopted by our faculty of judgment for its own use
to facilitate reflection. So, judgment adopts the principle of nature’s
purposiveness in order to carry out reflective activities, like aesthetic
reflection. Let us consider how the principle of purposiveness then fits into
my picture of the imagination’s formal capacity in aesthetic judgment.
The
imagination, across Kant’s Critical framework as I have argued, deals with the
connection between sensible nature and our experience, be it directed by a
concept or by another form of lawfulness. Reflection adopts a principle that
presupposes the lawfulness of nature for its own activity. I claim that this
principle of nature’s purposiveness is the lawfulness of the imagination, or
the result of its activities as revealed in aesthetic judgment. The imagination
cannot make its own laws; however, the principle of purposiveness is not a law
in the same sense as those prescribed by reason or the understanding. In fact,
the principle of purposiveness fits the kind of lawfulness that I have been
arguing for the imagination in its formal role. First, it determines nothing
about the object. The claim is not that nature is purposive, but simply
that nature can be reflected upon as if it were purposive. Second, and
more important to my position, it is revealed in the exact manner as the
imagination’s formal capacity. That is, where we found harmony between intuition
and concept, we found the form-bringing capacity of the imagination. This
capacity was brought into focus through reflection, where there was no concept
to guide the imagination, yet the connection was still possible.
For the
principle of purposiveness, again, the point of focus is the connection between
sensible intuition and our conceptual apparatus in general, which is then
brought into relief by the lack of a determining concept. It is the imagination
in its directed formal role that makes the possibility of connecting sense and
concept possible in the first place, as seen in the Schematism. Now, with the
principle of nature’s purposiveness, we see the full expression of this ability
in the form of this lawfulness in reflective judgments. Staying true to the
imagination as a faculty that retains a tie to sensibility, this lawfulness is
not an expression of the imagination itself, but one of nature as if it were an
independently ordered system. That is, the inspiration for reflective
judgments, like aesthetic judgments, must still be the result of sensible
nature; however, once taken by the imagination in its form-shaping capacity,
the lawfulness demonstrated is the product of reflective judging, guided by the
form given by the free imagination. So, given the capacity of the imagination
as both a sense-shaping and form-shaping faculty, we can ground the principle
of purposiveness within our transcendental faculties, since it is the
imagination in its sensible and formal roles that make possible the revelation
of this principle through the capacity of reflective judgment.
It is
important to note that Kant does not specifically mention the imagination in
the formulation of the principle of reflection. However, I argue that the
principle of purposiveness is the result of the imagination’s formal capacity
by carrying over the capacities of the imagination from its role in the first Critique to reflective judgment in the
third Critique. In the Deduction the imagination provides the
transcendental conditions for the unity of sensibility and concepts of the understanding.
The Schematism reveals the imagination as further providing the grounds for the
actual application of a concept to sensible intuition. Reflective judgment
reveals the underlying assumption at work in the previous capacities of the
imagination, namely that there are points of harmony between sensible nature
and our ability to order experience based on our conceptual apparatus. The
difference, I have argued, is the presence of a concept as a force of proof.[21] Absent that concept, we still find the principle of
purposiveness active in reflective judgment; only now, it is rightfully shown
as a result of the imagination’s ability to harmonize sensible nature and
either a concept of the understanding, or the principle of reflection. To
clarify, the principle of purposiveness made possible by the imagination’s dual
role is the result of viewing the imagination as a faculty that grounds the
unity, transcendental or actual, between sensibility and the understanding. My
position demonstrates consistency for the imagination across Kant’s framework
that can only be adopted if we consider the imagination in its formal role where
it not only provides the sensible material for aesthetic reflection but also
the form for the principle of purposiveness in reflective judgment, or nature’s
amenability to being governed by rules independent of our understanding.
VI. Harmonious Free Play and
the Imagination’s Formal Capacity
With the principle of
purposiveness acting as the rule for aesthetic judgment, we are now in a position
to consider how the imagination’s formal capacity brings the form provided by
this rule to aesthetic judgments. Further, since aesthetic judgments are
special in that, while not determined by a concept of the understanding, they
still require the presence of a concept. This unique position requires that the
imagination in this dual, sensible and formal, capacity relate to the
understanding without being subsumed by it, as it is in cognition. Therefore,
the relation between the imagination and understanding in aesthetic judgment is
distinct from their activities in the first Critique.
How Kant describes this new relation as one of harmonious free play and this
play between the faculties and the imagination’s dual role is the subject of
the current section.
I will begin briefly
with a description of harmonious free play as it appears in the third Critique. Kant distinguishes an
aesthetic judgment of reflection from an aesthetic judgment of sense based on
the source of the pleasure. While judgments of sense are based on the immediate
representation of the object, Kant writes, “in the aesthetic judgment of
reflection, however, it is that sensation which the harmonious play of the two
faculties of cognition in the power of judgment, imagination and understanding,
produces in the subject insofar as in the given representation the faculty of
the apperception of the one and the faculty of presentation of the other are
mutually expeditious” (Kant 2008, 20:224). The pleasure in an aesthetic
judgment is the result, not of the object itself, but the harmony of the
imagination and understanding. In addition, rather than the imagination being
subsumed under the rules of the understanding, we find in aesthetic reflection
a ‘mutually expeditious’ relationship.
This mutually expeditious
relationship is key not only in revealing a free, non-hierarchical,
relationship between the imagination and understanding, but also in suggesting
another lawfulness made possible by the imagination, since it is capable of a
mutual relationship with the essentially law-giving understanding. We find
support for this aspect of the imagination later in the third Critique when Kant writes, “Thus only a
lawfulness without a law and a subjective correspondence of the imagination to
the understanding without an objective one – where the representation is
related to a determinate concept of an object – are consistence with the free
lawfulness of the understanding… and with the peculiarity of a judgment of
taste” (Kant 2008, 5:241). Here Kant points out the inherent lawfulness in
aesthetic judgments, but specifically points to this lawfulness as existing in
the correspondence of the imagination and the understanding. The lawfulness
demonstrated in harmonious free play is not a result of the understanding
alone, but a shared aspect of both faculties. That is, the imagination makes
possible an applicable lawfulness, which we recognize as the principle of
purposiveness, in free play that harmonizes with the lawfulness of the
understanding.[22] We find additional evidence for this independent
lawfulness in the First Introduction. Kant writes:
If,
then, the form of a given object in empirical intuition is so constituted that
the apprehension of its manifold in
the imagination agrees with the presentation
of a concept of the understanding (though which concept be undetermined), then
in the mere reflection understanding and imagination mutually agree for the
advancement of their business, and the object will be perceived as purposive
merely for the power of judgment (Kant 2008, 20:221)[.]
The imagination in harmonious free play apprehends the
manifold of the object. This is its usual operation upon sensibility. However,
in terms of the presentation of the object, or the application of a concept to
an object, harmonious free play yields the object as merely purposive for the
power of judgment. Explained otherwise, in aesthetic reflection the object is
judged as purposive not to the understanding but to the power of judgment,
whose principle is the result of the imagination’s form. So, rather than the
absence of a rule due to the indeterminacy of a concept, harmonious free play
reveals a different sort of lawfulness, namely the principle of purposiveness,
which is made possible by the formal capacities of the imagination. In this
way, harmonious free play exhibits the ability of the imagination to provide
the formal component of an aesthetic judgment through the object of the
judgment’s presentation as purposive for the power of judgment.
Imagination’s dual role as the
provider of content and form for aesthetic judgment is a controversial claim,
but not one without textual basis in the third Critique.[23] The above passages suggest a power of the imagination
as a formal faculty in harmonious free play; however, they lack the explicit
mention of the imagination as a formal faculty. While Kant states that the
formation of rules and laws are reserved to the understanding and reason, there
is some degree of oscillation on this very point. As such, it is worth bringing
these passages to notice before concluding my assessment of the imagination’s
dual role in harmonious free play. In the section of the Introduction titled
‘On the Aesthetic Representation of the Purposiveness of Nature,’ Kant
specifically mentions the imagination’s capacity to apprehend forms outside of
its subsumption by the understanding. He writes:
If
pleasure is connected with the mere apprehension of the form of an object of
intuition without a relation of this to a concept for a determinate cognition,
then the representation is thereby related not to the object, but solely to the
subject, and the pleasure can express nothing but its suitability to the
cognitive faculties that are in play in the reflecting power of judgment,
insofar as they are in play, and thus merely a subjective formal purposiveness
of the object. For that apprehension of forms in the imagination can never take
place without the reflecting power of judgment, even if unintentionally, at
least comparing them to its faculty for relating intuitions to concepts. Now if
in this comparison the imagination (as the faculty for a priori intuitions) is unintentionally brought into accord with
the understanding, as the faculty of concepts, through a given representation
and a feeling of pleasure is thereby aroused, then the object must be regarded
as purposive for the reflecting power of judgment (Kant 2008, 5:189-190).
Forms of an object can be apprehended without the
determinate concept of the understanding, thereby becoming purposive only to
the power of judgment. However, these forms must be apprehended by a faculty,
which must in these cases be the imagination. The imagination, unlike the
understanding in this context, cannot apprehend forms without the reflective
power of judgment. However, given the imagination’s dual capacity, this can be
easily worked through by reaffirming the principle of purposiveness, the rule
for reflective judgment, as the result of the imagination. Therefore, the
imagination’s limitations here are overcome by its ability to ground, or make
possible, the lawfulness of reflective judgment, i.e., the principle of
purposiveness. The forms revealed through the principle of purposiveness are
then put into use by the imagination’s second ability to compare intuitions
with concepts. So, the imagination, through its own principle, fashions the
forms and brings them into comparison with our concepts. Free play then is the
bringing into accord the results of the form-apprehending imagination with the
understanding as the faculty of concepts. Given the above passage from the
third Critique, I argue that we can
form a picture of the imagination that not only furnishes aesthetic judgments
with the intuition to be compared with concepts, but the forms as well.
The effects of this position in
terms of aesthetic judgment can be understood by going back to the source of
the imagination’s ability to ground the principle of purposiveness. The
imagination recognizes forms in nature that exceed the anticipated fit between
our concepts and the sensible intuition. Therefore, the imagination does not
schematize as it does for cognition, but rather shapes a form to more
adequately represent this supposed natural order to the judging subject. Since
this order cannot be fully conceptualized, the imagination operates on the
assumed lawfulness of nature in providing this form, thereby adopting its own
principle of purposiveness that then acts as the principle for all reflective
judgment. If this were the final word on aesthetic judgments, then they might appear
as peculiar, perhaps interesting, but ultimately peripheral accidents of human
experience. However, harmonious free play becomes the vital piece of Kant’s
aesthetics in that it brings the supposed lawfulness of nature into relation
with the understanding in what should be a very surprising manner. As we have
seen in Kant’s descriptions, this interaction of the imagination’s formal
product with the understanding is, in special cases, harmonious or mutually
enlivening.
While more can be said on the
pleasure of this interaction, since this work is intended to open the way for a
sensible and formal picture of the imagination, what is important is the
overall meaning of this harmony from the standpoint of the possibility of
bridging the gap between nature and reason. Certain natural forms are found by
the imagination to be capable of harmony with our own conceptual ordering
without submitting to the specific rules of the understanding. What this
suggests, albeit indeterminately in cases of aesthetic reflection, is that
there may be an order in nature that is more than merely indifferent to human
experience.[24] Nature suggested through the imagination’s discovery
of this order is ordered in a way that agrees with the experiences and demands
of our faculties, despite the gulf that Kant finds between nature and reason.
This not only reveals the value of aesthetic reflection in general but also
highlights the role of the imagination in bringing this order to our awareness.
Since the understanding’s concepts are removed from sensible nature, it cannot
grasp this order outside of the imagination’s activity. Further, the
imagination’s formal capacity provides the added ability to not only prepare
the sensible manifold for conceptual application, but also its ability to bring
its own formal products, inspired by the possibility of nature’s own order, to
our awareness in harmonious free play. As I have noted, this brings the
possibility of bridging the chasm between nature and reason into view. Further,
it moves aesthetic reflection from an interesting facet of human experience to
a fairly substantial feature of humanity’s place within nature. The further
application of this link is beyond the scope of this paper; however, what I
have sought to demonstrate is the possibility of this connection at the
transcendental level of the faculties. By connecting the recognition of
nature’s order to the imagination in its formal as well as its sensible role, I
have argued the transcendental ground for not only the principle of purposiveness
in reflective judgment but the possibility of the bridge between nature and
reason.
VII. Conclusion
In this paper, I have argued that the Schematism
demonstrates the imagination as a form-shaping faculty through its focus on the
application of concepts to objects. While
Kant does not represent the full power of the faculty of the imagination in any
section of the Critique of Pure Reason,
the ground is there for a highly involved faculty that goes beyond reproduction
and even mere facilitation between sensibility and the understanding. In terms
of the real application of concepts to representations, it demonstrates a
limited form-shaping capacity, albeit in the service of the understanding. This
is, however, the extent of the imagination that we can read from the first Critique. The imagination’s activity in
the Schematism provided a basis for understanding its power in reflective
judgment and served as a bridge between the first and third Critiques. We saw this power come to the
forefront in aesthetic judgment as the imagination demonstrated its dual role
in providing the form for the judgment in addition to its recognized ability to
provide the sensible content for all judgments. Aesthetic reflection revealed a
lawfulness in the form of the principle of purposiveness, a principle adopted
by reflection that suggests nature as independently ordered and not merely the
result of a mechanistic construction of the understanding.
Rather than this staking out a
domain for the imagination, like that of the understanding in cognition, this
lawfulness served as a point of reflection on the harmony exhibited between the
form inspired by nature and those of the understanding. The result of his
harmony, presented in incidences of pleasurable free play, was the recognition
of not only an order existing in nature but also that order’s amenability to
humanity’s rules and laws. In this way, aesthetic judgments given my position
directly refer back to the stated goals of the third Critique that aesthetic reflection is to serve as a bridge between
the domains of nature and reason, or our sensible existence and moral demands.
As such, I consider the formal capacity of the imagination as vital to a
comprehensive view of Kantian aesthetics that meets the requirements that Kant sets
for this particular type of judgment. In addition, I have shown that not only
does it provide a strong interpretation of aesthetic judgments, but it also
serves to connect the imagination as a faculty across Kant’s framework, thereby
avoiding either a deflation of its abilities or a division of the faculty. I
have argued then we have the imagination as a unified faculty from the
Schematism of the first Critique to the harmonious free play of the
third Critique. This was achieved through its newly identified formal
capacity that, in addition to providing the sensible content for our judgments,
is also capable of providing a formal lawfulness as well. Further, we have a
view of the imagination that is able to return to the original goal of the
third Critique, which is to reveal,
albeit indeterminately, an accordance between nature and reason that points
further to the achievement of the human moral project within the sensible
realm. While this specific subject offers additional avenues for further consideration,
I have revealed the ground for the imagination to serve as the formal faculty
guiding this endeavor through its formal and sensible roles in aesthetic
judgment. As such, the imagination’s formal capacity provides a viable and
attractive position for not only considerations of aesthetic judgment, but as a
view for the imagination in Kant’s overall Critical framework.
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