Pragmatic Theories

Question 1

Subject

Answer 1

A subject is a conscious self that perceives.

Question 2

An object

Answer 2

An object is an unconscious thing that does not
perceive but is, rather, perceived by a subject.

Question 3

What epistemological concern do both Burke and Kant raise regarding art?

Answer 3

Both Burke and Kant raide the epistemological response to art, which is subjective,
concerned with the mental experience of the
subject.

Question 4

How is judgment acquired and what process lead to its development?

Answer 4

Judgment is gained through an increase in
understanding brought about by a long, close
study of the object of sensation.

Question 5

What is the relationship between judgment and reason?

Answer 5

Judgment is a higher critical faculty that is closely
linked to reason

Question 6

What role does imagination play in relation to sense perceptions?

Answer 6

Imagination takes the raw material offered by sense
perceptions and recombines it in a new way.

Question 7

What components contribute to the formation of the faculty of taste?

Answer 7

The faculty of taste is the mental product of
imagination plus judgment.

Question 8

What direction does imagination typically lean towards?

Answer 8

Imagination tends toward synthesis.

Question 9

In what direction does judgment typically incline?

Answer 9

Judgment tends toward analysis

Question 10

What role does sensibility, or imagination, play in taste according to Burke, and what does he ultimately prioritize as the true foundation of good taste?

Answer 10

Sensibility (i.e. imagination) is essential to taste, but
Burke finally gives preference to judgment as the
true foundation of good taste.

Question 11

How do Romantics diverge from Burke’s preference?

Answer 11

Romantics will shift this preference, privileging
imagination over judgment, synthesis over
analysis.

Question 12

For Burke, what types of terms are “sublime” and “beautiful” considered to be?

Answer 12

Sublime and beautiful are epistemological terms
for Burke

Answer 13

Beauty and sublimity are not qualities of the
object.
Beauty and sublimity are faculties of perception
that can be categorised.

Question 14

How is the sublime defined in terms of its effect on human emotions?

Answer 14

The sublime is that which inspires in us feelings of
awe.

Question 15

Astonishment

Answer 15

Astonishment is that moment in which all motion
is suspended and our minds are filled totally by
an object or thought

Question 16

How is the sublime experienced?

Answer 16

The sublime is experienced not only through eye
and ear, but through all the senses.

Question 17

How is the sublime associated with terror, despite the absence of actual danger, as compared to Aristotle’s concept of catharsis?

Answer 17

The sublime is linked to terror, yet no actual danger
must be present (cf. Aristotle’s catharsis).

Question 18

Kant wrote

Answer 18

Critique of Judgment (1790), it explores the
nature of aesthetic
perception.

Question 19

How does Kant characterize the judgment of the beautiful

Answer 19

For Kant, the judgment of the beautiful is purely
subjective.

Question 20

Judgments of beauty are..

Answer 20

Judgments of beauty are not cognitive (logical,
rational) but aesthetic

Question 21

How does Kant conceptualize art as a manifestation of human freedom rooted in rational agency?

Answer 21

Kant understands art as a practice of human freedom
deriving from our rational agency. The creative drive is an elemental, primordial human
need.

Question 22

Cognitive judgments

Answer 22

presuppose
fixed ideas and work to establish
fixed concepts.

Question 23

Aesthetic judgments

Answer 23

work through
our feelings and neither rest on any
concepts nor seek to generate any.

Question 24

What is the basis of aesthetic judgment

Answer 24

Aesthetic judgment rests in a non-conceptual
awareness of a harmony between imagination and
understanding.

Question 25

What challenge does the concept of the beautiful pose to thinking and discourse

Answer 25

The beautiful challenges thinking and discourse
because it claims to present that which no language
can adequately express.

Question 26

Purposeless purpose

Answer 26

A work of art is an end in itself in the mind of someone making a proper aesthetic judgment.

Question 27

The pleasurable

Answer 27

is an interested emotion that seeks
some kind of gratification from the object.

Question 28

The beautiful

Answer 28

is purely disinterested: it seeks nothing
from the object and makes no demands on it.

Question 29

According to Kantian reasoning, what characterizes aesthetic judgment?

Answer 29

In the Kantian reasoning, aesthetic judgment is a
free and disinterested delight. Aesthetic judgment is indifferent to the existence
of the object and free of all internal prejudice and
external restraint.

Question 30

subjective universality

Answer 30

The judgment of beauty is purely subjective, yet
paradoxically, universally felt

Question 31

What distinguishes aesthetic judgment from cognition

Answer 31

Aesthetic judgment engages imagination and
understanding for pleasure, not for cognition.

Question 32

Kantian aesthetic judgment focuses

Answer 32

on form
because form has a finality about it.

Question 33

How may a poem’s form be approached in terms of its purpose

Answer 33

A poem’s form may be studied as an end in itself,
as a purposeless purpose; as such, it lies in the
realm of aesthetic judgment.

Question 34

Aesthetic forms appeal

Answer 34

to the imagination

Question 35

Imagination

Answer 35

is the spontaneous, independent
mental power that is both enlivened and set
free by aesthetic ideas.

Question 36

What characterizes the subjective experience with beauty

Answer 36

With beauty, the subjective experience is
comparable to a feeling of harmony in the free
play of imagination and understanding.

Question 37

How does the subjective experience with sublimity manifest itself

Answer 37

With sublimity, the subjective experience
manifests itself in terms of a disharmony (or
struggle) between imagination and reason.

Question 38

The beautiful is characterised by:

Answer 38

1) boundedness in form;
2) presentation of quality;
3) a feeling of life’s being furthered;
4) a play in the imagination;
5) a positive pleasure.

Question 39

The sublime is characterised by:

Answer 39

1) formal unboudedness;
2) presentation of quantity;
3) a momentary inhibition of vital forces;
4) an emotion of seriousness;
5) a negative pleasure that both attracts and repels
the mind as admiration and respect.

Question 40

What response does the experience of the sublime elicit

Answer 40

Experience of the sublime forces imagination to
turn to reason in our inability to comprehend its
magnitude or stand up to its might.

Question 41

the Kantian catharsis

Answer 41

Humans are supra-sensible creatures. We have an
ability think beyond the given boundaries, to endure
and transcend pain and terror

Question 42

How does Neoclassicism reconcile grounding art in nature while defining art by its differences from nature?

Answer 42

Neoclassicism grounds art in nature “while
continuing to define art by its differences from
nature”

Question 43

What is art’s function according to neoclassicism

Answer 43

For neoclassicism, art’s function is to show
nature at her best through decorum.

Question 44

Because of Kant, Romanticism …

Answer 44

discovers art in
nature

Question 45

Genius vs. decorum - Kant

Answer 45

Kant opposes the spirit of imitation to genius. Genius is marked by originality and inspiration that
cannot be based on rules and role models.

Question 46

Kant’s notion of genius

Answer 46

enables him to reconcile
the idea of purpose/intent with artistic activity. The artist has a ‘natural endowment’, a special
gift that enables him to create artworks.

Question 47

How does the Kantian concept of genius differ from the neoclassical sense of decorum

Answer 47

The Kantian concept of genius stands in contrast
to the neoclassical sense of decorum.

Question 48

What do Burke and Kant emphasize regarding the aesthetic experience

Answer 48

Burke and Kant inaugurate an epistemological
conception of the aesthetic experience and they
highlight the pragmatic dimension of aesthetic
judgment, at the heart of which lies the
perceiving subject.

Question 49

How do Kant and Burke view the beautiful and the sublime

Answer 49

For Kant and Burke, the beautiful and the
sublime are epistemological terms which
organise the ways in which we relate our
subjectivity to the world.

Question 50

What is the basis of the modern conception of aesthetic judgment according to Kantian reasoning

Answer 50

The Kantian reasoning about art as a
purposeless purpose lies at the basis of the
modern conception of aesthetic judgment,
paving the way for critical theories which focus
on the internal relations within a work of art.