Abstract

What Kant calls "aesthetic judgment" is better understood as a form of aesthetic response, which he also refers to as "mere judging." The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment is, then, an analysis of a relation between the mental faculties, rather than an analysis of a type of proposition, and this relation has certain formal properties in virtue of which we can find a "formalist" account of aesthetic response. My interpretation, however, is in direct opposition to other formalist theories, which argue that Kant is committed to the view that aesthetic evaluation ought to depend upon formal properties of objects. My interpretation is consistent with Kant's high regard for the content of works of art, which other formalist theories cannot accommodate. It can also account for the creative aspects of judging and interpreting art. This results in a Kantian theory of metaphor, based on his notions of aesthetic ideas and symbols. By reading Kant's discussion of poetry as a theory of metaphor, I show that Kant had good reason to consider poetry the highest art form. The interpretation of linguistic metaphors, the primary mode of poetic discourse, requires the highest level of creativity from the reader when compared to the other major art forms, painting, sculpture and music, and, further, such metaphors are the best vehicle for the representation of ideas of reason, the content of art