Journal of the History of Philosophy

This collection of essays focuses on the Critique of Judgment, a work that offers material in aesthetics, but that also has much to teach us concerning the nature of non-aesthetic judgment, concept formation, teleology, and the task of investigating both the natural and moral realms. The pieces in the collection reflect these disparate features of the Critique of Judgment. [End Page 336]

The anthology will likely derive much of its value for students of Kant from the fact that it features work on the Critique of Judgment by Henry Allison, Rudolf Makkreel, Paul Guyer, and Béatrice Longuenesse. And there is, furthermore, some excitement to be had owing to the fact that challenging criticism is fired back and, to some degree, forth among these major figures of North American Kant scholarship. Makkreel focuses on Longuenesse's account of merely reflective judgment, and Guyer offers criticism of claims put forth by Allison's reading of the Critique of Judgment.

Makkreel offers his critique in an essay entitled, 'Reflection, Reflective Judgment, and Aesthetic Exemplarity'. This well-crafted piece brings to bear text from the Jäsche Logic and The Bloomberg Logic, in addition to the Critique of Judgment, in order to demonstrate how reflective judgment can act as a coordinating mode of thought. Makkreel also discusses the connections between cognition and the judgment of taste (a sub-species of reflective judgment), wherein he mentions a "suggestive" role for judgments of taste and an "orientational" role for aesthetic ideas. However, these claims concerning the judgment of taste are made within the context of a discussion of the moral significance of aesthetic ideas.

Insofar as we understand 'cognition' to refer primarily to theoretical cognition, then we must say that, in this anthology at least, none of Makkreel, Guyer, or Allison make a strong case for a cognitively-significant role for the aesthetic within Kant. One wonders if perhaps a better title for the collection might have been, 'Reflective Judgment and Cognition within Kant's Critical Philosophy'.

Makkreel takes Longuenesse to task for confusing the role of mere reflection in founding determinant judgment with the role of reflective judgment in doing the same. In this regard, Makkreel does seem to have established that Longuenesse has misread the Kantian account of the pre-determinant activity of "comparison/reflection/abstraction." Of course, simply because Kant does not, in the Logic, emphasize the role of judgment in pre-determinant cognitive activity (e.g., in concept formation or concept generation), this does not necessarily mean that judgment has no role in such activity. Thus, the reader hopes for some type of clarification from Longuenesse.

Longuenesse's own piece, though, does not respond to Makkreel's criticisms. This is a real disappointment, but it is more than made up for by the nature of Longuenesse's highly creative contribution, which is notable for considering whether the "life," whose feeling is heightened by the Kantian judgment of taste, might be thought of as being akin to the life of Hegelian Spirit.

The Guyer-Allison exchange is presented in a piece entitled, 'Dialogue: Paul Guyer and Henry Allison on Allison's Kant's Theory of Taste'. The debate presented concerning the relation between Kantian aesthetics and Kantian moral philosophy will prove worthwhile for scholars interested in the textual details of this subject. Issues concerning the nature of the principle of purposiveness are likewise dealt with in a manner that is useful for the scholar, but nonetheless there is something unsettling about the debate when it comes to the matter of this principle. Guyer raises many powerful questions about whether Kant's handling of the principle of purposiveness is consistent. And neither Guyer nor Allison is willing to accept Kant's claims concerning a grounding of judgments of taste in a principle of purposiveness as being claims that are clear, consistent, and true to reality.

The anthology also features a piece authored by Guyer alone, as well as seven other essays by leading Kant scholars. While...