Abstract

With his Critique of Judgment, Kant aimed to establish a connection between the Understanding, concerning the sensibly cognizable, and Reason, concerning the domain of the intelligible, completing, thus, his critical system of Reason. However, to establish this bridge over the “incalculable gulf fixed between the domain of the concept of nature […] and the domain of the concept of freedom, as the supersensible” is not as easy as it may seem: since each of these faculties has its own ground, it is not legitimate for us to establish a direct link between the sensible and the intelligible. Thus, even when Kant claims “beauty as a symbol of morality” one cannot link Ethics and Aesthetics if not at a transcendental level, merely by an analogy between their forms of reflection. It is only by analogy that we can hope to find moral significance in nature – but that does nothing to reduce the importance of this significance for the Kantian system. This paper dwells on the Kantian doctrine of symbolization of morality and the moral meaning of the beautiful on nature.