Thursday, January 26, 2006

Can't (under)stand Kant !?!

"Poetry [Dichtkunst] (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and is least willing to be led by precepts or example) holds the first rank among all the arts. It expands the mind by giving freedom to the imagination and by offering, from among the boundless multiplicity of possible forms accordant with a given concept to whose bounds it is restricted, that one which couples with the presentation of the concept a wealth of thought to which no verbal expression is completely adequate, and thus raises itself aesthetically to ideas. It invigorates the mind by letting it feel its faculty - free, spontaneous, and independent of determination by nature - of regarding and estimating nature as phenomenon in the light of aspects which nature of itself does not afford us in experience, either for sense or understanding, and of employing it accordingly in behalf of, and as a sort of schema for, the supersensible. It plays with semblance [Schein], which it produces at will, but not as an instrument of deception; for its avowed pursuit is merely one of play [Spiel], which, however, understanding may turn to good account and employ for its own purpose."

(Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement)

No comments: