Chapter 2 describes Kant’s developing views of free beauty and of “form,” a term widely used throughout all phases of his aesthetics. If Kant is a formalist of some kind, which kind is he? The chapter argues that there are strong, moderate, and weak formalisms in Kant’s aesthetic theory, both early and late.

Chapter 8 shows that Kant’s thoughts on humor can be viewed as part of his wider aesthetic theory. Kant’s view of laughter at humor can be interpreted in terms of his theory of a harmonious free play of the faculties. What are the sources of his account of humor, and how did his thoughts about humor develop? Kant combines elements of incongruity, superiority, and release theories of humor. While responding to authors such as Moses Mendelssohn, Thomas Hobbes, and the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Kant adds his own, more original, thoughts about humor by appealing to his theory of a free play between the imagination and understanding. Once Kant begins to understand aesthetic responses in terms of a harmonious free play, it puts him in a position to connect humor to his aesthetic theory.

Chapter 3 examines adherent beauty or partly conceptual beauty. How are beauty and the good related? Like Johann Georg Sulzer and David Hume, Kant distinguishes between free beauty and purpose-based beauty, or the kind grounded in the purposes or aims of the object or artwork. Even in his early aesthetics, Kant holds that beauty and goodness are distinct concepts yet can be conjoined. Purpose-based beauty is central to Kant’s early aesthetics, and he calls it “self-standing.” This kind of beauty is retained in the third Critique in the form of adherent beauty, yet a fundamental shift occurs: he there calls free beauty “self-standing.”

Chapter 6 characterizes the development of Kant’s views of the sublime in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and other pre-Critical writings and materials. The description of the sublime in the third Critique is shaped by Kant’s moral turn and his interest in a principle of natural purposiveness. The chapter shows how the early Kant synthesizes the ideas of Edmund Burke on the one hand and Alexander Baumgarten and Moses Mendelssohn on the other. It reveals how Kant shifts from a psychological–anthropological account of the sublime to a non-empirical, transcendental one.

The closing remark offers three points for further reflection. First, Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment is full of inner tensions. Some of them can be traced back to his working through various sources and to his drawing from different aspects of his earlier views. Second, Kant’s early aesthetics may have more to offer than scholars and commentators realize, and some of his early ideas are worth examining more closely. In addition, his mature or Critical account continues to inform current discussions in the philosophy of art and art criticism. Third, not all of Kant’s ideas, whether early or late, can be readily applied to aesthetic theory and philosophy of art today.

Chapter 5 examines Kant’s modern theory of the fine arts with reference to his predecessors, in particular, Charles Batteux and Christian Wolff. Kant experiments with different classificatory themes over the years. Starting in the mid-1770s, Kant conceives of aesthetic experiences of fine art as evoking a free play between the imagination and understanding, distinguishes fine art from handicraft, and views the fine arts as products of genius (and spirit) that express or exhibit aesthetic ideas.

Chapter 1 surveys philosophers from the German and British aesthetic and intellectual traditions with which Kant directly engages in the third Critique and pre-Critical materials. What is the role of rules in his early aesthetics? Laying the foundation for some of the book’s later analyses, the chapter shows how the early Kant synthesizes ideas from his German and British predecessors.

The introduction to the book offers an overview of the study’s aims, contents, and methodology.

Chapter 7 explores ugliness and disgust (Ekel). In providing an overview of the third Critique position, the chapter argues that there cannot be pure aesthetic judgments of the ugly. In his early accounts, Kant views the responses to ugliness and disgust as unpleasant and therefore as (what Kant would call) “interested.” He typically discusses ugliness and disgust in connection with a teleological perspective of the whole of nature and of natural purposes. The ugly is disagreeable, since it is dysfunctional or asymmetrical (or both). A version of this view carries over into the third Critique. The ugly, if and when it is judged by the principle of nature’s purposiveness, would be contrapurposive and therefore disagreeable.