Kant's Aesthetics and the Problem of Freedom: A Critical Examination of the Principle of Purposiveness Without Purpose
This study discusses the role Kant attributes to aesthetic experience and the possibility of transitioning into the domain of human freedom through aesthetic experience. Kant's third critique is not only an analytical investigation of the experience of the beautiful but also an original effort to create a means of bridging the gap between the necessity of natural laws and freedom. Although the central theme of the text concerns the critique of beauty, it includes a holistic discussion indicating that purposiveness in nature is compatible with freedom in the practical realm and thus addresses the problem of freedom. Unlike his first two critiques, where Kant distinguishes between the phenomenal and noumenal realms, the third critique attempts to resolve the resulting dichotomy by relating it to aesthetic experience. In other words, the third critique seeks a systematic answer to how the two realms he describes as "the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me" can be conceived together. According to Kant, the transition arising from the experience of the beautiful-that is, aesthetic experience-emerges from purposiveness without purpose, produced by the free play and harmonious interaction of imagination and understanding. These conditions constitute the sensible basis for the subject's orientation toward the idea of freedom. This study analyzes, through the concept of purposiveness and particularly the principle ofpurposiveness without purpose, whether these conditions indeed provide a genuine possibility for transition between phenomenal necessity and practical freedom.
- Dergi
- BEYTULHIKME-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
- Yıl
- 2026
- Cilt
- 16
- Sayfa
- 331-353
- ISSN
- 1303-8303
- DOI
- 10.29228/beytulhikme.88632
- WoS UID
- WOS:001724471700015