Beauty, Ugliness and the Free Play of Imagination ― An Approach to Kant's Aesthetics

This book presents a solution to the problem known in philosophical aesthetics as the paradox of ugliness, namely, how an object that is displeasing can retain our attention and be greatly appreciated. It does this by exploring and refining the most sophisticated and thoroughly worked out theoretical framework of philosophical aesthetics, Kant’s theory of taste, which was put forward in part one of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The book explores the possibility of incorporating ugliness, a negative aesthetic concept, into the overall Kantian aesthetic picture. It addresses a debate of the last two decades over whether Kant's aesthetics should allow for a pure aesthetic judgment of ugliness. The book critically reviews the main interpretations of Kant’s central notion of the free play of imagination and understanding, and offers a new interpretation of free play, one that allows for the possibility of a disharmonious state of mind and ugliness.

In addition, the book also applies an interpretation of ugliness in Kant’s aesthetics to resolve certain issues that have been raised in contemporary aesthetics, namely the possibility of appreciating artistic and natural ugliness and the role of disgust in artistic representation.

Offering a theoretical and practical analysis of different kinds of negative aesthetic experiences, this book will help readers acquire a better understanding of his or her own evaluative processes, which may be helpful in coping with complex aesthetic experiences. Readers will gain unique insight into how ugliness can be offensive, yet, at the same time, fascinating, interesting and captivating.

Mojca Kuplen is a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Science in Budapest, Hungary. She completed my doctorate in Philosophy in June 2013 at the Central European University in Budapest. Her research work has so far resulted in four publications. One paper, entitled ‘Disgust and Ugliness: a Kantian Perspective,’ was published in 'Contemporary Aesthetics'. Another paper, entitled ‘Guyer’s Interpretation of Free Harmony in Kant’ was published in Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics. Her conference paper on ‘Aesthetic of Ugliness: a Kantian Perspective’ has been published in the 'Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics'. Her recent paper, entitled ‘Kant and the Problem of Pure Judgments of Ugliness,’ was published in 'Kant Studies Online'. Her current research project is focused on the relation between aesthetic concepts and cognition. She has presented her work in various international conference presentations and invited lectures, most notably at the American Society of Aesthetics Eastern Division Meeting in Philadelphia, European Society for Aesthetics and British Society of Aesthetics Annual Conference in Cambridge.