These selections present two related ideas, each of which constitutes a link between Kant and philosophers of the next century who we will go on to read.

• Genius. (See especially HK 313-317, 321-323, 337f.) You should both think about Kant’s distinction between genius and taste and compare Kant’s idea to the neoplatonic idea of inspiration as divine madness (following Plato’s Phaedrus). Kant’s claim that “nature gives the rule to art” through genius (§46, HK 314) is hard to interpret; try to think of a couple different ways of understanding it.

• Aesthetical ideas. (See especially HK 318-321, 335-337.) The “rational ideas” Kant speaks of in discussing these are related to the “supersensible” he mentioned in his discussion of the antinomy of taste and the “ideas” of reason mentioned in his discussion of the sublime. In addition to Kant’s abstract characterizations of aesthetical ideas and aesthetical attributes, think about the examples he offers on HK 319f.

There is quite a variety of ideas in this assignment but probably the most natural issue to discuss is Kant’s claims about the relation between taste and genius, specifically, that while genius is closely associated with “beautiful art,” it is taste that is the fundamental requirement. (See the end of §48, HK 317, and §50, HK 322.) Ask yourself which of the two you take to be more important for the fine arts and why.

Finally, here are a few notes to help with some specific points in the reading.

• The plural of the term translated here as “beautiful art” (on, for example, HK 313) is the standard German translation of the French “beaux arts,” whose translation in English is “fine arts.” This phrase became common currency only in Kant’s century, so it isn’t entirely clear whether he has in mind a particular group of arts or the general idea of an art aiming at beauty (rather than at a practical value, as does the art of shoemaking).

• The following alternative translation of the first two sentences of the second full paragraph on HK 317 fits better with what Kant says elsewhere.

But taste is merely a judging and not a productive faculty, and what is appropriate conforms to it is therefore not therefore a work of beautiful art. It can only be a product belonging to useful and mechanical art or even to science, produced according to definite rules that can be learned and must be exactly followed.

• The poem Kant quotes on HK 319 is by Frederick the Great (1712-86); your text gives the original French (which Frederick, in spite of being king of Prussia, preferred to German). Kant’s book actually contained a German translation of the poem; here is an English translation of that German version made by one of Kant’s translators:

Let us part from life without grumbling or regrets,
Leaving the world behind filled with our good deeds.
Thus the sun, his daily course completed,
Spreads one more soft light over the sky;
And the last rays that he sends through the air
Are the last sighs he gives the world for its well-being.

[From Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, Werner Pluhar (tr.) (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), p. 184.]