Aesthetic of Ugliness: a Kantian Perspective

In the history of aesthetic thought, beauty has been construed as aesthetic value par excellence. According to aesthetic theories, beautiful is that which gives rise to the feeling of pleasure within us. Hence, aesthetic value of both nature and art works is measured in terms of the feeling of pleasure they occasion in us. Ugliness, correlated to the feeling of displeasure, on the other hand, has been traditionally theorized as an aesthetic category that stands in opposition to beauty, and therefore associated with aesthetic disvalue and worthlessness. In recent years, and particularly with the development of modern art, this traditional aesthetic picture has been widely criticized. It has been pointed out, based on the proliferation of art works that evoke intense feelings of displeasure, that ugliness can be greatly appreciated. A general objective of this paper is to propose an account of ugliness that entails, as its necessary part, the explanation of its possible appeal. In particular, I propose a solution to the problem, known in philosophical aesthetics as 'the paradox of ugliness', namely how we can value something that we prima facie do not like and find positively displeasing. I develop my explanation of ugliness in light of Kant's theory of taste. *

While Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment is an important landmark in the history of aesthetic philosophy, the language in which his discussion is framed was in many ways unoriginal. Not only was the term aesthetic in use, but also the general issues and divisions had been established – most immediately to Kant by 18th century empiricists like Hume and Burke. So Kant’s focus on the beautiful and the sublime may simply be understood as conventions of the day. Yet readers looking for Kant’s treatment of ugliness will find very little of his writing dedicated to negative judgments of taste dealing with the repulsive. What makes this paucity so tantalizing is that there seems to be a number of ways we might imagine Kant giving an account of our experience of ugliness. This has been pursued by interpreters such as Christian Helmut Wenzel and Alix Cohen, and in some sense this involves the reader building an edifice by reversing Kant’s views on beauty. But is ugliness merely the reversal of beauty for Kant, or for anyone? Other interpreters have found it impossible that Kant would countenance ugliness in his discussion of reflective judgments, such as David Shier and Paul Guyer. The reasons for this disallowance are various, and some even ask the reader to reconsider the legitimacy of Kant’s entire aesthetic on account of its failure to feature ugliness. This paper explores the state of opinion on Kant’s view of ugliness, and notes the implications that these views have for Kant’s entire aesthetic. I then proceed to show how ugliness forces itself into any thorough account of aesthetic experience, showing us something of the emotional, visceral, and cognitive force of the repulsive, unsettling, disgusting, and many other forms of the ugly. Woven through this conclusion is the ability of artisans and audiences to tolerate, accommodate, and even embrace ugliness in contexts of art and aesthetic pleasure.

Lebenswelt Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 2013

The Journal of Art and Aesthetic Criticism

British Journal of Aesthetics, 2008

A number of recent studies have claimed to explain how Kant can or cannot ac- commodate pure judgements of ugliness in his aesthetic theory. In this paper I critically review the arguments on each side of the debate and then develop a new account of how Kant might explain the pure judgement of the ugly, name- ly, by appeal to the ‘more or less’ harmonious free play of the faculties. Some implications and applications of such an explanation are then explored, including a rethink of the nature of beauty and ugliness.

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, to explain the distinction between Kant's notions of the sublime and ugliness, and to answer an important question that has been left unnoticed in contemporary studies, namely why it is the case that even though both sublime and ugliness are contrapurposive for the power of judgment, occasioning the feeling of displeasure, yet that after all we should feel pleasure in the former, while not in the latter. Second, to apply my interpretation of the sublime and ugliness to contemporary art, and to resolve certain issues that have been raised in accounting for the possibility of artistic sublimity. I argue that an experience of a genuine artistic sublimity is an uncommon occurrence. I propose that the value of contemporary art can be best explained by referring to Kant's notion of ugliness and his theory of aesthetic ideas. Resumen La intención de este trabajo es doble. En primer lugar, pretendo explicar la distinción entre las nociones kantianas de lo sublime y de lo feo, así como responder a una importante pregunta que ha