Robert R. Clewis

Aesthetic normativity continues to be of interest in contemporary aesthetics, and significant contributions to the topic can be found in neo-Kantianism. This article examines the account of aesthetic normativity presented by Jonas Cohn (1869–1947), a member of the Southwestern school of neo-Kantianism and author of a 1901 book on aesthetics. Cohn's Kantian-Hegelian theory of aesthetic normativity deserves more examination than it has so far received. Even if one does not accept all of its main arguments, Cohn's theory offers an interesting alternative to the third Critique's account of the universal validity of aesthetic judgments, and it reveals how Kant's aesthetic theory was appropriated at the turn of the century. Since a number of objections can be raised against Cohn's account, however, at the end of the paper I raise several of them.

Commonly regarded as one of the most serious philosophers of all time (this is a man who took his daily walk at precisely the same time each day), Kant's Humorous Writings explores a dimension of Kant's work that has hitherto been almost entirely ignored but which casts his philosophy into a new light. With entirely new translations of Kant's bon mots, quips, and anecdotes, supplemented by historical commentary and numerous illustrations, this guide outlines just why these pieces were important to both the man and his work.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society by Riccardo PozzoRobert R. ClewisPOZZO, Riccardo. History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. vi + 231 pp. Cloth, $94.99In a forward-looking proposal, Pozzo lays out his vision for a multidisciplinary history of philosophy "from a global perspective." This book is "a long position paper, an extended essay dedicated to twenty-first century policies of philosophical research from a global perspective." The chosen format is a Denkschrift, that is, a memorandum in the sense of a document that experts lay out for their government to ponder. Perhaps, Pozzo suggests, the history of philosophy could even have an impact on economic authorities and policymakers. Indeed, the work seems driven by the laudable aim of promoting access and equality around the world. The author reveals a just concern for migrants in particular, since they bring [End Page 156] with them their intellectual traditions and philosophical texts, which can be translated and thereby foster intercultural dialogue.The book consists of an introduction (chapter 1) followed by nine chapters. It has a thirty-page references list as well as subject and name indexes. In part one, Pozzo argues for the need for new narratives in the history of philosophy (chapter 2), in order to establish its role in addressing migration (chapter 3). The second part concerns reflective society (chapter 4). It considers societal readiness (chapter 5) and cultural innovation (chapter 6). Part three explores the paradigm shift from a close reading of texts to a "distant" reading of corpora (chapter 7), a shift Pozzo endorses. It examines implications for the translation of languages (chapter 8) and the translation of studies (knowledge) and competencies (chapter 9). Chapter 10 concludes by briefly reflecting on the notions of the "fluidity" of peoples and their ideas, biodiversity (and food), and spiritual humanism based on dignity.Scholars in the history of philosophy "should be open to the idea of a pluriversum of a history of facts and places, whereby history of philosophy finds its grounding in spatial heterogeneity." Nowadays, when people migrate and transfer competencies at increasing velocity, the "history of philosophy can be usefully reinvented on the basis of its consideration of intercultural dialogue." Pozzo considers the World Digital Library to be "one of the most exciting examples of corpora that talk to each other"—an idea he uses not merely metaphorically. By "corpora" is meant not just the sum of separate books, but XML-accessible complete collections of traditions of texts, with corresponding dictionaries, thesauri, and reference works, which make it possible to analyze a number of original texts as well as transliterations into other alphabets or hanzi characters. The result would be a "data-driven" history of philosophy.Given that history of philosophy is a product of culture, it is influenced by migrating peoples, who bring philosophical ideas and religious traditions with them. Research on migration thus ought to also consider translations of texts and competencies from one to another context, be it linguistic, economic, political, or cultural. The humanities, and a reflective society more generally, might provide a partial basis for intercultural dialogue. The history of philosophy might even thereby improve the quality of life of citizens.Pozzo rightly emphasizes that we need multilingual philosophers and historians of philosophy. History of philosophy ought to also be based on robust lexical and historical considerations, and historians of philosophy should be trained in a number of the world's languages as well as face the challenge of dealing with multilingualism and with validating translations. Pozzo's proposed methodology, informed by computational techniques, relies on tools such as vocabularies, ontologies, concordances, frequencies, or the analysis of texts and corpora, which integrates quantitative and formal methods into the portfolio of the methods of history of philosophy and intellectual history. Since Pozzo has published [End Page 157] widely on Kant, it is fitting that he explores Kant on migration as well as the editorial contexts and translation projects concerning the philosopher's writings.As for aesthetics, Pozzo notes that the history of philosophy can reflect on migrants' cultural and artistic creations. Historians of philosophy should thus start observing and interpreting phenomena created by...

Organized around eight themes central to aesthetic theory today, this book examines the sources and development of Kant's aesthetics by mining his publications, correspondence, handwritten notes, and university lectures. Each chapter explores one of eight themes: aesthetic judgment and normativity, formal beauty, partly conceptual beauty, artistic creativity or genius, the fine arts, the sublime, ugliness and disgust, and humor. Robert R. Clewis considers how Kant's thought was shaped by authors such as Christian Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten, Georg Meier, Moses Mendelssohn, Johann Sulzer, Johann Herder, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Henry Home, Charles Batteux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire. His resulting study uncovers and illuminates the complex development of Kant's aesthetic theory and will be useful to advanced students and scholars in fields across the humanities and studies of the arts.

This article focuses on the conceptual relationship between awe and the experience of the sublime. I argue that the experience of the sublime is best conceived as a species of awe, namely, as aesthetic awe. I support this conclusion by considering the prominent conceptual relations between awe and the experience of the sublime, showing that all of the options except the proposed one suffer from serious shortcomings. In maintaining that the experience of the sublime is best conceived as aesthetic awe, I draw from historical theories of the sublime as well as recent work in empirical psychology.

While it may at first sight seem strange that Kant decides to spend seven pages of the third Critique discussing jokes and laughter, it would be a mistake to conclude that these considerations are irrelevant to his aesthetic theory and general philosophical goals. Laughter at humour is an important and meaningful human experience, worthy of attention and philosophical analysis. In particular, then, I maintain that laughter in response to humour does not, on Kant’s view, count as a pure aesthetic judgment. But, I argue, if one grants that laughter at humour can lead to a pure aesthetic judgment, the judging in response t​o a humorous joke would be analogous, but not identical, to the experiences of the sublime and the beautiful. Finally, I argue that humour-elicited laughter, as a play with aesthetic ideas and thoughts, is of interest to reason since offers a hint of reason’s activity in the sensible world.

My aim is both theoretical and practical. By characterizing what I call points of convergence between analytic and continental philosophy, I offer suggestions about how to bridge the gap. I do not attempt to retrace the moment at which the divide occurred nor offer historical explanations of the rift, but instead discuss points of convergence, with reference to Kant. I summarize this discussion in two tables. I give theoretical and practical suggestions for moving forward. I conclude with some comments on the need for dialogue and reflect on the historicity of philosophy. I compare the current situation to that of ancient Greece and Rome, when there was also a plurality of schools. By comparison, philosophers today specialize more, making it difficult to converse with philosophers from other schools or even to other sub-disciplines within their own school. Moreover, there is an enormous quantity of philosophical texts to read, and contemporary philosophers are not very tied to the idea of philosophy as the love of wisdom. The paper’s topic opens up the deeper queries, “How does philosophy differfrom scientific and other disciplines” and “What is philosophy?” It includes a bibliography of the recent, growing literature on the divide.

The first English-language anthology to provide a compendium of primary source material on the sublime. The book takes a chronological approach, covering the earliest ancient traditions up through the early and late modern periods and into contemporary theory. It takes an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to this key concept in aesthetics and criticism, representing voices and traditions that have often been overlooked. As such, it will be of use and interest across the humanities and allied disciplines.

within western philosophy, there is a long and rich tradition of treating the beautiful and the good as closely related and mutually reinforcing.1 Different models of the relation have been proposed. An ‘identity’ model can be seen in Plato’s identification of the beautiful and the good in the Symposium and perhaps in the Greek notion of kalokagathia.2 Yet, according to Plato’s Republic, the form of the good illuminates, and differs from, the forms of beauty and truth: “both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they,”3 suggesting that beauty is a mode of the good. Likewise, according to Plotinus’s chronologically first treatise, “On...

Kant’s geographical theory, which was informed by contemporary travel reports, diaries, and journals, developed before his so-called “critical turn.” There are several reasons to study Kant’s lectures and material on geography. The geography provided Kant with terms, concepts, and metaphors which he employed in order to present or elucidate the critical philosophy. Some of the germs of what would become Kant’s critical philosophy can already be detected in the geography course. Finally, Kant’s geography is also one source of some of the empirical claims in his philosophical works, including the Critique of the Power of Judgment. To give an example of this, I examine his account of the sublime.

This article identifies three distinct temporal notions in Hume’s aesthetics: passing the test of time, repeated viewing of a work, and the personal aging of the critic. It applies these ideas to the evaluation and enjoyment of films. It characterizes positive, negative, and ambivalent film aging, which are associated with nostalgia, boredom, and comic amusement, respectively, and which bear on our enjoyment, not evaluation, of film. The paper discusses Allen’s Zelig, Antonioni’s La Notte, Cameron’s The Terminator, Lucas’s Star Wars, Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu.

In this book Robert R. Clewis shows how certain crucial concepts in Kant's aesthetics and practical philosophy - the sublime, enthusiasm, freedom, empirical and intellectual interests, the idea of a republic - fit together and deepen our understanding of Kant's philosophy. He examines the ways in which different kinds of sublimity reveal freedom and indirectly contribute to morality, and discusses how Kant's account of natural sublimity suggests that we have an indirect duty with regard to nature. Unlike many other studies of these themes, this book examines both the pre-critical Observations and the remarks that Kant wrote in his copy of the Observations. Finally, Clewis takes seriously Kant's claim that enthusiasm is aesthetically sublime, and shows how this clarifies Kant's views of the French Revolution. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's philosophy.

The author examines whether Kantian ethics would condone the use of pharmaceutical drugs to enhance one’s moods and cognitive abilities. If key assumptions concerning safety and efficacy, non-addictiveness, non-coercion, and accessibility are not met, Kantian ethics would consider mood and cognitive enhancement to be impermissible. But what if these assumptions are granted? The arguments for the permissibility of neuroenhancement are stronger than those against it. After giving a general account of Kantian ethical principles, the author argues that, when these assumptions are granted, Kantian ethics no longer justifies the prohibition of neuroenhancement, and responds to two objections.

This study characterizes Kant's understanding of the relation between aesthetic and moral judgment by examining the concept of sublimity in three of Kant's texts: the Beobachtungen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen, the Bemerkungen in den " Beobachtungen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen", and the Kritik der Urteilskraft. Part I examines aesthetic and moral judgment in the Observations and the Remarks; Part II characterizes Kant's account in the later or critical period; and Part III contains my English translation of the Remarks.