João Lemos

Kant accuses bad rhetoric of being a deceitful art. In this article, I give an account of both what it means for Kant that bad rhetoric deceives and how this art deceives in the first place. Additionally, I explore significant moral and aesthetic repercussions of bad rhetoric’s being deceitful. The article is structured into Part A and Part B. I start by reconstructing Kant’s technical definition of deception as disagreement between the semblance and the cognition of truth. I go on to argue that bad rhetoric deceives by promising more than it provides. I show that bad rhetoric deceives technically. In Part B, I identify a distinctive trait of deception in bad rhetoric. By exploring this trait, I shed light upon Kant’s moral criticism of bad rhetoric, and I ultimately suggest Kant’s perspective on the appropriate aesthetic response to this art.

This introduction presents an overview of the special issue of Con-Textos Kantianos devoted to Kant’s aesthetic theory. The articles in this issue have been organized into two sections: those written by keynote-authors, and those written in response to the general call for papers. Within each of these two sections, articles have been organized thematically, although the philosophical traditions that they engage with, as well as points of contact between articles, have also been considered. In the first section, keynote-authors address questions of aesthetic normativity; the role of aesthetics in the acquisition of empirical concepts; the emotional nature of aesthetics; subjectivity and disinterestedness; connections between aesthetics, anthropology, and politics; and aesthetic non-conceptualism. The second section begins with contributions dealing with matters of formalism and conceptualism in Kant’s aesthetics, as well as their relation and relevance to thinking about art, the arts, and contemporary art. It continues with papers that address key issues of Kant’s aesthetics, such as the free play and the role of imagination, as well as possible complementarities between the three Critiques. It closes with articles that focus on the reception of Kant’s aesthetic theory in the works of major philosophers of the 20 th century, namely within critical theory and the phenomenological-hermeneutical tradition.

This article is to be a bridge between Kant’s aesthetics and contemporary art – not by being a paper on Kant and contemporary art, but rather by being on Kant and contemporaryphilosophy of art. I claim that Kant’s views on the appreciation of art can accommodate contextualism as well as ethicism. I argue that not only does contextualism fit Kant’s views on the appreciation of art; in §§51–3 of the thirdCritique, Kant’s appreciation of art is in accordance with contextualism. I go on to argue that not only does ethicism fit Kant’s views on the appreciation of art; in §§51–3, Kant’s appreciation of art is in accordance with ethicism.

En este artículo examino el soporte textual para la hipótesis de que, dentro del marco de la teoría estética de Kant, la belleza artística no es necesariamente de tipo adherente –y puede ser, por consiguiente, de tipo libre. Tal examen está dividido en dos partes: en la primera parte cito y reflexiono en base a pasajes de la Crítica del juicio que sugieren que la belleza artística no es necesariamente una belleza adherente. En la segunda parte presento tres lecturas emprendidas por intérpretes de Kant que proponen, las primeras, que la belleza artística puede ser de tipo libre, mientras la última, que la belleza artística, si es de arte bello, del arte del genio que se trata, es una belleza libre.