Lisa Schmalzried

The antinomy of kitsch comprises two conflicting yet widely accepted claims: first, kitsch and art are incompatible; secondly, some art is kitsch. The key to solving this contradiction is distinguishing between kitsch as an aesthetic category and an aesthetic, art-critical property. As an aesthetic category, kitsch is an artifact, performance, or practice whose dominant function is to enable self-enjoyment by effortlessly evoking emotional reactions of the “soft” emotional spectrum with a “sweet” phenomenological quality in a large group of people. Based on this definition, kitsch and art are two mutually exclusive aesthetic categories. As an aesthetic property, kitsch is the disposition to effortlessly evoke emotional reactions of the “soft” emotional spectrum with a “sweet” phenomenological quality by supervening on the kitsch typical features. So, everything kitsch is also kitschy, but not vice versa. Therefore, art can be kitschy, although it is not kitsch.

It is natural to describe experiences of human beauty as involving attraction. This attraction thesis presumably contracts Kant′s thesis of disinterestedness. Therefore, I examine both theses and their compatibility. First, I will propose to analyze experiences of human beauty as experiences of amiability. Secondly, I will argue that amiability experiences are disinterested in a weak but not strong sense. My third point is that Kant defends strong disinterestedness. It follows from the assumption of the free play of our powers of cognition which is, for him, essential to explain the subjective-objective-hybridity of beauty judgments. Aesthetic dispositionalism provides another way to explain this hybridity, however. This explanation is not committed to the strong claim of disinterestedness. And it is compatible with the amiability thesis. So, one has no compelling reason to accept Kant′s claim that all beauty experiences, including those of human beauty, need to be disinterested in a strong sense.

Person x believes that y is a fictional character and does not exist. X has a y-directed emotion. If one has an emotion, one believes that the intentional object of this emotion exists. Otherwise, the emotion vanishes or, if not, becomes irrational. These three, initially plausible assumptions constitute the paradox of fiction. To solve this paradox, one must negate one of them. The theory of illusion rejects P1, assuming that one temporally loses the nonexistence-belief. The theory of projection denies P2, claiming that the object of the emotions is only prima facie a fictional character. The theory of quasi-emotions also abandons P2. The fictional-character-directed emotions are no real, but quasi-emotions. Nowadays, most writers attack P3 and assume that a mere thought about x is enough to have an x-directed emotion. The paper intends to show how these solutions are connected with different theories of emotions. A feeling-theory of emotion and also a wide cognitive theory leads to the rejection of P3 whereas a strict cognitive theory defends P3. The crucial insight is that no matter which theory of emotion one accepts the paradox dissolves. So the paper presents a metatheoretical solution of the paradox of fiction.