It hence follows that the rational concept of the supersensible substrate of all phenomena in general, or even of that which must be placed at the basis of our arbitrary will in respect of the moral law, viz. of transcendental freedom, is already, in kind, an indemonstrable concept and a rational Idea; while virtue is so, in degree. For there can be given in experience, as regards its quality, absolutely nothing corresponding to the former; whereas in the latter case no empirical product attains to the degree of that causality, which the rational Idea prescribes as the rule.
As in a rational Idea the Imagination with its intuitions does not attain to the given concept, so in an aesthetical Idea the Understanding by its concepts never attains completely to that internal intuition which the Imagination binds up with a given representation. Since, now, to reduce a representation of the Imagination to concepts is the same thing as to expound it, the aesthetical Idea may be called an inexponible representation of the Imagination (in its free play). I shall have occasion in the sequel to say something more of Ideas of this kind; now I only note that both kinds of Ideas, rational and aesthetical, must have their principles; and must have them in Reason—the one in the objective, the other in the subjective principles of its employment.
We can consequently explain genius as the faculty of aesthetical Ideas; by which at the same time is shown the reason why in the products of genius it is the nature (of the subject) and not a premeditated purpose that gives the rule to the art (of the production of the beautiful). For since the beautiful must not be judged by concepts, but by the purposive attuning of the Imagination to agreement with the faculty of concepts in general, it cannot be rule and precept which can serve as the subjective standard of that aesthetical but unconditioned purposiveness in beautiful art, that can rightly claim to please every one. It can only be that in the subject which is nature and cannot be brought under rules or concepts, i.e. the supersensible substrate of all his faculties (to which no concept of the Understanding extends), and consequently that with respect to which it is the final purpose given by the intelligible [part] of our nature to harmonise all our cognitive faculties. Thus alone is it possible that there should be a priori at the basis of this purposiveness, for which we can prescribe no objective principle, a principle subjective and yet of universal validity.
Remark II.
The following important remark occurs here: There are three kinds of Antinomies of pure Reason, which, however, all agree in this, that they compel us to give up the otherwise very natural hypothesis that objects of sense are things in themselves, and force us to regard them merely as phenomena, and to supply to them an intelligible substrate (something supersensible of which the concept is only an Idea, and supplies no proper knowledge). Without such antinomies Reason could never decide upon accepting a principle narrowing so much the field of its speculation, and could never bring itself to sacrifices by which so many otherwise brilliant hopes must disappear. For even now when, by way of compensation for these losses, a greater field in a practical aspect opens out before it, it appears not to be able without grief to part from those hopes, and disengage itself from its old attachment.
That there are three kinds of antinomies has its ground in this, that there are three cognitive faculties,—Understanding, Judgement, and Reason; of which each (as a superior cognitive faculty) must have its a priori principles. For Reason, in so far as it judges of these principles and their use, inexorably requires, in respect of them all, the unconditioned for the given conditioned; and this can never be found if we consider the sensible as belonging to things in themselves, and do not rather supply to it, as mere phenomenon, something supersensible (the intelligible substrate of nature both external and internal) as the reality in itself [Sache an sich selbst]. There are then: (1) For the cognitive faculty an antinomy of Reason in respect of the theoretical employment of the Understanding extended to the unconditioned; (2) for the feeling of pleasure and pain an antinomy of Reason in respect of the aesthetical employment of the Judgement; and (3) for the faculty of desire an antinomy in respect of the practical employment of the self-legislative Reason; so far as all these faculties have their superior principles a priori, and, in conformity with an inevitable requirement of Reason, must judge and be able to determine their Object, unconditionally according to those principles.
As for the two antinomies of the theoretical and practical employment of the superior cognitive faculties, we have already shown their unavoidableness, if judgements of this kind are not referred to a supersensible substrate of the given Objects, as phenomena; and also the possibility of their solution, as soon as this is done. And as for the antinomies in the employment of the Judgement, in conformity with the requirements of Reason, and their solution which is here given, there are only two ways of avoiding them. Either: we must deny that any a priori principle lies at the basis of the aesthetical judgement of taste; we must maintain that all claim to necessary universal agreement is a groundless and vain fancy, and that a judgement of taste only deserves to be regarded as correct because it happens that many people agree about it; and this, not because we assume an a priori principle behind this agreement, but because (as in the taste of the palate) of the contingent similar organisation of the different subjects. Or: we must assume that the judgement of taste is really a disguised judgement of Reason upon the perfection discovered in a thing and the reference of the manifold in it to a purpose, and is consequently only called aesthetical on account of the confusion here attaching to our reflection, although it is at bottom teleological. In the latter case we could declare the solution of the antinomies by means of transcendental Ideas to be needless and without point, and thus could harmonise these laws of taste with Objects of sense, not as mere phenomena but as things in themselves. But we have shown in several places in the exposition of judgements of taste how little either of these expedients will satisfy.
However, if it be granted that our deduction at least proceeds by the right method, although it be not yet plain enough in all its parts, three Ideas manifest themselves. First, there is the Idea of the supersensible in general, without any further determination of it, as the substrate of nature. Secondly, there is the Idea of the same as the principle of the subjective purposiveness of nature for our cognitive faculty. And thirdly, there is the Idea of the same as the principle of the purposes of freedom, and of the agreement of freedom with its purposes in the moral sphere.
§ 58. Of the Idealism of the purposiveness of both Nature and Art as the unique principle of the aesthetical Judgement
To begin with, we can either place the principle of taste in the fact that it always judges in accordance with grounds which are empirical and therefore are only given a posteriori by sense, or concede that it judges on a priori grounds. The former would be the empiricism of the Critique of Taste; the latter its rationalism. According to the former the Object of our satisfaction would not differ from the pleasant; according to the latter, if the judgement rests on definite concepts, it would not differ from the good. Thus all beauty would be banished from the world, and only a particular name, expressing perhaps a certain mingling of the two above-named kinds of satisfaction, would remain in its place. But we have shown that there are also a priori grounds of satisfaction which can subsist along with the principle of rationalism, although they cannot be comprehended in definite concepts.