Kant's Criticism on Baumgarten

Abstract

In a footnote in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant criticizes Baumgarten's attempt to raise the rule for our judgment of the beautiful to the rank of a science. "The rule of the rank of a science" means here the major premise from which one might, by a syllogism, draw the inference that an object is beautiful. Kant denies the possibility of such a rule because neither the empirical rules nor the a priori rule expressed in the Critique of Judgment satisfies its requirements. Baumgarten also construes "the rule of the rank of a science" as the premise from which one can deduce that an object is beautiful. But, unlike Kant, he believes in it and expresses it in his Aesthetica §97 : "Every beauty of a part increases the beauty of the whole". Given Baumgarten's definition of beauty, this rule functions as the premise. Only when assuming Kant's conception, according to which the beauty of the parts does not guarantee the beauty of the whole, this rule is false. But Kant falsely attributed his own conception to Baumgarten. His criticism of Baumgarten is based on this misunderstanding.