Beyond the Pleasure Principle: Autonomy in Kant’s Aesthetics
Friday 24 May, 4-6pm, Senate House: room G35.
Abstract:
Aesthetic hedonism is the view that to be aesthetically good is to please. For most aesthetic hedonists, the normativity of pleasure sources the normativity of aesthetic value. I argue that Kant is an aesthetic hedonist with a non-hedonic account of the normativity of aesthetic value. Kant sources the normativity of aesthetic value in autonomy, tying his aesthetics into a key theme of his larger philosophy.