Kant on Beauty and Biology

Rachel Zuckert is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern University.

• Introduction; 1. The problem: unity of the diverse; 2. Reflective judgment and its principle: preliminary remarks; Part I. Teleological Judgment: 3. The critique of teleological judgment: purposiveness is the 'highest formal unity'; 4. A merely subjective principle: time and the 'peculiarities of our intellects'; Part II. Aesthetic Judgment: Introduction; 5. Beautiful objects: subjectively purposive form; 6. Aesthetic pleasure: the feeling of subjective, projective temporality; 7. The free harmony of the faculties: purposiveness as the principle of aesthetic Beurteilung; 8. The justification of aesthetic judgment: purposiveness as the principle of reflective judging; Conclusion.

Review of the hardback: '… impressive in its intellectual scope, its clearly-written quality, its well-informed, considerable citation of the secondary literature in Kant scholarship and its manner of arguing for a variety of nuanced positions that arise within the text's many subthemes. It is a contribution that stands solidly on the shoulders of the presently leading Kant scholarship and that integrates itself well into it.' British Journal for the History of Philosophy