The Origins of Kant's Aesthetics

Robert R. Clewis is the author of The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Kant's Humorous Writings: An Illustrated Guide (2020), and the editor of Reading Kant's Lectures (2015) and The Sublime Reader (2019).

• Introduction; Part I. Aesthetic Judgment and Beauty: 1. On Rules of Taste; 2. Beauty Free; 3. Beauty Grounded; Part II. Genius and the Fine Arts: 4. Genius, Thick and Thin; 5. Classifying the Fine Arts; Part III. Negative and Positive States: 6. Meet the Sublime Now: It's a Negative Pleasure; 7. Ugliness and Disgust: Disagreeable Sensations; 8 Playing with Humor; Closing Reflections.

'… a dense history of aesthetics and a close reading of Kant's philosophy at the same time - which makes it interesting to scholars who are quite familiar with Kant's predecessors and contemporaries as well as with the work of scholars who specialise on Kant. However, it might prove to be a compass to young scholars as well who are beginning to navigate Kant's philosophy. … Clewis's monograph needs to be read for its innovative practice of turning a work of art theory into a text in itself that needs to be supplemented with a number of other sources rather than being taken for granted.' Soni Wadhwa, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics