El libre juego de facultades : belleza y conocimiento en Kant

Abstract

This article deals with the texts of The Critique of the Aesthetic Faculties in which Kant defines beauty as the "free play of the facuIties".Thus analysing mainly the expression, "free pIay of the faculties for cognition in general", it explains the relation between beauty and cognition in Kant. The probIem remains centered in the Kantian distinction between the "subjective" character of beauty and the "objective" character of cognition. The author of the article emphasizes in particular the connection between the communicability of cognition and the claim the feeling of beauty has on universality. On the other hand, reflecting on the meaning of free play, he presents the domain of cognition as a limitation and even as fallen from pure subjectivity. The article concludes with the criticism of both Schiller, who goes beyond Kantian formalism by means of material sensibility, and Gadamer, who gives play an ontological dimension on which the interpretative dynamism of subjective representation depends.