mohammadreza hosseini beheshti

Immanuel Kant in Critique of the Power of Judgment has formulated logical function of the judgment of taste according to moments of quality, quantity, relation and modality. In explaining the quality of the judgment of taste, he introduces disinterested satisfaction and dissatisfaction as the object of the faculy of taste, and in this respect distinguishes the beautiful and its related judgment from the interested pleasure of the agreeable and the good. Despite the fact that Kant has explained the meaning of the interest in the field of practical criticism, he defines the interest as a satisfaction with “the existence of an object” in third critique. Such a definition denies any possibility of connection between satisfaction with the beautiful and faculty of desire. However, in §41 and §42 of third critique, he discusses the Possibility of “an empirical and intellectual interest in the beautiful”. The inclination to repeat the encounter with the artistic matter as well as the beauty of nature on the one hand and the feeling of disinterested satisfaction with the existence of the object on the other hand, creates an apparent contradiction in the relationship between interest and the beautiful. The present essay intends to eliminate or at least reveal the probable complexity of reading Kant's definition about interest and possibility of linking it with the beautiful in his aesthetics.

In this essay, we are trying to inquire and critique Allen Wood's ideas about the problem of formalism in Kantian Ethics. Wood is one of Kant's interpreters who has been dealing with the formalism problem for so many years. Once he believed that the problem is a real challenge for Kant's ethical thought and then he tried to suggest a solution for it.At first, we try to explain the theoretical foundation of the problem and in light of that show the importance of the problem for judging Kant's ethics and illustrate why and how the formalism problem was brought about. In the second part, we explain Wood's approach to the problem and critique the final position of him as an advocator. Then deal with critiques that Wood's solution can not handle; the critiques that Robert Pippin suggests and their foundations are in Hegelian heritage. In conclusion, we show that why ascribing a theory of value can not overcome the formalism challenge. In the same part, we introduce an approach that can help solve the problem; an approach that claims that we may be able to fill the emptiness of moral law and rational moral agent in Kant's ethics by focusing on Kant's philosophy of history and philosophy of religion provides. Contents that can shed light to solve the problem by connecting moral agents to the world and his concrete entity.