American Society for Aesthetics

Wiley
The Confluence of Aesthetics and Hermeneutics in Baumgarten, Meier, and Kant
Author(s): Rudolf A. Makkreel
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter, 1996), pp. 65-75
Published by: Wiley on behalf of American Society for Aesthetics
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RUDOLF A. MAKKREEL

The Confluence of Aesthetics and Hermeneuticsin

Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

In the eighteenthcenturywe see the rise of modern aesthetics as a distinct philosophical discipline in a wide rangeof writerssuch as Addison,
Dubos, and Baumgarten. By focusing on the
disinterestednessof aesthetic pleasure,Hutcheson, Mendelssohn,and Kant, among others, are
preparedto distinguishthe aesthetic realmfrom
the theoretical and practical interests of ordinary experience. However, they in no way intend to separate the aesthetic realm from the
otherrealmsof experience. The fact thatbeauty
has its own inherent value according to Kant
does not preventit from also serving as a symbol for moral ends. Even Moritz, who defines
beautyas thatwhich is complete or perfect in itself, does not mean to make the aesthetic an autonomous domain. His definition is meant to
counter the view of Mendelssohn and Sulzer
thatthe purposeof art lies in its pleasurableoutput for us. However,Moritzinsists thatour input
is necessary for the trueexistence of the workof
art. "Wecan very well exist without looking at
beautiful artworks,but they cannot well exist as
such without our gaze."' The perfection of the
work consists in presentingus with a self-sufficient whole, but throughthe input of our gaze it
continues to imitate the world. Moritz thus
clearly stops short of later theories of art for
art's sake.2
Some have stressedthe anti-rationalistaspects
of the rise of modernaesthetics, claiming that it
pits sense, feeling, and imaginationagainst reason. But when Alfred Baeumlerthematizedthe
problem of irrationalityin eighteenth-century
aesthetics,he meant somethingdifferent,for according to him the inability of reasonto express
the individuality of sensory aesthetic phenomena was the challenge that allowed reason to
move from a dogmatic to a critical stance. The

significance of Kant's Critiqueof Judgmentfor

aesthetics is said to be that it moves beyond an
abstractsubsumptionof particularsundera universalto a more concretecorrelationof particulars in which the universaltakes on the function
of an encompassing,individuatedwhole. This at
the same time makes Kant's aesthetics relevant
for the rise of modernhistoricalconsciousness,
for the aesthetic appreciationof the individuality of humanproductscan go hand in hand with
a better understandingof them in relation to
their historicalcontext.3
However, even to see Kant's aesthetics as
grappling with Baeumler's formulation of the
problemof irrationalitymay be too extreme,for
Kantends up affirmingthe possibilityof finding
aesthetic analoguesfor rationalideas. Through
symbolical presentation we can, if only indirectly, mediatebetween sense and reason. Aesthetic reflection locates the meaning of sense
througha process of contextualizationin which
reason still plays a role. Consideredin this way,
modern aesthetics can be seen to link up with
the rise of secularhermeneutics. Insteadof concentrating on the tensions between sense and
reason, hermeneuticspoints to their continuity.
We can make a case for the intersectionof aesthetic and hermeneuticconcernsin Baumgarten
and Kant,but the relationis actuallyworkedout
by the intermediaryfigure of Georg Friedrich
Meier in his Versucheiner allgemeinen Auslegungskunst(Attemptat a General Art of Interpretation). Meier was a studentof Baumgarten,
and Kant used Meier's aesthetic writings in his
own lectures. The main purpose of this paper
will be to examine the relation between aesthetic appreciationand the problemof interpretation by consideringthe basis for linking them
in Baumgarten, and then in Meier and Kant.

The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism54:1 Winter 1996

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66

The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

The latterattachgreat importanceto the idea of

authentic interpretation,causing us to explore
the meaning of authenticityin some detail.
I. BAUMGARTEN'S
MEIER'S

AESTHETICS

AND

HERMENEUTICS

In defining the new discipline of aesthetics as

the "science of sensible knowledge,"4 Baumgarten envisioned its scope as not limited to the
fine arts. In the Prolegomenaof his Aesthetica
( 1750-1758), he foresees it as also relevantto all
the liberal arts and the practical activities of
daily life. Aesthetics has philological, hermeneutical, exegetical, rhetorical,and otherapplications.5Baumgartendid not carryout his full program and concentratedmainly on the cognitive
conditions for the appreciationof beauty. Even
his applicationsto the fine arts tend to be limited to literature.
Baumgartendefines beautyas "theperfection
of sensible knowledge."6ChristianWolffhad already describedbeauty as the sensible and pleasurableappearanceof perfection. FromWolff's
standpointthe same rationalperfection can be
appreciatedsensiblyas well as conceptually.But
Baumgarten's point is different, namely, that
despite being a lower form of knowledge than
conceptualknowledge, sensible knowledgenevertheless has its own perfection. Conceptual
knowledge is both clear and distinct; sensible
knowledgecannotbe distinct, but it can develop
clarity in ways not exploredby logic. In his Reflections on Poetry of 1735, Baumgarteninterpreted the difference between the clear and the
distinct as a difference in modes of clarity. A
clear representationdiffers from an obscureone
by having enough marks or characteristictraits
(notas) to distinguish it from other representations.7 For a clear representationto also become distinct, it must be made "intensively
clearer"8 by having its marksinternallyarticulated. Distinctness requiresthe logical explication of markswithin marksin orderto deepen or
purify the clarity of a representation. The perfection of aesthetic knowledge does not lie in
this internallogical articulation.Ratherits aim is
to make representations"extensively clearer"9
by widening their scope to encompassever more
marks.
This "extensiveclarity" is later called "richness" in the Aesthetica. Such richnessleaves an

extensively clear representationconfused rather

than distinct, but, as ErnstCassirerhas pointed
out, aestheticallythis confusion should be conceived neutrallyas a confluence thatis not at all
tantamountto disorder.'0 Baumgartenis exploiting Leibniz'sinsightthatas more characteristics
are compressed into a single representationit
becomes more suggestive of order. By gaining
extensive clarity, an aesthetic representation
may become less distinct within, but it gains
a determinacy that allows it to become more
clearly distinguishable from without, that is,
from other representations.This realizationallows Baumgartento relatethe richness(ubertas)
of extensive clarityto the specificity thatsingles
1I1As he had alreadyarout a concreteindividual.
gued in his Reflectionson Poetry,the task of the
poet is not to describe in terms of abstractuniversals, but to portray vividly individuals "determinedin every respect."'I2
If, as Dilthey claims, the ultimatehermeneutic task is the understandingof individuality,
poetic portrayalsas defined by Baumgartencan
make an importantcontribution.By locatingthe
boundaryconditionsthatmarkoff the representationof a thing from its surroundings,aesthetic
knowledgeprovidesclarityaboutthe part-whole
relationsof the hermeneuticalprocess. That is,
we understandsomething in terms of its context, as a part of a whole, but that whole in turn
only makes sense in relation to the parts that
constituteit. Aesthetically,the hermeneuticcircle is anticipatedby the process of specifying
the extensiveclarityof representations.Whereas
extensive clarityis always situationalor contextual, the intensive clarity needed for logical distinctness produces abstract marks that can be
isolatedfrom their immediatecontext. A particularmarkcan then be regardedas an instanceof
a non-situationaluniversal. Wecan thus suggest
that aesthetical extensive clarity is a condition
for hermeneutic understandingand logical intensive clarity a condition for explanation by
universals.
Baumgarten'sstudent,GeorgFriedrichMeier,
had a greaterimmediateinfluence with his more
popular, and therefore perhaps unfairly dismissed, aesthetics.In his three-volumeAnfangsgriinde aller schonen Wissenschaften (1754),
Meier used and appliedmany of the distinctions
first made by Baumgartenin his lectures, but
never fully worked out in his unfinished Aes-

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Makkreel The Confluenceof Aestheticsand Hermeneuticsin Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

thetica. Expandingon Baumgarten'ssuggestion
that clarity and richnessof aesthetic representations contribute to the "life of knowledge,"'I3
Meier describesthe liveliness of aesthetic representations with considerable psychological detail. A lively representationdoes not merely engage our cognitive faculty; it also engages our
desires and thus fills the whole mind. The more
lively a representation,the more beautifulit can
become.'4 Like Baumgarten,Meier makes use
of the concept of imitation,but he diminishesits
importanceby defining it as "astrivingto make
something similar to something else" on the
basis of "wit."15 As a consequence, only children are serious imitators;adults imitate by applying a self-conscious wit or by makingplayful
allusions. Anotherresult of this kind of imitation is parody.'6
By making wit such an important aesthetic
power, Meier also pays more attention to the
imagination and lists as its three main perfections: scope (extensio), strength (intensio), and
lastingness (protensio).17 Whereaswit by itself
can extend the scope (extensio) of the imagination, the cooperationof acumen or discernment
(Scharfsinnigkeit)is requiredif the representations being comparedare not to lose their individual strength (intensio). This appeal to acumen allows the various clear representations
that make up a whole work to "be aesthetically
proportionalto one another."'18However,if the
parts of a whole are recognized as proportional
to each other,they musthave been differentiated
in some way. This suggests a kind of imaginative differentiationas the aesthetic counterpart
to conceptualdistinctness. Whereaslogical acumen enables us to articulate representations
from within, imaginative acumen must be able
to differentiaterepresentationsfrom without.
Anotherof Meier's contributionsis his effort
to provide the application of aesthetics to hermeneutics that Baumgartenhad merely anticipated. Meier relates hermeneutics to what he
calls the last faculty of sensible knowledge, one
which involves using signs as a way to come to
know something else. According to Jean Grondin, Meier is the first to expand hermeneuticsto
interpretsigns in general, so that "any thing in
the world can be a sign or a characterinsofar as
it is a means for knowing the reality of something else."19 When a representedrelationbetween a sign and what is designated is natural,

67

then we have a naturalsign; when the relationis

based on a voluntarychoice of a thinkingbeing
then we have an arbitraryor artificial sign. Regarding this latter arbitrary relation, we can
proceed either from the designatedmatterto invent a sign for it by means of a heuristic ars
characteristica or from the sign to the designated matterby means of a hermeneutica.20 In
his Versucheiner allgemeinenAuslegungskunst
(1757), Meierdefines interpretationas based on
a clear ratherthan a distinct knowledge of the
meaning of sensible signs. The main principle
of Meier's sensible hermeneuticsis that of reasonableness or fairness (Billigkeit),21which is
the aestheticcounterpartof rationality.According to this principleone must interpretartificial,
humanly created signs as perfectly appropriate
to their subjectmatteruntil the opposite can be
proved. Just as natural signs are known to be
perfectly appropriatein a rational Leibnizian
world, so artificial signs must be assumed to
have been chosen reasonablyif we are to draw
the most possible meaning from them. Having
shown that the liveliness of many compressed
characteristicswithin an aesthetic representation is sufficient to specify a determinateindividual,the aim of the interpretationof linguistic
characteristicsis similarly to obtain a grasp of
individualmeaning contexts.
The aesthetics of Baumgartenand Meier are
focused on the appreciationof the individuality
of the objects of experience. What is striking
about Meier's hermeneuticsis its stress on the
individualityof the subjectwho is the source of
the signs being interpreted. Meier defines the
hermeneuticallytrue meaning of a sign as "the
intentionor purposefor which the authorof the
sign uses it."22 The author'smain purposedefines what Meier calls "the immediatesense" of
a sign or speech (as distinct from a mediate
sense defined by a more remote purpose). This
all-importantimmediate sense is distinguished
from the literal sense which is based on the
common usage of language. But common usage
can leave open severalpossible meanings, only
one of which is proper (eigentlich) given the
specific context. However,an interpretationis
only authentic (eigen, authentisch)23 if it discloses the immediate sense of the author. This
is usually one of the literal senses, and may even
be the proper sense, but it need not be, for the
authormay have misspoken. An interpretation

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

68
may be correct in using the linguistic and historical means available, but it can be overruled
by the authentic interpretationprovidedby the
author. Authenticity,which was initially a concern of philological criticism concerning the
genuineness of texts, is used to characterizea
type of interpretationby Meier. A factual concern about the original existence of a text is
transformedinto a concern with its originally
intendedmeaning.
In additionto authenticinterpretationthereis
also authentic explanation. This occurs when
an authorclarifies the sense of his own text by
other,clearerexpressions.The appealto authenticity, which is often said to be a hallmarkof
twentieth-centuryexistentialism (more on this
later),is here used to establish a subjectivestandard for interpretation.To be sure, it is not an
absolute standard. According to Meier,there is
initially "sufficient ground" to follow an authentic interpretation.Not to do so would be
"unfair(unbillig) because it would presuppose
that the authoreither spoke and wrote without
using his intellect or has not understoodhimself. Accordingly,an interpretermustregardthe
authenticinterpretationas true (furwahrhalten)
until it becomes evident that the author has
changed his meaning and had anothermeaning
than he says."24Meier here establishes something like Quine's and Davidson's principle of
charity,25but it is used as an aesthetic standard
for fruitful interpretation,not as an acknowledgment of the indeterminacyof meaning. In
the context of his theory of authenticinterpretation, Meier's principle of fairness is too generous in allowing authorsto make the primarydeterminationof the meaning of their works. But
subsequent counter-determinations are not
ruled out. Although it is probablethat authors
have a good sense of what they mean, we can
never be sure. We have the basis for belief, not
for knowledge.
The idea of authenticinterpretationis meant
to resistreadingtoo much into a text. Often texts
are accommodatedto an externaldoctrinalperspective, which means thatmeaning is imported
into them thatis not really there. For this reason
Meier attacks the practice of "thinking more
than the authorunderstands"26and would undoubtedly have been uncomfortable with the
Kant-inspired maxim of Schleiermacher and
Dilthey thatthe task of hermeneuticsis to make

it possible to understandan authorbetter than

he understoodhimself. Since Meier makes the
author's intention the primary determinantof
what a text means, he can be said to commit the
intentionalistfallacy. However, he admits that
someone other than the author may be better
able to follow out the text's implications. Moreover,he writes:"If an authoris to be understood
correctly, it is not also necessary for the interpreter to think what the author has thought in
the same way as the author thought it."27 The
thought must be the same, but the mode of
thinking it may be different. An interpretation
may not endow a text with more meaning than
the author gave it, nor with less. If the literal
sense contains more than the immediate sense
that reflects the author's main intention, we
must institute a restrictive interpretation;if it
contains less there is need for an "expandedinterpretation(erweitendeAuslegung)."28It seems
that the "more"that may properlybe added by
interpretationconcerns degree of clarity rather
than scope.
To sum up this section, we can say thatBaumgarten was concerned to bring out the distinctive appearanceof objectsin his aesthetics (how
things present themselves), and Meier to penetrate to the authentic core of a subjective perspective on things in his hermeneutics (how
things are taken). When we move to the role of
aesthetics and hermeneutics in Kant we will
find authenticityless directly tied to the privacy
of the individual subject. Authenticity is still
conceived subjectively, but cannot be defined
without reference to others. Just as aesthetic
judgmentsare only valid for Kant if they can in
principlebe shared,so authenticinterpretations
are implicitly intersubjective.
II. AUTHENTIC

INTERPRETATION

REFLECTIVE JUDGMENT

AND

IN KANT

Kant is most explicit about the natureof interpretationin his writings on religion. Thus, before seeing the aesthetic relevance of his conception of authentic interpretation we must
explore its more generalsignificance. Kantfirst
speaks of authentic interpretationin his essay,
"Onthe Failure of All AttemptedPhilosophical
Theodicies," of 1791.29 Here an authenticinterpretationis the self-interpretationnot just of
any author,but of God conceived as a legislator

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Makkreel The Confluenceof Aestheticsand Hermeneuticsin Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

establishing decrees. Kant shifts the term "authentic" from Meier's general hermeneutics in
the direction of religious and legal hermeneutics. The implications of such a shift are more
fully developed by Francis Lieber, a GermantrainedAmericanlegal theorist,who claims that
authenticinterpretationcomes into play when a
law or decree needs to be interpreted. Lieber
writes in his Legal and Political Hermeneutics
(1839): "If a legislative body, or monarch, give
an interpretation,it is called authentic, though
the same individuals who issued the law to be
interpreted,may not give the interpretation,because the successive assemblies or monarchsare
consideredas one and the same, making the law
and giving the interpretationin their representative, and not in their personal characters."30
Overtime the same legislative body may need to
give authentic interpretationsof its laws, but it
must do so in an impersonalway. Legislatorsderive their authorityfrom being representatives,
and thereforetheir privateintentions are irrelevant. The authorityof this kind of interpretation really makes it a "declaration.' Because
different individuals are involved, an authentic
interpretation "need not always be correct":
nevertheless, it has a "binding power."32That
the binding authority of authentic interpretations can be transferredfrom the original legislators to their successors is relevant to Kant's
own use of authenticinterpretationin relationto
the problemof theodicy.
Kant asserts that "all theodicy should really
be the interpretation(Auslegung)of natureinsofar as God manifests the intention of his will
throughit. Every interpretationof the declared
will of a legislator is either doctrinal or authentic."33 Kant does not really explain the distinction between authenticand doctrinalinterpretation. According to Manfred Beetz's study of
seventeenth-and eighteenth-centuryhermeneutics, in an authentic interpretationone clarifies
one's own sayings or writings, in a doctrinalinterpretationone clarifies someone else's.34 We
will see Kant moving beyond this particular
form of the distinction. At first, however,the authentic interpretationof God's will is claimed
literally to come from God himself in his role as
the legislator who decrees what the end of each
species of natureshouldbe. It is the philosopher
who then attemptsto interpretGod's intentions
for naturedoctrinally.Thatis, philosophershave

69

given speculativetheoreticalreasons to attempt

to show that events in nature seemingly "concan neverthetraryto purpose(zweckwidrig)"35
less be interpretedas compatible with divine
wisdom. But theoretical attempts to find such
doctrinalinterpretationsdisclosing a deeper divine purposeare in the last analysis merely "sophistical (verniinftelnd)."36Instead of basing
theodicy in theoreticalreason, we must, according to Kant, appeal to practicalreason. Returning to the theme of authenticor self-interpretation, we find the intriguingclaim thatinsofar as
we conceive God rationallyas a moraland wise
being it is "throughour reason itself that God
becomes the interpreter of his will as proclaimed in his creation."37 Kant herebyanticipates the Hegelian conception of divinity by
claiming thatit is throughthe mediumof human
practical reason that God authentically interprets his own will. As in legal hermeneuticsan
authentic interpretationpossesses an authority
or bindingnessthat is passed on throughtime.
As was indicatedearlier,the originalsense of
authenticity stems from philological criticism,
which is concernedto test whethera work is really the product of the authorthat it is reputed
to be. Here authenticity literally means being
an original source. But in Kant'sphilosophical
critique, authenticityinvolves something more
general, namely, having an appropriaterelation
to an originalsource.38 In this expandedsense,
the authorneed not be the only one who can give
an authenticinterpretation.An authentictheodicy thus becomes possible for someone who
standsin a properrespectfulrelationto God, but
not for those who claim to approximatehis omniscience.

Kantpoints to Job as an instance of someone

searchingfor an authenticunderstandingof what
has befallen him and thus indirectly strivingfor
an authentictheodicy. Job'sfriends give a doctrinal interpretationof his mysterioussuffering
by applyingthe generallyacceptedteachingthat
sufferingis God's punishmentfor unknownpast
sins. On the basis of this pseudo-explanationof
Job's suffering, they advise him to confess his
sins and thus obtain relief from his suffering
through God's forgiveness. Job, however,continues to declarethat his sufferingis inscrutable
to him and rejectstheiradvice. While recognizing his share of human frailty and the sovereignty of God's will, he relies on his own con-

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

70
science, which does not condemn him. He refuses to feign contrition as a way of obtaining
relief. According to Kant, Job'srejectionof his
friends' doctrinal interpretation is ultimately
vindicatedby God, who shows him "anordering
of the whole which demonstratesa wise Creator,
althoughHis ways remaininscrutablefor US."39
What matters is "only the uprightness of the
heart,not the meritof one's insights,the honesty
to confess one's doubts and the shunning of
feigned convictions which one does not really
feel."40 Only a genuinely felt interpretationof
his situationis authentic.
Generalizingfrom this, Kant claims thatdoctrinal theodicies pretending to give theoretical
explanationsof God's purposesin this world are
bound to fail. Only authentictheodicies based
on our moral conception of God are within our
power. They address not our scientific knowledge of the world,but ourmoralfaith. They contributenot some final truth, but a felt truthfulness. All that Job gains through his authentic
response to his sufferingis an acknowledgment
of what he holds to be true (sein Fiirwahrhalten).41

Because an authentic theodicy judges the

whole on the basis of a subjective or aestheticmoral feeling, it makes sense to relate Kant's
views on theodicy back to the work that precedes it: the Critique of Judgment. Indeed, I
believe it is possible to relate the doctrinal-authentic interpretationdistinctionback to the determinant-reflectivejudgmentdistinctionof the
Critiqueof Judgment.These two modes of judgment are distinguishedby the way in which they
relate particulars to universals. The cognitive
claims of the sciences are determinantin that
they start with universal concepts or rules and
explain particulars on this basis. A reflective
judgment, by contrast,begins with a particular
to find an appropriate universal. Reflective
judgmentcan generalizeeitherinductivelyor by
means of analogies.Both aesthetic and teleological judgments are reflective in the latter sense.
When I pronouncea rose beautiful I am not initiatingan inductiveinquiryinto whetherall roses
deserve to be called beautiful, but whether all
otherhumanbeings will find an analogouspleasure in it. When I pronouncean organismto be
purposive I regardit as functioning by analogy
with something that has been produced by design. This requiresme to considerthe organism

not in termsof generallaws, but in relationto its

own environment. Hermeneutically,we can say
that a determinantjudgment is one where the
meaning of a particularis derived from or explainedby an acceptedgeneralrule; a reflective
judgment, by contrast,begins with a particular
and searches for its significance in light of its
specific context.
We can now see that a doctrinaltheodicy is
like a determinantjudgment in appealing to a
theoreticalgeneralizationto make sense of particular events. But on the basis of what Kant
says aboutpurposivenessin natureand history,
we can conclude that a doctrinaltheodicy is really a pseudo-determinantattempt to explain
God's purposes, whereas we can only legitimately make reflective judgments about such
purposiveness. We are not able to explain the
operationsof natureby attributingreal purposes
to things, but we can describethem as purposive
by analogy with the causalityof our human,designing intellect. This reflective mode of describingthe behaviorof an organismin natureis
a way of making sense of its operationsfor ourselves as human beings. If our intellect were
more powerful we might be able to arrive at a
mechanicalexplanationof organicbehavior. As
it is, we must contentourselveswith a reflective
teleological description.The same limit applies
to theodicy. A theodicy must contentitself with
being authenticor making reflective judgments
about God's purposes in nature and history.
What an authentic theodicy and a teleological
reflective judgmenthave in common is thatthey
interpretthe world ratherthan explain it. They
make sense of the world by analogy with the
causality of our human intellect, rather than
claiming to understand fully nature's own
causality. Earlierwe saw Kantreferto Job'sresponse to his suffering as the acknowledgment
of his moralfaith in God's wisdom. But his Furwahrhalten,which was conceived literally as a
holding to be true or a kind of belief, takes on a
fuller meaning when relatedto Kant'stheory of
reflective judgmentand his critiqueof taste.
It becomes clear from Kant's discussion of
the aestheticmode of reflectivejudgmentthatto
hold somethingto be beautifulor sublimeis also
to assent to it. Specifically, what is judged to be
beautiful furthersmy feeling of life and is thus
felt as pleasurable.Judgmentsaboutthe sublime
are more complex because here we simultane-

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Makkreel The Confluenceof Aestheticsand Hermeneuticsin Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

ously feel pleasure and pain. Their overall effect, however,is still pleasurable:a kind of negative pleasure.For Kant, aestheticjudgmentsdo
not so much pronounce something true about
the object as they assent to the object in a way
that is authenticallyhuman. I test my reflective
judgmentof taste not by some externalobjective
standard but by whether my assent can be
sharedcommunally. Reflective judgmentis the
kind of judgmentthatexpands its perspectiveto
put itself in the place of everyone else. It encourages what Kant calls an expandedmode of
thought (erweiterten Denkungsart).42This expression recalls Meier's discussion of expanded
interpretation(erweitende Auslegung), but the
difference is that Meier was interestedin finding the actualmeaning given to some text by its
particularauthor. Kant'smaxim of expandedor
enlarged thought involves a sensus communis
that compares "ourjudgment with the possible
rather than the actual judgment of others."43
This maxim will be shown to provideboth aesthetics and hermeneuticsmore flexibility.
In making an aesthetic judgment I do not
need the actual or empirical consent of others,
but I do rely on a sense thatmy assentto the lifeenhancing effect of the beautiful object can in
principle be shared by other humans as well.
This is anotherway of making Kant'spoint that
I expect the agreementof others on the basis of
my own singularjudgment.44WhatI assentto in
judging somethingto be beautifulis its harmony
with whatis humanin me; in the case of the sublime I assent to what is most rational in me.
This affirmation involved in aesthetic judging
was also relevantto the Ffirwahrhalteninvolved
in Job'sauthenticinterpretationof his suffering.
That is, he could only believe in God's wisdom
by assenting to his own situation. What an aesthetic judgmentand an authenticinterpretation
have in common is that they are self-authenticating pronouncementsthat at the same time
point beyondthe self. In the case of the aesthetic
judgment I expand my horizon to include the
perspective of other human beings in general,
whereas in the case of Job's authenticinterpretation of his suffering he subordinateshis perspective to thatof the absoluteor sublime other:
God.
I have argued elsewhere for the thesis that
Kant's reflective judgments, whether aesthetic
or teleological, are interpretive judgments.45

71

They differ from determinantjudgmentsin that

they do not offer a direct knowledge-giving
reading of the things in the world. Nevertheless, they provide an indirect understandingor
interpretationof how what we already know
about the world fits together. Aesthetic judgments, being reflective, produce no empirical
knowledge, yet advance cognition in general.46
Although aesthetic judgments are not objectively meaningful accordingto Kant, they have
a subjective significance that is more than private. They possess an intersubjectivevalidity
that points to a systematic order in our experience. Referringto beautiful flowers and "free
delineations," Kant writes that they "have no
meaning (bedeutennichts), depend on no definite concepts, and yet they please."47Although
beautifulforms are mere ciphersand carry with
them no determinatemeaning, they offer us a
"trace(Spur)"or a "hint (Wink)"48that nature
may be in general agreementwith the needs of
reflective judgment.
Whereas imaginative schema for the understandingallow us to fulfill intuitivelythe logical
meaning of the categoriesso thatthey can be determinatelyapplied to the objects of sense, the
significance of beauty and sublimity lies in
aesthetic ideas that can be only indirectly or
symbolically schematized. The symbolical
presentation of aesthetic ideas creates certain
analogical relations between sense and reason
that are indeterminateat best. Yetthis symbolization provides a general orientationalframework for our experience.
Aesthetic consciousnessfor Kantdoes not involve the determinatelycontextualizedsensory
experienceof individualobjectsthatwe foundin
Baumgarten.Instead, it provides an indeterminatekindof orientationthatrelatessense andreason. Kant'sgreateremphasison the subjectivity
of the aesthetic judgment goes hand in hand
with his stress on the authenticityof interpretation. Yetno matterhow indeterminateand subjective aesthetic orientationmay be, it provides
a perspectivethatplaces the subjectin the midst
of a common world. To the extent thatI make an
aesthetic judgment I must expand my perspective to include those of other humanbeings.
This perspectival adjustmentcan be seen to
be hermeneuticallyrelevant if we relate Kant's
theory of expanded thoughtback to JohannM.
Chladenius'sIntroductionto the CorrectInter-

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

72
pretationof ReasonableDiscourses and Writings
(1742). Accordingto Chladenius'srationalisthermeneutics, interpretationis needed to reconcile
the differences that arise when there is more
than one accountof the same event from different viewpoints (Sehe-Punkte). But varying accounts from distinct perspectives need not be
contradictory. It is the task of the interpreterto
supply what is missing from any given viewpoint so that the adherentof that viewpoint can
come to understandother viewpoints. Interpretation for Chladenius is only necessary to the
extent thatthe readerof a text does not fully understandthe author'smeaning. Interpretationis
thus a mere remedialexercise of reproducingan
author's original meaning. There are as many
interpretationsof a text as there are limited
readers who need to have their partial viewpoints supplemented. Interpretationhas as its
goal the complete understandingof the viewpoint of the author,or, as in the writing of history, the reconciled understandingof the multiple viewpoints of different historians writing
about the same event. This suggests the possibility of moving beyond the self-understanding
of any particularauthor. But it is hardto be sure
that this was intended, for there exists a tension
in Chladeniuswhich can be exhibited in the following passages from his Introduction:
(?155) One understandsa speech or writing completely if one considersall the thoughtsthatthe words
can awaken in us according to the rules of reason
(Vernunft)in our mind.
(? 157) A speech or writtenwork is understandableif
it is composed (abgefaj3t)so thatone can fully understand the intentions of the author according to psychological rules.49

As Dilthey claims in his history of hermeneutics, Chladenius goes back and forth between
logical and psychological considerationsin his
hermeneutics.50 On the one hand, he seems to
place the ultimateauthorityin the psychological
perspectiveof the author.But on the otherhand,
no authorcan imagine all that can possibly be
thoughtby means of his works. One way to reconcile paragraphs155 and 157 is to posit an
ideal authorin accordance with a rationalpsychology. But then interpretationwould become

more than a remedialexercise for limited readers and assume the role of constructingan ideal
meaning thatgoes beyond restoringthe author's
originalintention.To "construct"the meaningof
a text is to give more than an immediate interpretation; it requires, to cite Lieber, drawing
"conclusions,which are in the spirit,thoughnot
within the letter of the text."'51
The ideal of constructiondoes not seem to lie
within the ambitof Chladenius'sart of interpretation. Constructionis implicit in Kant'sclaim
in the Critique of Pure Reason that we should
aim to understandan author like Plato "better
than he has understoodhimself,"'52because this
goal is conceived in terms of a conceptualcritique of doctrinal claims. The ideal of critical
understandingis to subjectevery claim to rational conceptualanalysis. This representsthe logical concern of determinantjudgment to weed
out all possible indeterminacies. By contrast,
the ideal of authenticinterpretationthatwas discussed earlier representsthe concerns of reflective judgment. These concerns are partly aesthetic, but also reflect a broadersearch for the
meaning of our humanexistence.
I have pointed out that Kant's recognition of
the need for orientationand expanded thought
leaves our interpretationof the world somewhat
indeterminate.Similarly, the attempt to create
analogies between sense and reason through
symbolical presentation moves us beyond the
determinacyof empiricalexperience. YetKant's
willingness to relate aesthetic ideas of imagination and rationalideas about the moral good in
his Critique of Judgmentallows him to introduce some specificity in what were initially
mere abstract moral projections. Reflective
judgmentis indeterminatein that it searchesfor
as yet unknown concepts whereby we can understandexperience. It is, however,at the same
time a mode of specification in that it gives descriptive content to what were theretofore abstract regulative precepts of theoretical and
practicalreason.53
Because Kant's theory of authenticinterpretation is expansive ratherthan restorative,it is
more than a remedial operation as Chladenius
conceives it. Indeed, authenticinterpretationis
an aesthetically inspired process of discovering
the human significance of our rational aspirations. Viewed this way, interpretationhas a philosophical contributionto make in reconciling

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Makkreel The Confluenceof Aestheticsand Hermeneuticsin Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

sense and reason. For purerationalists,hermeneutics remains philosophically unimportantbecause it serves merely to make the thoughts of
others accessible. For them, the real task of
philosophersis to learn to think for themselves
by relying on their own reason. Fromthe standpoint of Kant's critiqueof reason, however,the
maxim of thinking for oneself must be balanced
by that of imaginatively putting "ourselves in
thought in the place of everyone else."'54Our
reason can never make us self-sufficient; we
also need the larger perspective of the sensus
communisto guide us in this world. What we
can understanddirectly aboutthe truthmust be
supplementedwith what can only be interpreted
indirectly. Here the perspective of the ideal
otheris as importantas ourown.55 But as much
as authenticinterpretationrecognizes the binding practical authority of some ideal other,
whetherGod or a legislator,it also requiresus to
be true to ourselves. Authenticinterpretationas
found in Kant's writings on religion and theodicy is expansive because it is situatedat the interface of theoretical and practical interests
while acknowledgingthe role of aesthetic feeling.

Taking note of Kant's reflections on authenticity is important if we are to overcome the

stereotype that the categorical and universalizing natureof his thoughtoverwhelmshumanindividuality.Job was an authenticmoral human
being for Kant precisely because he resisted the
doctrinal constraints cited by his friends. It is
easy to overlook the fact that Kant consideredit
important to philosophize not just doctrinally,
i.e., according to the Schulbegriff,but also according to the Weltbegriff. Philosophy according to the scholastic concept is merely concerned with the "skill"of arriving at a unified
system of knowledge. Philosophy accordingto
the worldly concepthas the "wisdom"also to reflect on the use of such knowledge.56 It is from
the latter, worldly point of view that Kant displays an openness that is not always associated
with his thought. In his rejection of scholastic
philosophy Kant shows a surprising affinity
with the "eclectics in philosophy who did not
align themselves with any school, but sought
and accepted the truth wherever they found
it."57 At first it may seem strangethat a philosophy concerned with authenticity-being true
to oneself-should endorse eclecticism, which

73

involves taking from others. But surely here

Kant agrees with ChristianWolff, who used the
label "eclecticism"to characterizehis own philosophy because it takes from other philosophersonly whatfits into his own outlook. Eclecticism thus understoodmakes a selective use of
the ideas of others as distinct from "syncreticism," which is an indiscriminatemix of such
ideas.58

I point to Kant's approvalof eclecticism in

philosophy to suggest that Kant may not be as
incompatiblewith twentieth-centuryapproaches
to "difference"as is generally thought. In his
aesthetics, for instance, normal ideas of bodily
beautymake allowancefor culturaldifferences.59
This is not the place, however, to argue for
Kant'scontemporaneity.Herewe can only raise
the subordinatequestion what relation the discussion of authenticityin Meier and Kant can
have with the more prevalenttwentieth-century
uses of the term. Thus, humanexistence is said
to be authenticwhen it is resolute (Heidegger)
or extricates itself from the generality of the
commonplace(Sartre).Lionel Trilling,in his reflections on the status of the ideal of authenticity, points to the Greekancestryof the word authenteo: to have full power over, to master.60
For him, the authenticindividualhas a kind of
self-masterythat makes him or her an originary
power or force. All this is still very much in the
spiritof authenticor self-interpretationin Meier
and Kant.
Trillingalso providesan illuminatingcontrast
between the ideals of authenticityand sincerity.
Both ideals concern the human subject-the
formerdifferentiatingit as a self from the other,
the latterinsisting that the inner life of the subject be honestly externalized. Whereassincerity
is the social virtue of expressing one's inner
states truthfully,authenticitymanifests "a more
strenuous moral experience ... a more exigent

conception of the self and of what being true to

it consists in, a wider referenceto the universe
and man's place in it, and a less acceptantand
genial view of the social circumstances of
life."'61Elsewhere,Trillingpoints to an affinity
between authenticity and the aesthetics of the
sublime. Both can move beyond the sincere enjoyment of beauty,beyond the social graces and
virtues. What better place to look back for an
orientationconcerningthese twin values of sincerity and authenticity than Kant's reflections

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

74
on the beautiful and the sublime? We can now
suggest anotherreason why doctrinaltheodicies
had to be rejected:they impose a false beautyon
the world at large. An authenticinterpretation
of history,by contrast,finds the beauty of order
where it can be found, but is able to embracethe
more austere and disorderly standpoint of the
sublime as well.62
RUDOLF A. MAKKREEL

Departmentof Philosophy
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
INTERNET:

RHILRM@UNIX.CC.EMORY.EDU

1. Karl Philipp Moritz, "Onthe Conceptof ThatWhich Is

Perfect in Itself," in EighteenthCenturyGerman Criticism,
ed. TimothyJ. Chamberlain(New York:Continuum, 1992),
p. 247.
2. For a more detailed account see my chapter "Eighteenth-CenturyAesthetics" in the forthcoming Cambridge
History of Eighteenth-CenturyPhilosophy.
in der
3. See Alfred Baeumler,Das Irrationalitdtsproblem
Asthetik und Logik des 18.Jahrhundertsbis zur Kritikder
Urteilskraft(Darmstadt:WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft,
1974),p. x.
4. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961), ?1.
5. Baumgarten,Aesthetica, ?4.
6. Baumgarten,Aesthetica, ?14, p. 6.
7. Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry, trans. Karl Aschenbrennerand William B. Holther(University of California Press, 1954), p. 41. See also Baeumler,Irrationalitdtsproblem,pp. 200-201.
8. Baumgarten,Reflections, p. 43.
9. Baumgarten,Reflections, p. 43.
10. Ernst Cassirer,The Philosophy of the Enlightenment,
trans. Koelln and Pettegrove (Princeton University Press,
1951), p. 346.
11. Baumgarten,Aesthetica, ??22, 561.
12. Baumgarten,Reflections,p. 43. See also Mary J. Gregor, "Baumgarten'sAesthetica,"Review of Metaphysics37
(1983): 364.
13. Baumgarten,Aesthetica, ?22.
14. See Georg FriedrichMeier,Anfangsgrandealler schonen Wissenschaften,vol. 1 (Halle, 1755; Hildesheim:Olms,
1976), p. 60.
15. Meier,Anfangsgruinde,
vol. 2, pp. 377-378.
16. See Meier,Anfangsgrunde,vol. 2, pp. 382-383.
17. See Meier,Anfangsgrande,vol. 2, pp. 277-289.
18. See Meier,Anfangsgriunde,
vol. 2, p. 496.
19. Jean Grondin, Einfiuhrungin die philosophische
Hermeneutik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991), p. 75.
20. Meier,Anfangsgrunde,vol. 2, p. 615.
21. Meier, Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst
(Dusseldorf: Stern-VerlagJanssen& Co., 1965), p. 107.
22. Meier, Versuch,p. 9.
23. Meier, Versuch,p. 52.

24. Meier, Versuch,pp. 75-76.

25. See WillardVanOrmanQuine,Wordand Object(MIT
Press, 1960), p. 59n., and Donald Davidson, Inquiries into
Truthand Interpretation(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,
1984), p. 153.
26. Meier, Versuch,p. 70.
27. Meier, Versuch,p. 70.
28. Meier, Versuch,p. 100.
29. Kant, "Onthe Failureof All AttemptedPhilosophical
Theodicies," trans. Michel Despland, in Despland, Kant on
Historyand Religion (Montreal:McGill-Queen'sUniversity
Press, 1973), pp. 283-297.
30. Francis Lieber,Legal and Political Hermeneutics,or
Principles of Interpretationand Construction in Law and
Politics, with Remarkson Precedentsand Authorities(Boston: CharlesC. Little and JamesBrown, 1839), p. 74. I owe
this referenceto M. R. Horenstein.
31. Lieber,Legal and Political Hermeneutics,p. 70.
32. Lieber,Legal and Political Hermeneutics,p. 70.
33. Kant,KantsgesammelteSchriften,herausgegebenvon
der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,
29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902-1983), vol. 8,
p. 264, (hereafterAk).
34. Manfred Beetz, "Nachgeholte Hermeneutik. Zum
Verhaltnisvon Interpretations-undLogiklehren in Barock
und Aufklarung,"Deutsche VierteljahrsschriftfiirLiteraturwissenschaftundGeistesgeschichte55 (1981): 591-628.
35. Kant, Ak, 8, p. 255.
36. Kant, Ak, 8, p. 264.
37. Kant, Ak, 8, p. 264; emphasis added.
38. Here I apply a distinction made in a quite different
context by Joel Rudinow in "Race, Ethnicity, Expressive
Authenticity:Can White People Sing the Blues?,"TheJournal of Aestheticsand Art Criticism52 (1994): 129.
39. Kant, Ak, 8, p. 266.
40. Kant, Ak, 8, pp. 266-267.
41. Kant, Ak, 8, p. 264.
42. Kant, Ak, 5, p. 294.
43. Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,trans.J. H. Bernard(New
York:HafnerPress, 1974), ?40, p. 136.
44. Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,?8.
45. See Rudolf A. Makkreel,Imaginationand Interpretationin Kant:theHermeneuticalImportof the Critiqueof Judgment (Universityof ChicagoPress, 1990),chaps. 6 and 7.
46. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretationin Kant,
chap. 3.
47. Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,?4, p. 41.
48. Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,?42, p. 143.
49. JohannMartin Chladenius,"Onthe Conceptof Interpretation,"in The HermeneuticsReader, ed. Kurt MuellerVollmer(New York:Continuum, 1992), pp. 56 ff. Translations revised. See also Einleitung zur richtigenAuslegung
Stern-Verlag
vernunftigerReden und Schriften(DDusseldorf:
Janssen& Co., 1969), pp. 86 ff.
50. See Wilhelm Dilthey,Selected Works,Vol.4: Hermeneutics and the Studyof History, eds. RudolfA. Makkreeland
FrithjofRodi (PrincetonUniversityPress, 1996).
51. Lieber,Legal and Political Hermeneutics,p. 56.
52. Kant, Critiqueof Pure Reason, A 314/B 370.
53. See Makkreel, "Regulative and Reflective Uses of
Purposivenessin Kant,"in The SouthernJournalof PhilosophyVolumeXXX, Spindel ConferenceSupplement(1992):
55-56.

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Makkreel The Confluenceof Aestheticsand Hermeneuticsin Baumgarten,Meier,and Kant

54. Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,?40, p. 136.
55. The perspective of an ideal other seems to be especially important in moral reflection. Kant writes in the
Metaphysical Principles of Virtue of 1797 (trans. James
Ellington, [Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill,1964], p. 101) that
"consciencehas the peculiaritythat though this whole matter is an affair of man with himself, man sees himself, nevertheless, compelled to conduct this affair as though at the
bidding of anotherperson."
56. Kant, Ak, 9, pp. 23 ff.
57. Kant, Ak, 9, p. 3 1.
58. See C. A. van Peursen,Ars Inveniendi:Filosofie van
de inventiviteit van Francis Bacon tot Immanuel Kant
(Kampen:Kok Agora, 1993), p. 144.
59. See Kant, Critiqueof Judgment,??17, 71.

75

60. Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity(Harvard

UniversityPress, 1973), p. 131.
61. Trilling,Sincerityand Authenticity,p. 11.
62. The researchfor this paperwas supportedin part by
an award from the University Research Committee of
EmoryUniversity.Justbefore this essay went to press, Hans
Bodeker referredme to the recently published essay, "Die
allgemeine Hermeneutikbei G.F. Meier,"by Oliver Scholz
in Axel Bifhler,ed., UnzeitgemiisseHermeneutik:Verstehen
undInterpretationim Denkender Aufkldrung(Frankfurtam
Main:Klostermann,1994).Scholz focuses mainly on the importanceof Meier'shermeneuticprincipleof Billigkeit,which
he conceives in termsof equity.In additionto comparingit to
the principleof charity (see note 25, above), he likens it to
Daniel Dennett's"principleof optimality."See p. 189.

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