Kant’s “Critique of Judgment”.

“Critique of Judgment” was written by Kant. Below are some paraphrased thoughts found in his text.

1. Something can be a waste of money and resources and still be nice to look at.
2. My aesthetic taste doesn’t rely solely on beauty.
3. Your taste for art, for example, only matters in society.
4. “Pleasant” is subjective.
5. Beauty can be universally recognized, but not universally liked (some people find pleasure in things deemed “ugly”, while not everyone enjoys looking at something even after admitting it’s beautiful).
6. Whenever you say “that’s beautiful”, you are speaking for everyone.
7. When you find something beautiful, you may want to appreciate it without adding something to it (a beautiful woman, for example, needs no makeup).
8. If something is simple, it’s easier to be beautiful.
9. If you use accessories to enhance your beauty, you may as well try, but enhancing beauty isn’t the same as increasing it’s level (your beauty remains the same, it’s just put in more evidence).
10. Beauty must be judged in itself, disregarding accessories.
11. A philosopher and a layman may use the same principles to reason about something, but a philosopher knows those principles more clearly.
12. Beauty has nothing to do with usefulness.
13. Music needs no lyrics.
14. There’s no objective rule to determinate what is beautiful and what is not.
15. There are beautiful things, but not beautiful models (beautiful things don’t often follow patterns).
16. “Cartoon” is a work of art that exaggerates the characteristics of a model in the author’s mind.
17. When you say that something is beautiful, you are implying that everyone else would think so (reminder: beauty is not taste, as I can find something beautiful and still not like it).
18. Imagination isn’t “free” if it’s bound to any law.
19. If imagination is bound to laws, then it’s a source of morals, not art, as it’s goal becomes “good”, rather than “pleasant”.
20. Restricting imagination with rules may also make judgments based on taste impossible.
21. If something wasn’t made with imagination and doesn’t seem to represent anything, it will be boring to look at.
22. A work of art is good when you always go back to it.
23. “Sublime” (which causes pleasure due to it’s strength) is different from “beautiful” (which causes pleasure due to it’s harmony).
24. Sublime objects (volcanoes, hurricanes, detonations and other violent events) can be dangerous.
25. While beauty can be enhanced with accessories, sublime objects can not be enhanced that way.
26. Sublime is violent.
27. There are two kinds of sublime: mathematical and dynamic.
28. For something to be sublime, it needs to give an impression of being incomparable.
29. Sublime isn’t a characteristic of the object, but a feeling that we have when looking at it, meaning that it resides in us.
30. The sublime makes us realize how small we are in comparison with nature or universe.
31. Something is “abnormally big” when it’s size works against it’s nature.
32. There’s no reason to believe that the universe is finite.
33. Sublime, as sensation, may be felt when around things that usually cause fear.
34. Aesthetics should be used as a pedagogical tool.
35. Enthusiasm differs from frenzy because frenzy is embarrassing.
36. Seeking isolation in order to improve oneself is different from seeking isolation out of shyness or hate.
37. Some people seek isolation to avoid hating their own species.
38. Pain and delight don’t always originate from the body.
39. You shouldn’t pretend to like something just because everyone else likes it.
40. It’s impossible to force someone to like something.
41. A work of art will never please everyone.
42. Whenever you judge a sensation, you use subjective, unique criteria, that can not be used by anyone else.
43. If I can’t force a person to feel pleasure, it’s pointless to say that someone has a “bad taste” for art or food or music or whatever else.
44. Because of that, there is no objective criteria to judge something as “pleasant”.
45. Art gives no concepts, but gives examples.
46. It’s silly to say “it’s bad because I don’t like it”.
47. You can’t please everyone.
48. Prejudice is harmful.
49. Prejudice is the elevation of a provisory judgment to the degree of principle.
50. If aesthetic taste is a social attribute and humans are social animals, then all humans have aesthetic taste.
51. We only feel the need to express our aesthetic taste if there’s people around: what’s the point of a drawing that no one is going to see?
52. An inclination can only be admired if it becomes socially acceptable.
53. It’s a virtue to be sensitive to beauty.
54. A person who is fooled into thinking that a plastic flower is a real flower may still feel mesmerized by how well-executed that imitation is upon noticing it’s fake.
55. Kant’s rainbow: sublime red, audacious orange, honest yellow, lovely green, modest blue, constant indigo, tender violet.
56. Innocent white.
57. “Art” is any technique that produces something that nature can not produce on it’s own.
58. Art is free.
59. While art is technique, rather than concept, it’s not science, even though art borrows from science.
60. If you produce something in exchange of money, that’s your job.
61. We can’t make a science of art.
62. Science without art is fruitless (as it wouldn’t have concrete result, if we admit that art is any technique to produce something that is not found in nature).
63. The foundation of art as aesthetic experience is pleasure: a drawing, a story or a song ia a good product of aesthetic art if it’s capable of causing pleasure.
64. Some songs only serve the purpose of not letting the party fall silent.
65. A genius doesn’t follow rules, because he makes his own.
66. Geniuses are teachers, everyone else is a student.
67. The genius is a force of nature.
68. To be considered a genius, the person must be original.
69. Learning to draw, to write or to compose music won’t make you an artist, if you lack originality.
70. Inspiration can not be taught.
71. Every art has a goal, even if it’s just “causing pleasure”.
72. You don’t need to break all rules in order to be original.
73. Art can be appreaciated by anyone.
74. Art can give a pleasant portrait of things that are disgusting in nature.
75. Art can portray an abstract thing (such as war) as a material thing (a red angel with a sword).
76. Expressing concepts in a original way is part of art.
77. An artist learns from nature and from other artists.
78. An artist uses it’s geniality as well as it’s taste, to balance originality and pleasure.
79. Something can be ugly and enjoyable.
80. It’s possible to produce something pleasant without being original.
81. Good art affects a person’s emotional state.
82. A genius creates a style that will likely be copied.
83. But someone who copies that style must take care to not copy it’s flaws as well.
84. Working with fine arts requires imagination, understanding, spirit and taste.
85. Different people will look at the same painting and draw different conclusions from it.
86. Speaking beautifully isn’t the same as speaking truthfully.
87. Rethoric enables us to take advantage of others, if they are ignorant.
88. Even when well-intentioned, rethoric is still a dirty trick.
89. Appealing to emotion makes a person more prone to accepting a point of view, because emotions keep a person from reasoning correctly.
90. In music, the role of mathematics is to make melody, pulse and harmony agree with each other.
91. To flee from a painting, you just have to look away, but it’s so much harder to flee from a song.
92. Even harder is to flee from a perfume.
93. Some pains do feel good.
94. A good joke must be absurd.
95. A joke can be even funnier if told in a serious tone.
96. Sleep, hope and laughter are three things that make life tolerable.
97. We can’t make science of our preferences.
98. Description and demonstration are different things.
99. Understanding, reason and judgment can arrive at different conclusions.
100. There’s no science of beauty.
101. Intellectuals need to communicate with laymen.
102. “Sentimentalism” is the tendency to feel emotional more frequently or more intensely than average people, even in the absence of objective stimulation.
103. Difference between religion and superstition is that, in religion, there’s both fear and admiration, while there’s only fear in superstition.
104. To know if something is good, you need it’s definition, but the definition isn’t enough if you want to know if something is beautiful.
105. “Pleasant” and “good” not always converge.
106. To like everything is to like nothing.
107. If you are truly hungry, you will eat whatever is in the dish.
108. So, you can only have taste (preference) when you are not facing need.
109. You can not willingly act without interest (if you want, you are interested).

Kant’s “Critique of Practical Reason”.

“Critique of Practical Reason” was written by Immanuel Kant. Below are some paraphrased (not quoted) thoughts found in his text. They won’t necessary reflect my thoughts on a given subject.

1. There’s no need for laws if freedom doesn’t exist.
2. If you have knowledge, you may want to share it.
3. If you don’t wish to share your knowledge, maybe you don’t actually have it.
4. Freedom is an important concept for morals.
5. You needn’t to come up with new words if there are already words to describe what you are saying.
6. You can’t rationally prove that reason doesn’t exist.
7. While mathematics can prove that matter can be infinitely divided, that’s not possible in practice.
8. Hume wasn’t as skeptical as it’s often believed.
9. Difference between laws and personal principles is that laws try to be universally valid.
10. “Imperative” is a practical rule with a practical goal.
11. An imperative is always objective.
12. A “hypothetical imperative” is a practical rule that is only valid if I have means to attain the goal (the goal must be particular), but a “categorical imperative” is a practical rule that remains valid no matter if I have means to attain that goal or not (in this case, the goal is general, universal).
13. Plus, a I can reject a hypothetical imperative (because the goal is particular), but, from an ethical point of view, I can not reject a categorical imperative, if it’s really categorical (because the goal is not particular).
14. A practical principle (“maxim”) has personal happiness as goal.
15. You are considered happy if you like your life.
16. There are “delicate” pleasures, such as the intellectual ones.
17. It’s your responsibility to be consistent between your actions and thoughts.
18. All actions have happiness as goal.
19. Being “happy” implies liking things the way they currently are (if you are unhappy with things the way they are, you may want to change them until you like them).
20. Sometimes we do things thinking they would bring happiness, but we may be wrong.
21. There’s no need for a law that says “love yourself”.
22. You can’t expect everyone to act the way you do.
23. If a categorial imperative really is categorical, it has to be universal.
24. Even if everyone wants the same thing, they won’t want it the same way.
25. Your will is truly free when you don’t have to care about anything other than yourself in your decision-making.
26. You aren’t free from physics.
27. Under the correct conditions, a strong impulse can be resisted.
28. Dying for a good cause isn’t wrong.
29. Before you act, think: “what if everyone else did what I’m about to do?”
30. Human volition can be pure, but never holy.
31. If there’s no volition, there should be no laws either.
32. If my maxims take other people into account, they may be generalized.
33. It’s unfair to be on the receinving end of injustice and still not do anything about it.
34. Prudence is acting according to self-preservation.
35. Maxims are advice, laws are orders.
36. You can’t demand others to have something, such as happiness, when I don’t have that thing myself.
37. Satisfaction is often out of reach.
38. Some people do feel guilt for being benefited by an unfair act.
39. A disporportional punishment is abuse.
40. If you say that the real crime is receiving punishment, you are implying that it’s only bad if you are caught.
41. A criminal who feels bad over what he did actually has a sense of morality.
42. It’s also a virtue to do good deeds without feeling embarrassed or ashamed.
43. If my actions are guided by a sensible goal, that goal is subjective.
44. Don’t mistake cause and effect.
45. Is causality an illusion?
46. That doesn’t mean that truth is impossible, but that data extracted from phenomena is not absolute.
47. Intellectuals tend to be more skeptical than common people.
48. Affirmations based on causality aren’t absolute.
49. Some people speak words that are devoid of meaning.
50. The pure practical reason studies the effects of freedom.
51. Your language may harm your reasoning, if it’s limited, even if your thoughts were translated into another language.
52. There’s a difference between being (nature) and being (condition).
53. A person can receive a painful benefit.
54. You can’t make a law that says “seek pleasure and flee from pain”, because every person seeks pleasure and flees from pain in their own personal ways.
55. You can’t pretend that an issue is solved if there was no conclusive debate on that.
56. A person can hide their ignorance by using ambiguous words.
57. Don’t give to others something you wouldn’t give to yourself.
58. Empiricism often has nothing to do with morals.
59. You can’t respect belongings, only people.
60. When you admit that someone is superior, your reverence is sincere.
61. A person can respect someone else, but without making it clear that such respect exists.
62. Every limited creature can act on interest or according to maxims.
63. Laws aren’t needed to do good deeds.
64. There are two ways to follow a law: literally or pragmatically (achieving the same goal that the law tries to achieve, but without obeying the law literally).
65. If you do your job, others should follow you as role model.
66. Don’t use people as instruments: if you need someone’s help, make sure they will also get a benefit out of that.
67. Duty has nothing to do with happiness.
68. If there’s a problem in your reasoning and someone points it, admit your mistake.
69. It’s impossible to know something “as it truly is”, but only “as my senses perceive it”.
70. A person who doesn’t share their knowledge for public well-being can not be labelled a “philosopher”.
71. Something is logical by identity and real by causality.
72. Virtue and happiness may not converge.
73. Making a poor use of reason is as valid as not using reason at all.
74. There’s no interest without practical consequence.
75. Faith (believing without proof) can have a rational foundation.
76. Duty isn’t fear and isn’t hope.
77. The value of a virtue may have no correlation with the advantage it brings.
78. Self-respect originates when you realize that you are free.
79. It’s freedom that gives me relevance in the universe.
80. If you are going after hypothetical treasures, at least don’t neglect the real treasures.