84 music, philosophy, and modernity
theCritique of Judgementrelates to some of what he says about cognition
in theCritique of Pure Reason(on this see also Bowie 2003 a: ch. 1 ).
The lack of a transition between these two issues in Kant opens
up the space for some interesting ideas about music and the limits
of philosophy.
Kant does not actually say a great deal about music, not least because
he did not think it was very important, but his remarks have been influ-
ential, notably in debates about musical formalism. Moreover, ‘the musi-
cal’ plays a larger role in Kant’s conception than the explicit appear-
ance of the topic of music would suggest. In theCritique of Judgement
Kant looks at music when assessing the aesthetic value of the differ-
ent arts. His discussion of all the arts involves vocabulary which is
either derived from music, such as ‘harmony’, or is used in relation
to music, such as ‘play’. The basis of an art’s aesthetic value lies in
its stimulation of the harmonious play of the faculties of the mind
in a manner which, in contrast to the relationship of the faculties in
cognition, does not rely on binding rules. This play is seen as extend-
ing the cognitive faculty while not constraining it by making it func-
tion in terms of identifying concepts. The genesis of freedom out of
necessity which Dewey saw in rhythm can suggest the direction of the
argument.
The decisive factor in art is the expression of ‘aesthetic ideas’, an aes-
thetic idea being ‘that representation of the imagination which gives
much to think about, but without any determinate thought, i.e.con-
ceptbeing able to be adequate to it, which consequently no language
can completely attain and make comprehensible’ (Kant 1968 b:b 193,
a 190). Aesthetic ideas, Dahlhaus maintains, ‘mediate from the mere
play of feelings (‘Empfindungen’) to the play of the cognitive capaci-
ties’ (Dahlhaus 1988 : 53 ). They connect the receptive and the sponta-
neous aspects of the subject by making aspects of the intelligible world,
like moral concepts, available in a sensuous form, such as images that
stand for moral attributes. Aesthetic ideas can consequently be thought
of as a kind of metaphor which cannot be cashed out into a literal
concept. Unlike an empirical concept applied in a true judgement,
which is instantiated in the match between concept and object, the
aesthetic idea is never present as such. It is instead what leads to the
ongoing generation of new thoughts concerning something unrepre-
sentable. Aesthetic ideas therefore ‘strive towards something beyond
the boundary of experience’ (Kant 1968 b:b 194,a 191). The idea
of the intelligible realm points to what is beyond the cognitive rules