does resemble a logical judgment inasmuch as we may presuppose it to be valid for
everyone. On the other hand, his universality cannot arise from concepts. For from
concepts there is no transition to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure...It follows
that, since a judgment of taste involves the consciousness that all interest is kept out
of it, it must also involve a claim to being valid for everyone, but without having a
universality based on concepts. In other words, a judgment of taste must involve a
claim to subjective universality.^54
For Kant, reason opposes desire because it draws on a depersonalized
position that anybody couldfill. This personal remove from the object is
the condition that enables aesthetic judgment as a universal value–held by
everybody, everywhere. This space of disinterested objectivity, unmuddled
by the bias of faith, emotion, or association, enables traditional art-historical
analysis to assume the universal validity of its categorical and interpretive
practices. Without knowing the intertextual associations within discourses,
an attempt to use an emic text to diversify the sources of art history, such as
Elkins’interpretation of Qadi Ahmad, cannot complete its mission. The
premise of universal objectivity similarly has given confidence to art histor-
ians of the Islamic world that historical interpretation can fully elucidate
cultural meaning. This is not any single individual’s shortcoming: it is our
cave, an epistemic premise on which the discipline relies.
This attitude makes a poorfit with Islamic discourses, rooted in diame-
trically opposite premises. In contrast to Kant, al-Ghazali considers the
framework of sensation not as reason, but as love:
Another cause of love is that one loves something for its own sake...To this
category belongs the love of beauty...Do not believe that love of beautiful forms is
conceivable only for the satisfaction of sensual desire...However, the perception
of beauty also gives pleasure and can be loved for its own sake alone...The
reaction of every healthy constitution proves that the contemplation offlowers and
birds and of a beautiful color, graceful design and form gives pleasure. On seeing
them even worry and grief leave the human mind, though there is no benefittobe
derived beyond the mere looking. These objects give pleasure and everything
pleasurable is loved.^55
For him, love, not reason, is deeply embedded in the practices of cultiva-
tion enabling taste. No amount of reason can amount to cultivation.
Rather, it is the intrinsic relationship with the object of beauty designated
as pleasure that fosters love.(^54) Kant, 1987 : 54. (^55) Ettinghausen, 1947 ; Necipoğlu, 1995 : 192.
180 Deceiving Deception