Part One of The Critique of Judgment contains two sections: one on the beautiful and one on the sublime. While both are discerned through judgments in taste, the former, Kant explains, is concerned with the quality of an aesthetic experience— “a feeling of the furtherance of life”—while the latter, “a negative pleasure,” involves an immense quantity. The beautiful contains, or is compatible with, “charms and … playful imagination,” while the sublime invokes an admiration within the observer (91). Indeed, both experiences happen within the mind of the observer, drawing upon a “rich stock of ideas” and precipitating an aesthetic experience (92).

Kant separates the aesthetic experience, or judgment of taste, from the agreeable and the good. The agreeable addresses sensation: “what the senses find pleasing in sensation” (44). Agreeableness is purely subjective and based on individual pleasure and gratification. Objective sensation, e.g. the dark brown color of coffee, does not factor into a judgment of agreeableness, but one’s pleasure, or displeasure, upon tasting the brew measures agreeableness.

The judgment of good rests upon reason and interest in an object and whether it pleases as a means or intrinsically (46). An object that is useful has a mediate goodness, and that which pleases by its very existence has a moral goodness. Each of these judgments is based upon concepts first; i.e., an idea of what an object is supposed to be must precede the object for a judgment of good to be placed upon it (46-7). Translation: I must have an idea of a coffee mug before I can judge whether or not I am using a good one. Based upon my experience with a plethora of coffee cups during my short life, I know a cup must be basically leak-proof and able to be held easily; this idea allows me to judge the goodness of my coffee cup. The agreeable becomes good when it can be brought under the auspices of reason (47). Moral goodness does not rely upon the agreeable or the useful, but is a concept based unmotivated by pleasure. (I might be a cynic, but I cannot think of an example here; I’m not sure altruism exists. Yet, moral goodness does not seem to be a factor in our present discussion.) Kant concludes by stating that “the good is the Object of will, i.e. of a rationally determined faculty of desire” (48).

A judgment of taste, Kant explains, is a person’s capacity for “estimating the beautiful” without a cognitive or logical intervention (41). A judgment of taste, too, has no interest in the real object of perception and any interest the real object might actuate, but only in the subjective response caused by the character, or representation, of the object within the mind of the perceiver. Therefore, unlike judgments of agreeableness and goodness, an aesthetic response arises neither from cognition nor sense, but from an ineffable combination of the two, what Kant calls “a universal rule incapable of formation” (81). Judgments of taste can never be proven or governed by rules since they are subjective and exist only in the mind of the observer (56). Despite the judgment of taste’s necessary subjectivity, there exists, also out of necessity, a “subjective universality” in estimations of the beautiful. Kant provides a pithy summation: “The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, pleases universally” (60).

Kant attributes his subjective universality to a sensus communis, or common sense (82). Since judgments of taste cannot be reduced to convenient rules and axioms, Kant assumes that since taste is a subjective universal, there must exist a public sense that preceded judgments of taste. This sense, made up of private feeling, “must have a subjective principle, and one which determines which pleases and displeases, by means of feeling only and not through concepts, but yet with universal validity” (82). Continuing this mode of necessary contradiction, Kant concludes his ineffable argument: “The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, is cognized as object of a necessary delight” (85).

Kant makes some closing remarks in part one that support imagination. Judgments of taste, seemingly, are supported with the imagination, for anything that allows the imagination to stretch its wings allows the growth of the individual, and by association, the community (88). These ideas seem a precursor to romantic aesthetic sensibilities. Wordsworth and Coleridge especially use the sublime in many of their poems. The Romantics believed in a sensus communis where all humans have a voice and the capacity to create and wonder. The smallest object looked at with the imagination, becomes fresh and beautiful. The judgment of taste I can best liken to a child’s perception. The child is not yet a slave to dogmatic codes and structure, but is still capable of tasting beauty unencumbered by reason.

Finally, Kant’s discussion on “finality” and “end,” in other translations “purposiveness” and “purpose,” was exceedingly difficult. I interpret the latter to be the reality of particular object—the outcome, or end, of the idea. The particular, then, is conceptualized and rational because of its realization. The former concept, that of finality, is the universal idea of the particular without the particular; the finality, then, is based on non-cognative realization and universality, or the disinterested realization, while the end is the particular object of interest. Therefore, “beauty is the form of finality in an object, so far as perceived in it apart from the representation of an end” (80).

Phaedrus’s enthusiasm about Lysias’ speech on love infects the wandering Socrates, who asks “Where do you come from, Phaedrus my friend, and where are you going?” (476). These questions, though they should be taken literally in this context, represent Socrates ethos: truly, by examining through dialectic, Socrates attempts to discover and uncover the origins of one’s thoughts and attempt to project the outcome of those thoughts. Phaedrus is coming from a speech by Lysias; Socrates wants to know where this speech will take Phaedrus and anyone who might hear it—including the gadfly himself “who has a passion for listening to discourses” (477). Indeed, Socrates claims to learn by interacting with men and suggests that only in this way will he ever know himself.

Phaedrus reads Lysias’ speech on love to Socrates. His speech, as Socrates points out later, is a haphazard arrangement of redundant ideas contrasting the lover and the non-lover, suggesting the latter, who is not infected by irrational madness, is the master of himself. The lover’s motto, states Lysias, is may be summed up by a paraphrase of the first two line of Shakespeare’s sonnet 147: “My love is a fever, longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease.” The lover is sick, losing focus on external events, constantly guarding against jealousy, obsequiously flattering, and submitting to animal passion sans reason (480-1). The content of Lysias’ speech leaves Socrates unmoved, but Phaedrus’ performance of the speech that leads, probably, to their discussion of rhetoric.

Socrates is convinced that he has heard a better treatise on love, but he only has an inward feeling—a vague memory of something written or orated. While Lysias’ speech had some good points, states Socrates, the rhetoric—”arrangement and invention”—was all wrong (483). With a bit of coaxing from Phaedrus, Socrates begins his own speech about the ineffable Love. He starts with a parody of the epic poet by invoking the Muses. Socrates attempts to define his topic: love comes in two forms—”[o]ne is an innate desire for pleasure, the other an acquired judgment that aims at what is best” (485). Yet, Socrates continues, love seems to be a detriment to both the lover and the beloved. The lover becomes possessed, seeking to subvert and control his beloved. The former becomes irrational and controlling, while the latter becomes a victim of the lover. Socrates concludes: ruin of property, physique, and spiritual development is the ultimate outcome of love; “Be sure that the attentions of a lover carry no good will” (488). The non-lover retains his rationality, and the lover does not; therefore, the former position should be favored. This conclusion mirrors Lysias’.

But there is another side to the love question, and a good dialectician realizes this fact. Socrates playfully makes an atonement for his offense to Love by an encomium to the madness of love. This madness comes from the gods, and is therefore a blessing. Socrates uses two metaphors in his present discussion of love: the soul’s wings and the charioteer and his two steeds. The immortal soul, when free of the body, has wings that hold it aloft, in heaven. Yet the wings are lost when the soul is untied with the body, but since the soul has glimpsed the immutable forms, it strives to join them again.

The charioteer has two steeds: one that is wicked and drawn toward pleasures of the flesh, and one that is rational and aspires to goodness. The human is the charioteer, attempting to follow the good steed, but being weighed down by the wicked.

Finally, when the lover who is touched by madness sees beauty in this world, he is reminded of the true beauty and his wings begin to grow again. The lover is attracted to the soul mate, i.e., to one whose soul was in the company of the same go as the lover’s soul. So the Zeuslike soul is attracted to the Zeuslike soul. The beloved, therefore, stands for the god on earth and helps the lover emulate his god, bringing him closer to true beauty: “his every act is aimed at bringing the beloved to be every whit like unto himself and unto the god of their worship” (499). So the beloved guides the lover toward “the ordered rule of the philosophical life” which will grant them happiness on earth through self-mastery and inner peace (501). Socrates concludes his speech with an apology about his former speech, and puts the blame, somewhat facetiously, on Lysias.

Socrates’ mentioning Lysias and speech writing evokes a slanderous comment about speech writers from Phaedrus. Socrates admonishes him, suggesting that speech writing in itself is not a bad thing, only writing and speaking without knowledge of the truth. Here the dialogue recalls Gorgias’ subject matter: rhetoric. The idea that the rhetorician need not know the truth in order to effectively persuade is again condemned. Mere persuasion is a knack, while the true art of rhetoric is based on truth. Socrates suggests that the good orator will will define his terms, just as he did at the beginning of his speeches, and arrange his argument in an orderly fashion—like a living creature with a head, body, and feet (510). Finally the practitioner of the art of rhetoric must have an innate capacity for rhetoric, he must practice, and he must have knowledge to be successful (515). Alluding to Isocrates, this art cannot be learned from a book, but must be observed by examining “precisely what is the real and true nature of that object on which our discourse is brought to bear” (516). The composition teacher would call this knowledge—knowledge that Socrates calls an awareness of every type of soul—knowing one’s audience.

The conversation concludes with a discussion of writing. Socrates advocates the dialectic—a dynamic interaction that offers contention, dichotomy, and paradox whose source is memory of beauty (knowledge of truth). Writing is false memory—a reminder. It offers only a semblance of wisdom because it tells rather than teaches. The text, like a painting, simply tells the same thing ad infinitum; it knows nothing the types of souls, for it addresses them all in the same way. Instead of using ink and paper, Socrates advocates the writing of the individual soul by the rhetorician who knows the truth, knows the nature of the individual soul, and uses language catered to addressing the particular. Speech constantly changes depending on these variables, and therefore contains wisdom, unlike the inflexible text. Speech can continue to walk—to seek after wisdom and inspire the pursuit of truth in others. “Let us be going” (525).

Imitation, to Plato, was without access to truth and reality because it focuses on actions by human beings. Simple imitation of these actions, in the sensible world, is inferior to the reality and truth of the Forms. Most of Plato’s commentary on aesthetics addresses poetic inspiration, not imitation. Aristotle takes a different ethos, suggesting that imitation is a valuable tool for projecting reality and truth because it deals with the experiences of life and it is a valuable extension of these experiences. Gerald Else states: “Thus, whereas for Plato ‘imitation’ had been a self-defeating, sterile activity, for Aristotle it is a positive and fruitful one — within its allowed limits” (6). Furthermore, Aristotle gives only one brief mention of poetic inspiration, and parenthetically at that: “(Hence the composition of poetry is an affair of either the well-endowed or the manic individual; for of these two types the ones are impressionable while the others are liable to be ‘possessed’ from time to time.)” (48). Seemingly, Aristotle offers his Poetics as a practical guide for those poets who are of their right minds and “impressionable.”

Mimesis is introduced at the outset of the Poetics where music is said to be an “imitative process.” In chapter 3, Aristotle suggests that tragedy “tends to imitate better people, and comedy worse people, than the average.” Chapter 4 shows the three modes of imitation, namely: mixed (narration and drama), straight narrative, and straight dramatic. In chapter 6, Aristotle shows that this imitation is not merely a copying of miscellaneous detail, but that it lies at the center of the human instinct of mimicry (20). The “habit” of imitation is congruous in the human since childhood, as is the pleasure derived from this imitation. Proof of this, states Aristotle, lies in experience. Experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, provide the fodder for imitation which produces images that provide pleasure in learning. The persons who are more adept at this imitation become poets in accordance with the two kinds of character: “the soberer spirits were imitating noble actions . . . while the cheaper ones were imitating those of the worthless” (21). This progression gives birth to plot, which is the imitation of a human action.

Actions which have taken place are put into poetry through plot, which, Aristotle states, “are more than [the poet's] verses, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of his imitations and what he imitates is actions” (26). This idea suggests that the poet is indeed a maker because there is nothing to stop what has happened from being something that can happen. This conclusion justifies Aristotle’s position that the poet is more philosophical than the historian. A poet, then, is a maker even though he imitates. This ostensible paradox does not seem to bother Aristotle, nor should it. Perhaps a poet imitates that which he experiences, but adds his own, unique perspective in making his verses.

This making — depending on what genre the poet is making — is governed by the unities and six elements of tragedy. (Since Aristotle holds tragedy up as the best poetical form because it imitates actions of magnitude performed by great men — he offers the elements of tragedy as a foundation for all poetical works.) These elements are: plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and song composition (26). All of these elements, expertly combined, help to bring about the emotional reaction: pity and fear.

Aristotle never makes it obvious just who is supposed to experience the pity and fear; does the poet, the tragic protagonist, or the audience experience the catharsis? Aristotle discusses briefly the concept of “catharsis,” which seems to have something to do with the purgation of pity and fear. This purgation is an integral part of tragedy by supplying a relief, or purification, of these emotions and leaves a feeling of akin to the afterglow of vomiting. Aristotle’s definition, however, leaves one wondering just what catharsis meant for him and how he thought “pity and fear” produce the necessary purgation.

I have heard several different interpretations of catharsis or the effects thereof: tragedy forces the spectator to fear for himself when he observes the disastrous outcome from a character’s passions; the viewing of pity and fear on stage suffices to counteract those disturbing elements in the spectator; and this purgation is simply the expulsion of disturbing drives and conflicts. Again, is the catharsis an experience of the poet, the protagonist, or the audience?

Else avers that all the various definitions of catharsis “have in common a focus on pity and fear which are aroused in the spectator” (98). He goes on to write that the catharsis is a cleansing of whatever is “filthy” or “polluted” in the pathos, or the tragic act (98). This all centers around intent; was the tragic hero conscious or unconscious of his intentional tragic act? The former would seem to indicate that the character is of dubious moral standing, and is therefore not deserving the audience’s pity or fear, but instead a repugnance or a self-righteous disdain. On the other hand, the latter’s action would be “pure” to the audience’s satisfaction, and must be proved thus. For example: Oedipus’ slaying of Laius at the crossroads was an intentional act, but also an unconscious one; therefore a “pure” one. Later, when Oedipus blinds himself, the audience is capable of exhibiting the correct emotional response: that of pity and fear. This act, after Oedipus’ recognition of his error, proves that he feels remorse for his actions and shows the audience that he would never have performed them had he known the facts. Therefore, Oedipus’ self-inflicted blindness is, in effect, his “purification” of his pathos and makes him a proper recipient for the audience’s pity and fear. So a catharsis is either a “purification” (a reduction to a beneficent order and proportion), or a “purgation”"(an expelling from our emotional system) by the drama, but there seems to be a subtle, moral dimension to catharsis as well. Does this differentiate between the feelings we have for Oedipus and those we have for Macbeth? If a character’s moral standing is doubtful, will that affect the catharsis?

This question would also appear significant to Aristotle’s first clause in his definition of the tragic character: that he be good, but not too good (43). The quality of an action is concomitant with the mind of the doer and is not based on one single action, but the whole of his actions throughout the play. We must not look at Oedipus’ one action, albeit his tragic mistake (hamartia), but it is his various actions that denote his true character. While Oedipus was impetuous and hasty causing his true error, the audience can still have the correct reaction of pity because of his moral purity in ignorance.

Oedipus’ act is also most terrible according to chapter 14 of the Poetics: when these tragic deeds are “done to one another by persons who are bound by natural ties of affection . . . when a brother kills or intends to kill a brother, or a son a father” in the case of Oedipus. This will also stimulate the correct fearful response. Aristotle said, tragedy “tends to imitate better people”; people that we would obviously look-up to, or even venerate, are ones that would incite the best response to their downfall. Whether or not the catharsis is meant to happen in the viewer or the character, it will still have the same effect. The viewer will experience this purging vicariously through the actions of the tragic hero, with whom we can relate so well.

This brings up another interesting point, one of spectacle. While Aristotle believes that the visual elements, i.e. the masks, costumes, etc., are important for the lasting effect of the tragedy, graphic depictions of gory details is unessential and unwanted within the aesthetic of the drama. These actions, it would seem to Aristotle, would take away from the true effect of the catharsis by offering cheap thrills with spilled blood. Also, excitement, while it keeps the attention of an audience, it is not enough to invoke pity and fear; this is the difference between tragedy and melodrama.

Catharsis would seem to be an integral part of the tragedy, but can it stand alone? Aristotle speaks of recognition, which he defines as a shift from ignorance to awareness. Tragedy cannot exist solely on fear and pity, otherwise there would be little distinction between Hamlet and a typical revenge drama. A greatly stylized tragedy will combine pity and fear with an “enlightenment” after the tragic protagonist’s moment of realization of his or her flaw (anagnoresis). The actions of the play up until the moment of higher wisdom (experienced in the protagonist) have brought about a catharsis which precipitates the release of pity and fear; the audience, then, is left with a higher rational concept that can be related to the tragic hero’s “higher wisdom.” This enlightenment exists in harmony with pity and fear; in fact, without it the actions and meaning of the play would have been for naught — superficial and fleeting. The enlightenment supports, or justifies, the emotional response and helps the viewer to remember the events and gain knowledge from those events. Who would remember the significance of Oedipus Rex without its anguish?

Catharsis seems to delve much deeper than Plato’s medical treatment of it as a “release of emotion.” It contains an enlightenment for the tragic hero as well as for the audience. Through pity and fear we are enlightened, and through enlightenment we can attain sagacity by the acknowledgement and understanding of our emotions. The audience, then, partakes in the catharsis in order to purge themselves of their quotidian frustration that fester like poison in the soul. Tragedy, or all art, helps with the release that all humans need fairly often.

Aristotle’s emphatic defense of imitation is based upon the same grounds as Plato’s dismissal of it as unreal. Aristotle suggests that imitation of human action is the way through which we attain knowledge. By viewing an excellent imitation we foster theoretical, practical, and productive knowledge; through imitation poets become better makers. Perhaps the catharsis happens in the poet; she must clean out her store of verse in order to make a place for the new.

Finally, moderation and balance appear to be the glue holding Aristotle’s poetical model together. A work of poetry should be moderate, or “good sized” (24). If a poem is “good sized,” then it may be said to have a length appropriate to its genre: a tragedy must address a single issue that can be adequately covered in one performance while an epic will many issues and take considerably longer than one sitting. This unity of time, i.e., the golden mean between too long and too short, translates into all aspects of poetry. And using this idea as a metaphor for life, the catharsis seems to be the key in which we unlock the aggression, the door which lets out the flood, the purging of the garbage which allows for a higher wisdom.

Albert Camus, in his essay The Rebel, states that Nietzsche believes a nihilist is “not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.” What did Nietzsche see as existing? Firstly, as mentioned above, the attitude that God is dead was generally accepted among the educated; however, they did not know how to react to the death of the immortal. Secondly, among the religious institutions of Europe there was the reigning idea of ressentiment based upon the slave moralist’s victory over those of master morality. These are the ideas upon which Nietzsche’s nihilism was created, for while he believed in the former position, he believed that without proper direction it could be as deadly as the latter; these ideas could also supply the foundations for Nazi Germany.

God is dead provided for the birth of a new “nihilistic,” Ivan Karamazovian, attitude that “all is permitted.” While Camus states that the metaphysical rebel is not necessarily an atheist, in either case they do not recognize the immortal premise for morality when the suffering and death of children is allowed and even condoned. All is permitted instilled a metaphysical anarchism, or total freedom, where only fear and portentous destruction could exist. And Camus tells us that “without law there is no freedom.” Fear, for Nietzsche, was the opposite of the will to power. A nation of those who fear is ripe for the emergence of a totalitarian regime.

In the absence of a divine basis for morality Nietzsche says that a new basis for values must be created; for “freedom exists only in a world where what is possible is defined at the same time as what is not possible,” says Camus of Nietzsche. “If we do not make of God’s death a great renunciation and a perpetual victory over ourselves, we will have to pay for that omission,” states Nietzsche embracing asceticism as the end of his rebellion. Therefore Nietzsche replaces Ivan Karamazov’s “everything is permitted” with “nothing is permitted.” The ascetic, in the absence of God, becomes the creator:

Goethe, Beethoven, Socrates, and Michelangelo were all creators of values according to Nietzsche. Therefore the values that should build a society and culture come from the minds of the strangers, or rebels, that create and maintain the beautiful. They create a faith of those above ressentiment because they affirm not only their own being but also all existence. They say yes by consenting to the only true God: the world governed by fate.

This idea is a leitmotif throughout Nietzsche’s works: the anti-political individual who submits to the inevitable while seeking self-perfection far from the modern world. This freedom based upon the creativity of the artist is very removed from Hitler’s totalitarian Germany; yet this is just an end. If Nietzsche’s and Hitler’s philosophies are both considered in a teleological perspective they could appear similar. Yet Nietzsche did not advocate racism or a superior race — even warning against these ideas — which is also attributed to his philosophy.

Nietzsche’s idea of race could be more easily misconstrued by many of his writings. Yet, Walter Kaufmann in his book Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, assures us that: “Even in the context of Nietzsche’s early philosophy it was pointed out that this doctrine [of master and slave morality] was dynamite insofar as it insisted that the gulf between some men and others is more significant than between man and animal.” But it is clearly evinced by the above that Nietzsche looked at art, religion, and philosophy — not to race — for humanity’s position above the beasts. While Nietzsche held the society of the ancient Greeks in high esteem he did not adopt their us-and-them conception toward cultural segregation. In fact, Kaufmann elucidates, Nietzsche’s view on race was based upon two central ideas: “the belief in the heredity of acquired characteristics and the conviction that race mixture might favor the attainment of the culture — both in nations and in individuals.” Nietzsche writes in Human, All-Too-Human that “the Jew is just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant.” Nietzsche could only be rascist when taken out of context as he was by many advocates of the Nazi movement.

While it is true that Nietzsche discussed masters and slaves, he did not advocate either one. Nietzsche, Camus tells us, “dreamed of tyrants who were artists. . . . A Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ. To his mind this was to say yes to both slave and master.” Nietzsche’s philosophy was one of the via media dictated by the tides of fate. The middle ground produced in the merging Apollonian and Dionysian elements of the creative soul: “One must yet have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Through a consent to the powers of nature and a middle way between them can give rise to a new value system free of extremes that can be found in totalitarianism, e.g. murder, fear, chaos, and methodical order.

Perhaps misconceptions of what Nietzsche had to say about the superman and will to power could lend themselves to the rise of a totalitarian ideology. However, when taken in context with an overall view of Nietzsche’s philosophy, it would be falacious for anyone to put the blame on Nietzsche. Aristotle demanded that a viewing public possess, or train to acquire, the intellectual capacity that would allow them to grasp (what we might call) the existential conceptions of tragedy; don’t we owe the same to Nietzsche before we denounce him as the precursor of Nazism? Admittedly his philosophy is not for the weak-willed or fearful, and falling into their hands might produce the misunderstanding leading to totalitarianism.