The Significance of Non-conceptual Mental Content in Kant's Aesthetics

This work is an in depth investigation of the nature of aesthetic appreciation in Kant`s
aesthetics and the role of non-conceptual mental content in producing artwork. My
thesis argues for a number of claims in this respect. Firstly, I define aesthetic
attention, and contend that aesthetic attention is a spontaneously chosen mental state
focussed on non-conceptual sensible representations i.e. intuitions, which differ in
kind from conceptual representations. Second, I observe that aesthetic attention may
start off a mental process, which Kant calls free play, which is felt as aesthetic
pleasure. Thirdly, I observe that aesthetic pleasure is a cognitive feeling, which is nonconceptual mental content in its own right, since it is a feeling having distinctive
phenomenal, intentional and representational features, which distinguish it from other
pleasures. Aesthetic pleasure is a feeling, which stems from the harmonious working
together of the imagination and the understanding, I contend that in this activity the
imagination participates both as a receptive and a spontaneous faculty. Aesthetic
cognitive feeling thus brings together the receptive and the spontaneous powers of the
perceiver thereby producing a feeling of unity. My thesis investigates the significance
of such aesthetic cognitive feeling, notably, how in the reading of Francois Lyotard
the harmonious feeling experienced on the occasion of a beautiful object promises the
unification of Kant`s subject, who in terms of his analyses, which my paper presents,
is divided. Finally, my work considers how cognitive feeling as non-conceptual
mental content and the non-conceptual connecting of sensible representations play a
role in the creative work of the artist, when producing aesthetic ideas and works,
which have beautiful form.