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Immanuel Kant And Edward Bullough's Analysis Of The Beautiful

Decent Essays

Immanuel Kant and Edward Bullough both express their opinions between the agreeable and the beautiful in their own personal writings, “The Analytic of the Beautiful” and “Psychical Distance”, respectively. Each writer states their own criterion of the beautiful, and both distinguish why the difference between the beautiful and the agreeable is important. Edward Bullough’s theory is that to distinguish between the beautiful and the agreeable there must be a distance from practical reasoning: “Distance is produced in the first instance by putting the phenomenon, so to speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self; by allowing it to stand outside the context of our personal needs and ends.”(Bullough 298-299) Immanuel Kant’s theory, “The agreeable is what gratifies a man; the beautiful what simply pleases him; the good what is esteemed (approved), i.e., that on which he sets an …show more content…

Psychical distance refers to the relationships that one has with an object or work of art. Bullough believes that distance is the key feature of aesthetic consciousness separating both the beautiful and the agreeable. He uses distance as the criterion distinguishing between the two, explaining that to truly and honestly appreciate the art, you must dissociate from a practical mindset. You must create a distance from your own mind and perspective, and also create a distance from the object you are observing. Moreover, Bullough states that the person critiquing the artwork must look at the artwork for what the artist intended. Therefore, you must be distance from particular emotions that trigger personal or moral concerts. As a consequence, this means that your distanced view of things cannot be your normal outlook; however, this does not mean that you must change your opinion, it only means that you must open yourself up to new ideas and perspectives to gain a new appreciation of

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