The beautiful shape of the good: A reading of Kant's 'Critique of Judgment' in light of Plato's 'Symposium' and Kant's thoughts on Pythagoras

In the Critique of Judgment Kant claims that the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good (§59, Ak. 353). He also claims that beauty bridges, or at least helps bridge, "the great gulf that separates the supersensible from the phenomena" (Introduction IX, Ak. 195). In my dissertation I attempt to explicate these two claims.;To this end I argue that there is a parallel between the notion of eros in Plato's Symposium and that of reflective judgment in Kant's third Critique. I believe that Plato's more accessible and suggestive text can shed light on Kant's famously difficult book. I offer an account of Plato's notion of eros in Chapter 2, and an account of Kant's notion of reflective judgment, together with the details of the parallel, in Chapter 3.;The parallel between Kant and Plato raises an obvious question: what was Kant's knowledge of Plato? I answer this question in Chapter 1. In addition, I argue that Jakob Brucker's Historia Critica Philosophiae, which seems to have been Kant's major source of information on Plato, would have raised Kant's interest in Pythagoras. Based on Kant's own writings and lectures, I show that Kant was aware of three items attributed to Pythagoras' thought and practice: first, the use of symbolism; second, the discovery that the combination of musical notes which are perceived as harmonious stand in determinable mathematical relations (what pleases the ear has a precisely expressible form) and, third, the view that the human capacity to grasp sensible form, such as that found in music or in mathematical construction, can be put to use as a step in moral education. In some shape or another, these three ideas are present in both Plato's Symposium and Kant's Critique of Judgment. I suggest that, even if Kant had not read the Symposium, by the time he wrote the third Critique he may well have gotten interested, thanks to his readings in ancient philosophy, in the issues of symbolism, the connection between pleasure and form, and in the further connection between beauty and moral reasoning.