The Concept Of Freedom In Kant’s Aesthetics

"Freedom" as a central concept runs throughout the Kantian philosophy. However, the concept of freedom, due to their different locations in the system of Kantian philosophy has different connotations and meanings. Beginning from Kant’s philosophy, this paper takes Kantian philosophy as its background, sorts out freedom’s different meanings of the three levels in his philosophical system; focuses on going deep to the aesthetic field to figure out interrelated, the layer upon layer freedom system; discusses how Kant uses the aesthetic discussion as an opportunity, coalescing human and nature, sense and sensibility and completes the construction of persons’ moral personality from an anthropological view. The exposition of this paper is beyond the theoretical level. It is in close connection with social problems today about chasing fame and fortune endlessly which leads to human indifference, lack of moral law and lost of life meanings. This paper is trying to inspire people to understand what is true free; how to pursue true freedom and happiness; think about the value of survive, human ideals and the ultimate fate of human lives?The first chapter discusses the status of Kant’s aesthetics and Kant’s freedom. As an important part of the Kantian philosophy, Kant’s aesthetics banded the theory of nature philosophy and the philosophy of moral practice together to build a complete system of Kant’s philosophy of building. The concept of freedom which runs through it is the main line and core content of Kant’s aesthetics. Kant’s aesthetics was born in the fierce struggle era between rationalist camp and experience camp. Kant accepted Non-utilitarian aesthetic thought of the British empiricism, learned innate rationality from rationalist camp, to try to explain and reconcile the contradictions of the two factions by building his philosophical system.The second chapter analyzes the concept of freedom in Kant’s philosophical system. Kant’s aesthetics is an important part of Kantian philosophy. The two are inextricably linked. When it comes to Kant’s aesthetics, we must study Kantian philosophy first. Kant discusses the transcendental freedom, practical freedom and aesthetic freedom. Transcendental freedom is a priori set by man’s free will, to make men’s freedom possible, and to be the rational basis of practical freedom. In aesthetic freedom, Kant answers the question "what is human". Kant holds that human belongs to "double world", not only as the existence of the perceptual world, human are bounded by material force coming from the objective world; but also as the existence of rational world, human has ontological free will to set the moral law for themselves, and put into practice in accordance with this law. Between nature and freedom, the aesthetic field is the wonderland, where human gets the coordination of emotional and rational, and achieves transcendent aesthetic freedom. As rational beings, the intrinsic freedom of the aesthetic subject promotes him introspect about his survival status and value of life, contact his own freedom with moral law, and better achieve the freedom through own good will. Transcendental freedom, practical freedom and sense of freedom reflect the three different dimensions of Kantian philosophy, and also show Kant’s Aesthetics’the emotional foundation and bridge-link role between transcendental freedom and practical freedom.The third chapter specially interprets the internal structure of the sense of freedom, and its internally fit and interrelated freedom system. In the freedom area of beauty, the aesthetic is the free play of imagination and intelligence. Freedom is expressed as purity, subjectivity and non-utilitarian firstly; Aesthetic common sense, the effective cause of emotional resonance, can guarantee the universal communicability and sociability of aesthetic individual emotion, making people exclude personal interest, completely involve in purely aesthetic and get the free aesthetic pleasure. In the sublime feelings, Kant further expands aesthetic freedom state. Aesthetic subjects evoke their own rational ability maximally, comprehend their own mission, the true meaning of human and macroscopic value of life all over the universe, obtain the upgrade and progress, because the sublime aesthetic objects are far beyond the experienced capability of the subjects. After subjects fully integrate into the sublime aesthetic, they conclude sublime reflect subjectivity freedom of human concerned with the moral and then realize" beauty is a symbol of moral values". In the artistic freedom, freedom is expressed as arts’ morality, purpose and originality, exemplary of genius. Kant combines aesthetic and freedom closely, fully enriches the connotation of aesthetic phenomena and ontology, nature and freedom, expands the theoretical point of aesthetics, reflecting more profound nature.Final chapter discusses the significance and value of introducing freedom to the aesthetic field. Introducing freedom to the aesthetic field, so that the aesthetic has the connotation of "free", so that the aesthetic of the three dimensions gets rich connotations and the transcendence nature of aesthetic is excavated, which turns the aesthetic subject to explore the deeper meaning of "human being".