"Free Play" In Kant's Aesthetics

“Free play” is an important concept in Kant's aesthetics,which refers to the state of mind when imagination and understanding or reason enter a certain proportion of emotional appeal.This paper aims to reunify Kant's aesthetics with “free play”.Kant's aesthetics can be divided into three parts: analytic of the beautiful,analytic of the sublime and Kant's view of art.People used to classify these three parts into aesthetic non-utility,but this cannot fully show the whole picture of Kant's aesthetics.This paper holds that these three major parts are all centered on “free play”,and even aesthetic non-utility is one of the characteristics of “free play”,so we can use "free games" to master Kant's aesthetics.In the “analytic of the beautiful”,the inner state of the subject in the affirmative judgment of taste is the free game of imagination and understanding,and the four moments of judgment of taste are actually the characteristics and innate conditions of “free play”.Among them,“disinterestedness” and “no concept of universality” illustrate the “free play” of non-utility and emotional universality,they are the characteristics of “free play”;And the reasons for these characteristics,namely “free play” congenital conditions,is the “no objective purposiveness” and “common sense”,because there was no real purpose,"free play" is not interested,because of "common sense" that inevitably can convey emotions generally,“free play” is subjective,but common.Of course,the reason why “no purpose” is called “no substantive purpose” is that appearance actually conforms to the purpose of “aesthetic concept”,but it is not specific and utilitarian,so it seems to have no purpose.In a word,when the subject experiences aesthetic feeling,it is the coordination between imagination and understanding and enters the state of free play.The expression of this kind of emotion is the sense of freedom in accordance with the law.In the “analytic of the sublime”,the state of mind acquired by the subject in the affirmative judgment of sublime is a free play of imagination and reason.When the subject is confronted with an excessively large nature(“formless”),the imagination can no longer completely include the appearance into itself,so that the understanding is in an incompetent position at this time.The subject first experiences the displeasure of being rejected,which is the “nobleness of mathematics”.But the imagination of the out purpose and not the actual threat,the main body,in turn,happens to stir up the main body of the reason idea,purpose and the role of reason idea is to make all the perceptual appearance appear in front of it is absolutely small,so the imagination while coordinated with understanding no longer,but it has won a higher coordination and reason,both to go into a state of “free play”,that is “mechanics of the sublime”.In short,when the subject experiences the feeling of sublime,it is a free play of imagination and reason.It is the subject who evokes his ability to transcend all the senses and transcends the external nature,thus improving his dignity.Therefore,the judgment of sublime is emotionally shown as a sense of transcendence.In Kant's artistic value,“free play” connects fine art,genius,the aesthetic idea,spirit and the ability,fine art is the art of true freedom of beauty,so is a sign of “free play”,An tasteful genius is the creator of fine art,genius fundamentally because his imagination and understanding nature endowed with the proportion of “lucky”,and this coordination is free play,so tasteful genius is a representative of the free play,and fundamental characteristics of artistic talent is also free play.Therefore,“free play” is the essence of judgment of taste,judgment of sublime and Kant's view of art.We can use “free game” to unify Kant's aesthetics.