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Immanuel Kant — What is Beauty? - Ralph Ammer

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Or to put it in Kant’s technical terms: The perceptions from outside are structured by our concepts inside. If everything goes well, our mind can match these perceptions with a concept. We see a bunch of shapes and colours and conclude: That is a tree! This is how we understand the world. Our mind groups perceptions under concepts. These concepts are fairly simple and easy to deal with. Once we have understood that this thing is a “tree” we can avoid bumping into it—and go on with our lives. We constantly seek this kind of closure. We want to know what is going on around us. But sometimes this doesn’t work out. When we stand in front of an old tree for example, we sense that there is more than just a “tree”. We see the ancient bark of the colossal trunk, the crooked shape of those mighty branches, the flickering light in the radiant green of the leaves. And we do not understand it all—but we find it beautiful. Our mind struggles to reduce this spectacle to a simple concept. “Tree” does

Immanuel Kant — What is Beauty? Why is beauty so important? It leads us to truth and goodness , says Immanuel Kant. How? Beauty To uncover the secret of beauty, let us first examine how we usually view the world . This is what happens when we see something: 1. Our senses receive a lot of raw data from the outside world. 2. Our mind tries to structure and make sense of it. Or to put it in Kant’s technical terms: The perceptions from outside are structured by our concepts inside . If everything goes well, our mind can match these perceptions with a concept. We see a bunch of shapes and col

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