The Pleasures of Goodness: Peircean Aesthetics in Light of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment

Abstract

Peirce’s comments on aesthetics are brief, enigmatic, and sometimes inconsistent. Peirce scholars understand aesthetics to be the science of the summum bonum (the greatest good), and they identify the greatest good as the growth of concrete reasonableness. Without rejecting these claims, more must be said to ground and clarify Peircean aesthetics. This essay argues that Peircean aesthetics can be developed in light of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment.