“Transcendental” Aesthetics: Emerson’s Impersonality and Kant’s Imprisonment

Abstract

This essay, juxtaposing spontaneous judgment and reflective judgment, investigates how the philosophical term “transcendental” in American idealism has a slightly different meaning from that in German transcendental idealism. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “transcendental,” which is rather impersonal, undoes “subject,” while Immanuel Kant’s “transcendental” imprisons the subject in the relationship between man and world. Their philosophical loci are the self. Emerson is interested in impersonal condition while Kant is deeply concerned with the condition of subjectivity. Comparing Emerson to Kant in their aesthetics, I illustrate the subject’s role in their philosophy. Focusing on Emerson’s essays, I examine how spontaneity is akin to intuition in terms of philosophical concepts. Because of the self who actively invites the exterior world, not passively encounters, I argue that Emerson’s account of the impersonal is relevant to spontaneous judgment. On the contrary, Kant’s subject is relevant to reflective judgment in a way that allows sensible intuition based on the receptivity of impression. Therefore, the two philosophers wrestle with the self in a different way. According to both thinkers, the philosophical term “transcendental” is floating between self and selfless. It shows that intellectual intuition is the primary factor in comparing Emerson’s account of spontaneous judgment with Kant’s reflective judgment; the former integrates two hemispheres, intellectual intuition and sensible intuition while the latter denies that integration. Hence, the spontaneous judgment opens the door of the self which the personal goes out of and the impersonal goes into.