Kant on the Cognitive Significance of Genius

In this paper I defend two closely related claims. The first claim, to which the first section of the paper is devoted, is that for Kant taste is a sort of cognition, that is, a form of awareness of reality for which questions of justification are appropriate. Nevertheless, In our appreciation of natural beauty we are aware of the suitability of appearances for inclusion in a rational system, albeit in a way that is subject to important limitations in comparison with scientific cognition. In the second section of the paper, I will use this reading of Kant’s theory of taste to throw new light on Kant’s account of genius later in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.”