ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant is plainly wrong about interest in aesthetics, and he is also wrong, if not quite so obviously, about interest in the moral sphere. His fundamental mistakes are essentially the same everywhere. His own mind became for Kant the norm, and he treated it as men usually treat what they endow with authority: he did not ask how it had become the way it was, and he did not compare it with alternative models. Kant gave writers on aesthetics a good conscience when they disregarded the experiences of those who create as well as those who are deeply moved by works of art. Kant's remarks on the lack of interest in aesthetic experience are so implausible that one might be tempted to reinterpret them if at all possible; but he clearly meant what he said. When Kant was hoping very much for a professorship, the chair for poetry fell vacant and he was asked whether he would like it.
