Among the many transformations from the first to the third Critiques, one concerns the role of imagination which is no longer connected with the problems of representation (Vorstellung) but with exhibition or presentation (Darstellung). The focus is no longer the reproduction in the mind of the appearances we experience, but reflection on the relation between the phenomenal and the noumenal levels. In § 59 of the third Critique, Kant speaks of a symbolic hypotyposis, i.e., an exhibition on the part of imagination intended to prove the reality of our ideas. Indeed, subjectio ad aspectum and hypotyposis mean giving visibility to ideas. The fulcrum of the paper will be an examination of how, in his understanding of the concept "symbol" in KU § 59, Kant retrieves the tradition of ancient rhetoric while he at the same time reverses its constitutive tenets. Imagination no longer has to do with the faculty for images, but with the exhibition of the supersensible in a sensible medium. Kant's move prepares, but is essentially foreign to, the further development in German Romanticism that progressively makes symbol the equivalent of poetry and the coincidence of finite and infinite.
A liberated language. Kant on Hypotyposis, Symbol and Analogy
A. Ferrarin
2025
Abstract
Among the many transformations from the first to the third Critiques, one concerns the role of imagination which is no longer connected with the problems of representation (Vorstellung) but with exhibition or presentation (Darstellung). The focus is no longer the reproduction in the mind of the appearances we experience, but reflection on the relation between the phenomenal and the noumenal levels. In § 59 of the third Critique, Kant speaks of a symbolic hypotyposis, i.e., an exhibition on the part of imagination intended to prove the reality of our ideas. Indeed, subjectio ad aspectum and hypotyposis mean giving visibility to ideas. The fulcrum of the paper will be an examination of how, in his understanding of the concept "symbol" in KU § 59, Kant retrieves the tradition of ancient rhetoric while he at the same time reverses its constitutive tenets. Imagination no longer has to do with the faculty for images, but with the exhibition of the supersensible in a sensible medium. Kant's move prepares, but is essentially foreign to, the further development in German Romanticism that progressively makes symbol the equivalent of poetry and the coincidence of finite and infinite.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
