Kant's Concept of Genius

Its Origin and Function in the Third Critique

Paul W. Bruno

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781441132543
• eBook ISBN: 9781441194824
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Aesthetics in Philosophy

While many studies have chronicled the Romantic legacy of artistic genius, this book uncovers the roots of the concept of genius in Kant's third Critique, alongside the development of his understanding of nature. Paul Bruno addresses a genuine gap in the existing scholarship by exploring the origins of Kant's thought on aesthetic judgment and particularly the artist. The development of the word 'genius' and its intimate association with the artist played itself out in a rich cultural context, a context that is inescapably significant in Western thought. Bruno shows how in many ways we are still interrogating the ways in which a nature governed by physical laws can be reconciled with a spirit of human creativity and freedom. This book leads us to a better understanding of the centrality of understanding the modern artistic enterprise, characterized as it is by creativity, for modern conceptions of the self.

Chapter One

Origins of Genius

Etymology of Genius

The root of the word “genius” comes from the Latin gen (to be born; to beget; to come into being). Other recognizable English words with this root are “generate” (to produce, beget) and “engender” (to bring into being; to bring about).

In its Latin usage, genius is understood in reference to a pagan belief in a tutelary god or attendant spirit. Every person is born with such genius. It functions as a determinant for character and is thought to govern one’s fortunes, not only functioning as a guide for one’s life, but as a conduit out of this world and into the next after death.¹

We see examples of such usages of genius in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Julius Caesar. In Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 3, scene 1 he expresses his fear that Banquo knows about his role in Duncan’s murder:

And, to that dauntless temper of [Banquo’s] mind,

He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour

To act in safety. There is none but he

Whose being I do fear: and, under him,

My genius is rebuked; as, it is said,

Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. (3. 1. 57–62)

We can see here how genius functions as an attendant to one’s actions. Macbeth recognizes the role of Banquo’s “wisdom” and how it acts as his “guide.” However, unlike Banquo’s valourous wisdom, Macbeth’s “genius is rebuked.” As Macbeth realizes the enormity of his crime, his genius—that guardian of his character—loses out, thereby vitiating his valour. The internal conversation has as its interlocutors a guiding wisdom and a guiding fear. A battle is waged between the sentinel of Macbeth’s virtue, that is, his genius, and his passions or fears. Rebuking his genius amounts to a victory for fear. What we want to stress is genius’s tutelary function. It is constitutive of one’s character and fortune, and for the most part it is concerned with the goodness of that character.

To highlight genius’s role as an attendant spirit and as a guide out of the world, we can again examine Shakespeare’s use of it in Act 2, scene 1 of Julius Caesar. Brutus’s soliloquy reads,

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar

I have not slept

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:

The genius and the mortal instruments

Are then in council; and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection. (2. 1. 65–73)

That both of these references in Shakespeare arise in soliloquies is important to note. The soliloquy has a confessional character and tone; we are, in effect, listening in on the ruminations of a particular character as he confronts a profound conflict in his life. In the example from Caesar, the picture that is painted is something like a cartoon where a little devil is giving bad or unvirtuous advice to a character in one ear, while an angel is advising the right and true conduct in the other. Brutus witnesses an internal confrontation between his immortal, rational soul, that is, his genius, and his “mortal instruments” or passions. The suggestion that genius is immortal also hints at the fact that somehow genius is a conduit to the next world. The insurrection amounts to an overthrow of that which guides him to do right. With both Macbeth and Brutus we see that genius battles their mortal passions, and in each case genius seems to be on the side of valour or virtue, thus adding an ethical valence to its role as a guide.

The ethical valence, as well as the cartoon image just used, help us to consider a second characteristic of genius that can be found in use more frequently in the seventeenth century—that of the evil genius. The evil genius influences one towards more sordid ends. Again, Shakespeare is helpful. In The Tempest, after Ferdinand is warned by Prospero, his future father-in-law, about dire consequences if he “dost break [Miranda’s] virgin-knot before/all sanctimonious ceremonies may/with full and holy rite be minist’red” (15–17), Ferdinand assures Prospero that his will follows a path of rectitude. He says,

As I hope

For quiet days, fair issue and long life,

With such love as ‘tis now, the murkiest den,

The most opportune place, the strong’st suggestion

Our worser genius can, shall never melt

Mine honour into lust. (4. 1. 23–28)

Such use of the “worser” or evil genius seems to have begun with none other than Shakespeare. The above is the first cited use of the word genius in this way, although it is fitting that an evil guiding spirit finds its opposite with the original Latin usage of attendant spirit. Shakespeare essentially gives genius its own opposite to play against. He gives a name to what might act as the physical or lustful side of the human character, against the morally righteous aspect of the same character. Fittingly, it is contrary to the side of human character that is concerned with virtue. This Manichean view of evil affords Shakespeare the means to dramatize an internal struggle. Here, one character can effectively articulate an internal conflict.

Another later and now obsolete definition of genius that the likes of Joseph Addison, David Hume and Edmund Burke used in the eighteenth century is one that simply means disposition or inclination; this can be a characteristic of a person, a nation, or an age.² Hume writes, “Men of such daring geniuses were not contented with the ancient and legal forms of civil government” (History of England. (1761) III, lxi, 319). Genius here is a particular disposition or temperament of a person. It does not act as a guide or attendant spirit; it is a description of one’s personality or temperament. In speaking about a nation, Addison writes, “A composer should fit his Musik to the Genius of the People” (Spectator #29, 9). About an age Hume writes of “the barbarous and violent genius of the age” (History of England. (1761) I, ix, 196). Burke writes of “The genius of the faction is easily discerned” (“Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” 1842, I, 531). In each case we see genius depicted as a temperament, disposition, or inclination. The object of the disposition or inclination can be, as we see here, a person, nation, age; it can also be a language, law, institution, place, material thing, or disease. This usage seems to do away with the virtue/vice, good/bad dichotomy. Genius does not necessarily guide one in the direction of good action or bad, but rather it simply exists as one’s temperament or inclination. In this usage, genius may be barbarous, daring, common, or otherwise. The ethical dimension seems to have fallen away.

Throughout the eighteenth century, a new definition was taking shape. The burgeoning use of the word as a creative force moves from undifferentiated and broad usage to a more studied and refined use. This is not to suggest that one purified and universal definition emerged to supersede all others. As we will see, Young, Gerard, Herder, and Kant conceived of genius in different ways, yet they all retain something of the creative, inventive impulse, an aspect of the word that came into prominence in the eighteenth century.

We first see the tentative advent of a new way of speaking about genius in the eighteenth century with Addison and Lord Shaftesbury. They straddle the line between conceiving of genius as disposition or temperament and conceiving of it in a new, and now more familiar manner, as creative power. The new way genius comes to be understood is as a

native intellectual power of an exalted type, such as is attributed to those who are esteemed greatest in any department of art, speculation, or practice; instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original thought, invention, or discovery. (OED)

This should be understood as etymological definition #3 for the remainder of this study. In fact, let us keep in mind the following three definitions of genius just discussed. Each will be numbered to more easily distinguish them as the study progresses.

1a.genius as an attendant spirit or guide (evidence of ethical valence).

1b.evil genius.

2a.(Obsolete) a disposition or inclination (of a person).

2b.(Obsolete) a disposition or inclination (of a nation or age).

3.a native intellectual power of the exalted type.

Of primary interest for this study is definition #3 since it deals with the creative aspect of the definition that is still with us today.

Despite the ascendancy of this third sense of genius in the eighteenth century, genius was not recognized in Dr. Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary.³ It is worth noting that the word genius in the European languages (génie in French and Genie in German) share the same Latin roots. Evidence suggests that, in terms of philosophical use, the German word genie migrated to German from English, whereas the word “aesthetic” traversed languages in the opposite direction⁴ going from German to English. Thus, the roots of the German word genie are found in English, specifically with the English literary critics.

The Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache identifies the same remote Latin roots that we have identified for the German word Genie. However, the Wörterbuch identifies the more recent roots of the word Genie which is defined as “Personifikation der Zeugungskraft” (the personification of the power of creation) in eighteenth-century France. The Trésor de la Langue Française (1789–1960) entry for génie gives references to several French writers who use the word in the sense of etymological definition #3. Among them are Voltaire and Diderot: In his 1734 Lettres Philosophiques, Voltaire wrote of, “un génie comme Mr Newton.” (ARTFL [online]). Diderot also uses genius in the sense of etymological definition #3. He writes,

The interest and the charm of the work conceal Richardson’s art from those who are the most capable of seeing it. Many times I’ve begun to read Clarissa in order to train myself, many times I have forgotten my project at the twentieth page; I was completely struck like all ordinary readers with the genius with which he had imagined a young girl filled with wisdom and prudence. (ARTFL [online])⁵

Despite the above cited usages of génie, it is important to note that there is no evidence that any Frenchman undertook studies specifically dedicated to uncovering the meaning of genius, like those of Gerard and Young. We should also note that the French seems to have a sense of the word genius that is not acknowledged by either the OED or the Wörterbuch. This meaning, unique to the French, means simply the powers of the mind. The Trésor, records a meaning of génie as “Nature (bonne ou mauvaise), ensemble des aptitudes innées, des facultés intellectuelles, des dispositions morales.”⁶ It is a slight variation on etymological definitions #2a and #3. Unlike etymological definition #2a, it is not concerned so much with personality as it is the capacity of the mind. And unlike etymological definition #3, it does not emphasize a creative element, it is simply the powers of the mind. Recognizing that the words for genius in each of these languages shared meaning, we will see that both Herder’s and Kant’s accounts of genius were directly influenced by the English literary critics. As Abrams points out,

The Copernican revolution in epistemology—if we do not restrict this to Kant’s specific doctrine that the mind imposes the forms of time, space, and the categories on the ‘sensuous manifold,’ but apply it to the general concept that the perceiving mind discovers what it has itself partly made—was effected in England by poets and critics before it manifested itself in academic philosophy. (Abrams 1953, 58)

As we will see, although Herder may not be considered an academic philosopher, his writings on genius are strongly influenced by Young. And we will also see the strong influence that Gerard had on Kant.

We will now proceed to a more thorough exploration of etymological definition #3, the vestiges of which remain with us today.

Lord Shaftesbury

We find evidence of all three definitions of genius in the writings of the widely influential Lord Shaftesbury, or Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury did indeed use the word genius in the sense of etymological definition #1, but only as a means to suggest that etymological definition #2 was more appropriate. In some of his other writings he clearly has in mind the creative connotations that came to the fore in the seventeenth century. Let us examine the use of each definition in turn.

In Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Shaftesbury addresses what he thinks is a misapprehension of an ancient teaching in one of his soliloquies. He wants “to shew the Antiquity of that Opinion, ‘That we have each of us a Daemon, Genius, Angel, or Guardian-Spirit, to whom we were strictly join’d, and committed, from our earliest Dawn of Reason, or Moment of our Birth’” (Cooper 1981, 60). The hypothesis that we have a genius that acts like a guardian angel is rejected by Shaftesbury. He writes,

But I shou’d esteem it unfair to proceed upon such an Hypothesis as this: when (the very utmost) the wise Antients ever meant by this Daemon-Companion, I conceive to have been no more than enigmatically to declare, “that we had each of us a Patient in our-self; that we were properly our own Subjects of Practice; and that we then became due Practitioners, when by virtue of an intimate Receá we cou’d discover a certain Duplicity of Soul, and divide our-selves into two Partys.” (Cooper 1981, 60)

Shaftesbury is dismissing any notion (“an Hypothesis”) of attendant spirit in favor a more equivocal “Patient,” or, to use a modern word, personality. However, he also seems to want to retain some semblance of the dualism we discussed earlier with regard to Shakespeare’s use of an evil genius. The “Duplicity of Soul” suggests a conflicted personality. Recall Ferdinand assuring Prospero that he would not follow his “worser genius.” Curiously enough, Shaftesbury seems to want to spurn the idea of an attendant spirit but retain its progeny, evil genius. In addition, in advocating “a Patient in our-self,” Shaftesbury is asserting the broader understanding of genius as personality that is apparent in etymological definition #2.

In a later soliloquy in Characteristicks, Shaftesbury refers to “the different Genius of Nations,” “the Genius of our People,” “British Genius” (306) and even “the moral Genius” (Cooper 1981, 190–92). Clearly, in these instances Shaftesbury is employing etymological definition #2 while, at times, still reaching back for the ethical valence we discussed in etymological definition #1. In The Moralist he continues this use with references to “the Genius of the People” and “Genius of the Place.”

The transition to etymological definition #3 must be located in Shaftesbury’s use of the Prometheus story. In fact, Abrams recognizes Shaftesbury’s use of the Prometheus myth, specifically the idea that “paralleled the poet to the Creator,” (Abrams 1953, 280) as widely influential in Germany.⁷ In De Shaftesbury à Kant, Jean-Paul Larthomas recognizes the importance of Shaftesbury’s claim that the imagination is Promethean, that is, that it can create. In the chapter entitled “L’Enthousiasme et la Théorie du Génie,” Larthomas devotes much of his discussion to Shaftesbury’s use of the Promethean myth. Larthomas writes, “Prometheus is at the same time the force of nature and that of liberty reunited” (Larthomas 1985, 254). Furthermore, the creative impulse is not strictly bound to feeling; reason plays an important role: “Shaftesbury puts forth that this ‘hardy adventure’ of sentiment as much as that of reason is implicit of all creative genius, of all Promethean art” (Larthomas 1985, 236). Shaftesbury equates the poet with Prometheus. He writes that a poet who “give[s] to an Action its just Body and Proportions” should be recognized as “a second Maker: a just Prometheus, under Jove” (Cooper 1981, 110). In The Moralist, Shaftesbury states, “Prometheus was the Cause. The Plastik Artist, with his unlucky hand, solv’d all. ‘Twas His Contrivance (they said) and He was to answer for it’” (Cooper 1987, 48). We should state that indeed Larthomas is correct to remark that Promethean art requires the rational faculties—“just Body and Proportion,” “Tones and Measures,” “Judgment and Ingenuity,” and “Harmony and Honesty” to use Shaftesbury’s words (Cooper 1981, 110). Although Shaftesbury recognizes that reason is involved in Promethean art, he does not directly equate the Promethean story with genius. In fact, the references to genius in his discussion of Prometheus are sparse.⁸ It is only in Soliloquy Part I, section 3 in Characteristicks that Prometheus and genius are found in proximity, and almost a full page apart at that. Here is what Shaftesbury writes some twenty lines after talking about “a just Prometheus”:

. . . we should consider of the Advantages or Disadvantages our Authors may possibly meet with, from abroad: and how far their Genius may be depress’d or rais’d by any external Causes, arising from the Humour or Judgment of the World. (Cooper 1981, 110)

It is not at all clear that this reference to genius is a reference to the creative impulse found in the Promethean or to the identity of English poets as a group, to their collective disposition as it were. This is not to argue that Shaftesbury had no influence on Kant. When it comes to ideas like the sublime, judgmen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Introduction
• Chapter One Origins of Genius
• Chapter Two Aspects of the Third Critique
• Chapter Three Nature
• Chapter Four Genius
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index