Kant is arguably the most central philosopher in the history of aesthetics. To illustrate Kant’s position in the history of this discipline, the longest entry of OUP’s Encycl. of Aesthetics is ‘Kant’. Yet, not much attention has been paid to Kant’s views on the actual arts, artworks and artists he was aware of. Indeed, literature on Kant’s aesthetics tends to overlook his remarks on Raffaello’s ‘Scuola di Atene’, Milton, Klopstock, or the music of Rameau. This has resulted in a fundamental gap in research: Kant’s views on real art are still to be thoroughly explored, and their full significance remains to be assessed. This is the fundamental gap that this project proposes to cover.
KantArt is the first comprehensive, historically-informed project on Kant’s views on real art. By contrast with existing research, this project explores such views with the aim of assessing their full significance at three levels: Kant’s conception of art, his account of fine art, and the role and status of the latter in the history of aesthetics. In order to do so, KantArt adopts a contextual methodology. This entails conducting analysis in light of new, ground-breaking data provided by research on the broad, neglected ecosystem of Kant’s non-critical texts, reflections, correspondence, and Kant’s lectures.
The proposed supervision offers perfect conditions for undertaking KantArt. Gabriele Gava is a world-leading expert in adopting contextual analysis to Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In turn, I will contribute my existing expertise in Kant’s aesthetics, thereby helping consolidate UniTo’s DFE as a core unit in historically-informed analysis of Kant’s philosophy.
Besides Gava’s key role in KantArt, this project will collaborate with highly distinguished academics working on Kant and/or aesthetics, both at UniTo
(T. Andina, C. Barbero, A. Bertinetto, E. Casetta, P. Rumore) and other Italian universities (C. La Rocca, S. Feloj). These academics are to play a crucial role not only in evaluating the findings of the project, but also in facilitating synergic partnerships with core venues for presenting outputs (e.g. Rivista di Estetica, Labont, Kant, oltre Kant, ART Seminar) as well as in the preparation of further applications (namely an ERC Grant).
Finally, in addition to publishing scientific outputs, KantArt is deeply committed to public engagement and outreach activities, aiming at collaborating with institutional partners such as Circolo dei lettori and Accademia delle Scienze, to transfer knowledge to civil society, especially Turin’s local community.