On interested beauty

Nietzsche``s critique of Kant```s aesthetics

Abstract

This work proposes an analysis of Nietzsche's criticism of Kant's aesthetics, focusing on the notion of beauty. Kant argued, in his “Critique of the Faculty of Judgment”, that the aesthetic evaluation of beauty occurs in a disinterested way, promoting a suspension of sensitive and rational instincts. However, Nietzsche challenged this view in his “Genealogy of Morals”, arguing that the appreciation of beauty is intrinsically related to our individual desires, passions and interests. First, going through Heidegger's reading that perhaps Nietzsche misinterpreted Kant due to the influence of Schopenhauer, the article exposes how Nietzsche interprets the idea of ​​a “disinterested beauty” as the result of a bad conscience and argues that there is no such thing as a non-selfishness. Next, the article exposes Nietzsche's argument — based on the understanding that beauty stimulates our strengths, experiences and desires — that supports the notion of interested beauty. Thirdly and finally, based on the epistemological concept of perspectivism, this article addresses Nietzsche's rejection of Kant's notion of transcendental subject, which implicates that, if there is no subject, there can be no disinterest, remaining only forces and their  dynamics of will to power.