Comparing and Contrasting Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment and Wolfgang Iser's Interaction Between Text and Reader
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790) and Wolfgang Iser’s essay on "Interaction Between Text and Reader" (1976) both address the role of the audience in the act of aesthetic experience and interpretation. However, they do so from different philosophical perspectives, with Kant working within a philosophical framework rooted in aesthetic judgment and epistemology, while Iser's work emerges from literary theory and reader-response criticism. Kant is concerned with the philosophy of aesthetics and the nature of beauty, while Iser is focused on the interactive role of the reader in meaning-making and interpretation. Despite these differences, both theorists recognize the subjective experience of engaging with art and literature, though they frame it in distinct terms.
1. Philosophical Foundations and Theoretical Context
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790):
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Kant’s Critique of Judgment is the third part of his Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason, and it is focused on the aesthetic and teleological dimensions of human experience. The central idea is that aesthetic judgment (such as judging the beauty of an object) is subjective but also claims universal validity.
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Kant argues that the judgment of beauty is rooted in the free play between the imagination and understanding. When we judge something as beautiful, we experience a sense of harmony between these faculties, which results in a feeling of pleasure. Importantly, Kant believes that these judgments are disinterested, meaning that they are not influenced by any personal desire or practical concern.
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Kant's work lays the foundation for later theories of aesthetic experience, including those focused on the universal aspects of taste and the nature of subjective aesthetic judgment.
Wolfgang Iser's "Interaction Between Text and Reader":
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Iser, a central figure in reader-response criticism, takes a literary-theoretical approach to the process of reading. His work focuses on how readers actively participate in the creation of meaning as they engage with a text. According to Iser, texts are inherently unfinished and ambiguous, and meaning is produced through the interaction between the reader’s interpretation and the textual structures (such as gaps, silences, and ambiguities) that invite interpretation.
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Iser emphasizes the active role of the reader, asserting that meaning is not something that resides solely within the text or is solely imposed by the author, but rather emerges through the reader’s engagement with the text. He views the reader’s imagination as essential in filling in the gaps and making sense of the text’s open-endedness.
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Unlike Kant, whose emphasis is on universal aesthetic principles, Iser highlights the subjectivity and individuality of the reader’s experience, with the recognition that different readers may arrive at different interpretations of the same text.
Comparison:
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While Kant is concerned with universal aesthetic judgments and their grounding in human cognition, Iser is interested in the active construction of meaning by the reader, emphasizing the relational and interactive aspect of interpretation.
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Both Kant and Iser acknowledge that subjective experience is central to engaging with art or literature, but Kant assumes a universal structure of judgment, while Iser foregrounds the individuality and plurality of reader responses.