The World in a Wildflower - A Kantian Approach to the Aesthetics of Nature (Paperback)

Though several eighteenth-century philosophers pursued the topic of natural beauty, most notably Immanuel Kant, the difficulty of defining nature and the natural has been appreciated only in recent scholarship. Due largely to this definitional vagueness, the aesthetic study of natural objects and environments has remained on the margins of philosophy. With the goal of galvanizing contemporary aesthetics of nature, this work suggests that the sub-field follow two of Kants general ideas: First, the claim that natural beauty is unique because it alone produces an interest, and second, that our aesthetic appreciation of natural objects has ethical implications. Returning attention to Kant would, Liggett argues, inspire a viable alternative to the two main branches of contemporary theories: those that advocate a cognitive model of aesthetic nature appreciation and those favoring a model that gives the imagination central importance.