Throughout his lectures and published writings on anthropology, Kant describes a form of unintentional, unstructured, obscure, and pleasurable imaginative mental activity, which he calls fantasy (Phantasie), where we ‘take pleasure in letting our mind wander about in obscurity’ (LA 25:480). In the context of his pragmatic anthropology, Kant is concerned not only to describe this form of mental activity as a fact of human psychology, but more importantly, to criticize and discourage it. But must we share Kant’s negative evaluation? Could fantasy play a positive role in some kinds of experience? In this paper I first reconstruct Kant’s conception of fantasy, and then consider what role fantasy might play in aesthetic experience. Precisely because of his anxieties about fantasy, Kant is careful to distinguish between the lawless freedom of the imagination in fantasy and the ‘free lawfulness’ of the imagination in aesthetic judgment. Departing from Kant, and with help from Susan Sontag, I argue that certain aesthetic objects, especially certain works of modernist art, positively invite fantasy, making fantasy part of proper aesthetic appreciation. I conclude by suggesting that while fantasy can indeed play a positive role in aesthetic appreciation, there is still reason to regard fantasy as ‘normatively ambiguous’.

中文翻译：

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康德的幻想

在他的讲座和出版的人类学著作中，康德描述了一种无意识的、无结构的、晦涩的、令人愉悦的想象性心理活动，他称之为幻想（Phantasie），我们“乐于让我们的思想在默默无闻中徘徊”（LA 25:480）。在他的实用人类学背景下，康德不仅关心将这种形式的心理活动描述为人类心理学的事实，而且更重要的是批评和劝阻它。但我们必须认同康德的负面评价吗？幻想可以在某些体验中发挥积极作用吗？在本文中，我首先重构康德的幻想概念，然后考虑幻想在审美体验中可能扮演的角色。正是因为对幻想的焦虑，康德才小心翼翼地区分幻想中想象的无法无天的自由和审美判断中想象的“自由合法性”。与康德不同，在苏珊·桑塔格的帮助下，我认为某些审美对象，尤其是某些现代主义艺术作品，积极地邀请幻想，使幻想成为正确审美欣赏的一部分。我的结论是，虽然幻想确实可以在审美欣赏中发挥积极作用，但仍然有理由将幻想视为“规范上模糊的”。