Appendix: On the Methodology of Taste

Summary

The division of a critique into a doctrine of elements and a doctrine of method that precedes the science cannot be applied to the critique of taste, because there cannot be any science of the beautiful and the judgment of taste is not determinable by principles. For as far as the scientific element in any art is concerned, which concerns truth in the presentation of its object, this is to be sure the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non) of beautiful art, but not the art itself. For beautiful art there is thus only a manner (modus), not a way of teaching it (methodus). The master must demonstrate what the student is to do and how he should accomplish it; and the universal rules under which he ultimately brings his procedure can serve rather to bring its principal elements to mind as occasion requires than to prescribe them to him. Nevertheless, in so doing there must be regard for a certain ideal that art must have before its eyes, even though in practice it is never fully attained.