Study of the Concept of Play in Critique of Judgment A Look at Various Interpretations of the Concept as Viewed in Paul Guyer's the harmony of faculties revisited

In the present writing, the authors go to discuss various interpretations of the concept of free play in Critique of Judgment. On the one hand, this concept plays an important role in the Critique (since the judgment of taste is based on it for its validity), on the other hand, however, Kant's explanation of this concept is not so consistent with his fundamental principles in Critique of Pure Reason. This inconsistence is caused by the fact that Kant bases judgment of taste on the free play of cognitive faculties as some mental state which is founded on no determinate notion of the object; and, at the same time, he considers a universal validity for it. But, according to the principles posed in the first Critique, universal validity of a judgment is based on its objectivity; and the basis for objectivity of a judgment is a concept of the object on which is founded the judgment. Guyer classifies attempts made to solve this problem under two precognitive and multicognitive approaches, and introduces the metacognitive approach. According to the precognitive approach, free play of faculties is the pre-condition for each and every cognition. The problem with this approach is that [in this way] every judgment will be a judgment of taste. On the basis of multicognitive approach, free play of the mental faculties will, finally, attain one concept from among some existing concepts. This interpretation is not consistent with Kant's points concerning non-inclusivity of the concept. Finally, Guyer introduces metacognitive interpretation which skips the problem instead of solving it.