Nike, the multi-national sporting goods corporation, recently released the Nike Dunk Mid Premium SB [ARMY/ORNG BLAZE]. The skateboard sneaker, known under the more palatable moniker ‘Real Tree’ by the urban au courant, will likely be consumed by skateboarder, cultural connoisseur, and layman alike, but will anyone be rightfully able to label this shoe a beautiful work of art?
Athletic footwear admittedly serves a functional purpose, but this doesn’t prohibit us from appreciating its occasional achievement of aesthetic form. Does it? Instinctively, i.e. uncorrupted by philosophical consideration, I would call Real Trees a beautiful pair of sneakers. But Kantian conditions loom skeptically, inching their way into the foreground of my judgment. Does the mere representation of these kicks perk my interest, or is there also an implicit possibility of the actual shoes on my feet motivating my judgment. If it’s the latter, then according to Kant, I’m not really justified in calling the shoes beautiful, as my judgment is interested. That is, I’m saying something about the actual existence of the shoes and their relation to my specific interests rather than something about their aesthetic qualities. Presumably, when one is attracted to footwear, one’s interest is predicated on the actual existence of the shoe. It seems that sneakers interest us to the extent that they can be put on, laced up, and increase athletic performance.
The Real Trees, however, fulfill the disinterested requirement. I don’t have any intention of purchasing them. I don’t skateboard. They would also look rather silly on me. (Indeed, anyone sporting them would look a little silly). When I look at the shoes then, my judgment is purely reflective of their representation and not of the shoes themselves. As a result, when I put forth something to the effect of ‘Those Real Trees are a beautiful pair of Shoes’, I’m not making a claim about an actual pair of shoes. This may seem bizarre but only if one neglects my complete indifference to the possibility of the shoes being worn (by anyone). If the pleasure gained from the Real Tree’s doesn’t entail them being worn, then the shoes themselves are superfluous; I require only their representation to take pleasure in them. I wouldn’t be disappointed if a single pair hadn’t been produced, and I was in fact simply admiring a designer’s rejected blueprint for a prototype.
Because the pleasure I take in the Real Trees are not derived from my relation to any actual shoe, and is thus disinterested, I expect everyone to experience a similar pleasure when coming across them. Why should the shoes evoke a particular sentiment in me but not others when my enjoyment is in no way related to my personal relation to them? If there’s nothing in particular about me that accounts for the pleasure produced by the Real Trees, it stands that everyone should receive pleasure from them. It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to appreciate the quality of a Lotto soccer cleat, a Redwing hiking boot or an Alexander McQueen stiletto. These require the admirer already be invested in a particular field of interest. They require a previously developed passion for soccer, camping or fashion. For one only appreciates them as they apply to tastes one has already acquired, and taste, such as one’s taste for Italian Serie A Soccer or one’s taste for Givenchy, lack the expectation of universal accord. On the other hand, appreciating the Real Trees requires no prior acquired taste. One need not be well versed in skateboard or urban-fashion culture. Consequently, their beauty could be, indeed should be, felt by anyone and everyone. This expectation of universal assent, Kant’s second condition of beauty, is therefore also fulfilled by the Real Trees.
It may seem unusual to expect everyone to agree on the beauty of a pair of sneakers, even if the liking I take to them is disinterested. Or perhaps, one might demand how my judgment of the sneakers could be disinterested. How could I take pleasure in the mere representation of shoes with no regard for their actual existence in the world? This is rare. What is it about these shoes that makes my judgment disinterested, whereas my liking of (presumably most of) the shoes I own is not purely aesthetic in nature. Here’s my Kantian hypothesis: Real Trees evoke a certain purposiveness. The camouflage print circumscribed by bright orange trim suggests that they were designed for hunting purposes. Clearly though, Nike SB’s are not hunting shoes; no one is going to be trekking through wetland with a bloodhound and a rifle sporting Nikes. SB’s aren’t for hunting but for skating. And yet, this specific model doesn’t seem quite appropriate, as it doesn’t seem to cater to the taste of urban skaters. The shoes then, one might posit, are a sartorial accessory, a manifestation of modern fashion. But even this doesn’t seem quite right. What moderately stylish person would want to don themselves in orange camo? Real Trees burgeon with purposiveness yet simultaneously seem to wilt just before any actual purpose can be identified. This perpetual chase for purpose, this unrequited promise of an end is what so tantalizes our sensibilities, the result of which is the sensation of aesthetic pleasure.
Kant’s final movement or condition of beauty stipulates that the beautiful object not merely happen to be beautiful but be necessarily so. If one concedes, however, the preceding condition, that is finality without end, then it seems that Real Trees must necessarily be beautiful. For finality consists of an intricate interaction between a rational actors cognitive powers, specifically imagination and understanding. One’s imagination, the power to construct or map sense perceptions, takes in sense data of an external object and construes the object as a representation. Simultaneously, one’s understanding, the power to formulate necessary and sufficient conditions or concepts, attempts to file this representation under a concept, part of which contains that for which the object was made, its end. Because the Real Trees convey finality, one begins to submit the representation of the shoes under a concept, but because an actual purpose of the object of the representation of the shoes is never identified, the shoes are never actually submitted to a concept. Kant refers to this as a quickening or free play between the imagination and the understanding. This perpetual back and forth or stagnating flux of the Real Trees between representation and concept is the mechanism by which we experience the shoes as beautiful. Because this mechanism consists of a relation of rational powers, any rational agent will experience Real Trees as beautiful; their beauty is a necessary result of the functioning of one’s rational powers.
It seems then that all of Kant’s conditions for beauty obtain in the case of the Real Trees. Kicks as art? Doesn’t seem out of the question for a Kantian.
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