Will Bassing - Kant's Definition of Beauty

I think Immanuel Kant brings an interesting definition to the word beauty.  “the form of a beautiful object causes the imagination and the understanding to coincide in a special sort of harmony.”  I really like this definition because it applies well to examples I have given in previous blogs.   I believe that this Kantian definition agrees with Heiddegar’s view pretty well. According to Heiddegar, when we view art as having originated from a “clearing/opening,” deeper intellectual thought is provoked, thus a beautiful object (the artwork) has caused the imagination (what does that person do with those pencils and pens?) and the understanding (the understanding of the function of pens) to coincide in harmony.  Kant discusses art as communicable pleasure, but I find beauty harder to define objectively when you introduce pleasure.  Pleasure is very subjective, one thing I find pleasing might disgust someone else.  I don’t like chocolate, it doesn’t please me, yet it pleases everyone else.  So we can’t define beauty as being chocolate, because I don’t like chocolate. Obviously this was oversimplified, but the old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” does hold some water if we define beauty as something pleasing.  However this introduces several levels of pleasure and meaning.  If I say that getting short brunette girls are beautiful to me, and that having an understanding relationship with God is beautiful, shouldn’t the use of beauty have separate definitions?  If not then this is rather blasphemous.  But if we define beauty abstractly, then we can make an objective definition, just like Kant has done.  Beauty is the coinciding of imagination and understanding.  This umbrella’s countless things, whether its brunettes, religion, art, or nature.