When engaging with the fascinating, and historically seminal, aesthetic theory Kant presents in his Critique of Judgment (CJ), the first question to spring to a reader's mind would most likely not be, "So what was Kant's theory of metaphor?" So, why would one think that this question, which seems to be of only ancillary relevance to Kant's aesthetics, is an important one? I contend that providing an answer to the above question will have significant ramifications for our understanding of some parts of Kantian aesthetic theory, especially his views on the nature of works of fine art, genius, and the communication between artist and audience. My two basic arguments will be that there is, in fact, a metaphor theory in CJ, and that within it we find a statement, somewhat tacit, about how some works of art are created by artists in such a way as to convey a certain kind of aesthetic content to others.

Even though some who have studied Kant's aesthetics generally believe that a theory of metaphor is present, this view, I think, still requires some reinforcement. The following three chapters, taken together, are meant to both provide support for that very general claim, and to set out a detailed interpretation of Kant's theory of metaphor. To accomplish these goals, the first chapter reviews the recent (and only) literature on Kantian metaphors and dispenses with one possible, but flawed, interpretation of Kant's theory. The second chapter provides a thorough account of the multi-faceted relationships between many of the important notions in Kant's theory of fine art, i.e., aesthetic ideas, rational ideas, aesthetic concepts, aesthetic attributes and genius. Finally, the third chapter takes the building blocks provided by the second chapter and formulates a Kantian theory of metaphor that is fully integrated into (and supported by) his views on fine art and aesthetic experience.