David Hume, the Scottish empiricist, wrote a very short essay called “Of Tragedy”. It is always treated as an important text when discussing Hume’s view on tragedy. Hume begins the essay with the following question: why is it that tragedy is pleasurable, in spite of the painful passions it causes? Hume focuses on tragedy and its relationship with passions. So far Hume’s view on this relationship has been formulated in many different ways, one of which is Hume’s conversion theory. According to this theory, painful passions are turned into pleasurable ones using stylistic and formal rhetorical means. This view has been constantly proved, disproved, edited and changed by either its supporters or its critics. However, in most cases, the supporters or the critics agree that tragedy induces pleasure using poetic or rhetoricalstylistic means. This view goes on to argue that all the functions and effects of tragedy should be reduced to functions and effects of taste and aesthetic, focusing on the production of pleasure. This paper tries to explore other effects of tragedy according to Hume. First I would analyze and explore the ignored parts of the “Of Tragedy” essay, then I look into Hume’s thoughts on tragedy, scattered over other Humean texts and finally, I would situate Hume’s essay in the broader context of Hume’s philosophy to compare his other philosophical ideas with those focusing on tragedy. This way we can analyze other effects of tragedy according to Hume, especially its effects in the domain of cognition and mortality, and also find a way to reconsider Hume’s conversion theory.

During the flourishing of the Enlightenment, Kant attributed to beauty an identity distinct from morality and reason, elaborating on its various dimensions. In the Critique of Judgment, by examining judgments of taste, Kant delineates the boundary between the beautiful and the sublime and elucidates their independent role in attaining universal cognition. However, he remains silent on the concept of ugliness. Given that the embodiment of ugliness occupies a significant portion of artistic works, this article seeks to critique and analyze the role of ugliness in achieving universal cognition within Kantian aesthetics, as interpreted by his commentators. Employing a qualitative, descriptive-analytical methodology and drawing on library and documentary sources, this study addresses the following question: What is the relationship between ugliness and universal cognition from a Kantian perspective?
     The findings indicate that while there are two divergent interpretations among Kantian commentators, the conceptualization of ugliness can be grounded in a more profound negation. Accordingly, negative judgments of taste belong to the category of reflective aesthetic judgments and can be analyzed through the fourfold structure of judgments of taste as follows: Quality: Displeasure devoid of interest (interesselose Unlust), Quantity: Equivalent to universal validity, Relation: Counter-purposiveness (Zweckwidrigkeit) without a purpose, Modality: Necessarily displeasing. Thus, ugliness embodies a negative purposiveness that generates a discordant free play between the faculties of imagination and understanding. Although more complex, this dissonance may ultimately aspire to harmony.