In Wilde's works, especially the art-theoretical essays, aptly summarized under the title Intentions, his desire for tolerance and artistic freedom runs through. This claim to autonomy for the art sphere is based on philosophical studies written a century earlier by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment. Kant analyzes the specificity of aesthetic experience and distinguishes it from theoretical knowledge and morality, emphasizing its freedom from purpose and thus paving the way for the autonomy of the beautiful. This final...