 In the face of these textual ambiguities, an option is to adopt a formalist interpretation and hold that Kant was merely paying lip service to the Affektenlehre (Kivy 2009: 50 ff.; Schueller 1955: 224–25). However, other scholars deny that Kant was a formalist. Young (2020) attributes to him an imitation theory of expressiveness: music imitates the tones characteristic of impassioned speech. Matherne (2014) attempts to reconcile formalist and expressivist elements in Kant’s thought. Crucial to her interpretation is the concept of an aesthetic idea, which Kant defines as