Kant’s Aesthetic Theory: Subjectivity vs. Universal Validity

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant claims that the judgment of taste is based on a subjective principle, but it has universal validity. This subjective principle determines what pleases and what displeases us only through feeling—not through concepts. The a priori character of taste reflects the transcendental principle of the general acceptability, and only such a transcendental principle can be a sensus communis. His contention is that this principle emerges from the free play of our cognitive faculties, and has to be common sense that everyone has since everyone has the same cognitive capacities. In this paper, I try to demonstrate this nature of the aesthetic judgment, which is subjective but has universal validity. 1. The Necessity of the Aesthetic Judgment In the exposition of the beautiful that Kant offers at the end of the fourth moment of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, we see an amalgamation of the a priori character of the judgment of taste and the necessary character of the pleasure that we take from a beautiful object. Beautiful is “cognized without a concept as the object of a necessary satisfaction” (J, 5:240). However, since the notion of necessity is abstract and conceptual, the idea of an aesthetic judgment that is necessary seems paradoxical because an aesthetic judgment is always subjective and non-conceptual. According to Kant, it is not an arbitrary incidence that some elements in nature produce pleasure in us and some do not. He therefore claims that this necessity, regarding the pleasure that we take from a beautiful object, has to be a characteristic of the aesthetic judgment. One cannot separate Submitted: 05.25.2007; Revised: 07.20.2007; Published: 07.31.2007 Article c © 2007 Mehmet Atalay Stable URL: http://www.personal.ceu.hu/percipi/archive/200701/05_atalay.pdf KANT’S AESTHETIC THEORY: SUBJECTIVITY VS. UNIVERSAL VALIDITY 45 this notion of necessity from the claim that the beautiful object gives universal pleasure without a concept. In Kant’s view, universality and necessity are the two indications of a claim that has an a priori character. In the Critique of Pure Reason, he says: Experience teaches us, to be sure, that something is constituted thus and so, but not that it could not be otherwise. First, then, if a proposition is thought along with its necessity, it is an a priori judgment; if it is, moreover, also not derived from any proposition except one that in turn is valid as a necessary proposition, then it is absolutely a priori. Second: Experience never gives its judgments true or strict but only assumed and comparative universality (through induction), so properly it must be said: as far as we have yet perceived, there is no exception to this or that rule. Thus if a judgment is thought in strict universality, i.e., in such a way that no exception at all is allowed to be possible, then it is not derived from experience, but is rather valid absolutely a priori. (R, B4) Since these two categories are inseparable from each other, when we claim that the beautiful object gives universal pleasure—if this claim is not an empirical one—our claim is that it is necessary that the beautiful object gives pleasure. We need to find a ground for this claim that aesthetic judgment is necessary. We cannot find an epistemic ground for it—there is not a priori knowledge that tells us that everyone takes the pleasure that I take from an object that I find to be beautiful. Kant says: [T]his necessity is of a special kind: not a theoretical objective necessity, where it can be cognized a priori that everyone will feel this satisfaction in the object called beautiful by me, nor a practical necessity, where by means of concepts of a pure will. ( J, 5:237) As he points out, we cannot find a moral ground for it either—the aesthetic pleasure is not based on the principles of our will. Therefore, the necessity of an aesthetic judgment is neither a theoretical necessity (as in the case of judgments of knowledge) nor a practical necessity (as in the case of normative judgments). This subjective judgment—the aesthetic judgment—is necessary, but it is not a necessity that is based on our concepts. In other words, this necessity that the aesthetic judgment contains is not based on anything that is outside of aesthetic pleasure. We need to seek the principle of aesthetic pleasure through analyzing the necessary connection between the beautiful and this feeling of pleasure that we take from a beautiful object. In order to clarify this necessary connection between the beautiful and pleasure, we need to underscore the distinction that Kant draws between the agreeable and the beautiful in the sense of the nature of their relations to pleasure. The agreeable is completely based on our empirical judgments and it completely depends on our subjective tendencies. Therefore, there is only a contingent connection between agreeable objects and pleasure. On the other hand, the beautiful