Kant: in what sense the judgments of taste are aesthetical?

Abstract

The starting point of the article is Kant’s distinction between grammatical form of judgement and its logical form. The logical point in support of the claim that judgement of taste is aesthetical is the remark that judgement of taste does not subsume a representation in a concept. The judgement of taste itself does not postulate the agreement of everyone for that can only be done by a logically universal judgement because it can adduce reasons. By that we leans on Kant’s own distinction between judgements of perception and judgements of experience, introduced in Prolegomena. The thesis that judgements of taste are not subjected to the proof is related with Kant’s claim that the beauty pleases immidiately, that is, finding out that something is beautiful requires direct experience of an object. Kant speaks of the beautiful “as if beauty were characteristic of the object and the judgement logical, although it is only aesthetical and involves merely a reference of the representation of the object to the subject.” Aesthetic judgements are subjective in that their ground of determination lies in a sensation immidiately connected with the feeling of pleasure and pain. Feelings of pleasure or displeasure can never be properties of an object but only of the subject, his mental states. The judgements of taste are then a subspecies of the asthetical judgements. We notice them, phenomenologically, through our awareness of the feelings of pleasure or displeasure while perceiving an object. Such analysis of the judgement of taste as a aesthetical constitutes the thesis about antinomy of taste which needs – for its solution – transcendental deduction of taste.