Judgements of Taste and Their Deduction

Abstract

Kant proceeded from our actual experience of pleasure in judgements of taste to describe these judgements. To be valid, aesthetic judgements must be entirely subjective — being based only on a feeling of pleasure or displeasure; must be disinterested — free of determinate concepts, including determinate ends; must be singular — and so seek confirmation through other subjects; must be universal — in being based in ourselves on something we share with others; and are necessary — we can demand others’ agreement. In the process Kant rejects various other conceptions of the ‘aesthetic’ and defends his own claims. For example, he dismisses the sceptical claim that we cannot rely on pleasure as the basis for any validity, by showing that unless our ‘inner experience’ were similar, we could not communicate our objective experience.