1. Introduction
In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant takes into
account various philosophical traditions that he knows well and from
which he has critically drawn throughout his intellectual development.
However, in his view, none of them allows for the recognition of the
specific nature of the faculty of judgment that we call taste.
Despite their notable differences, both the empiricist philosophy of
common sense and rationalist classicism presuppose the
legitimacy of the concept of good taste. It might seem that
Kant also accepts it: his demand to demarcate the judgment of taste
concerning beauty from the judgment of the agreeable, his conviction
that taste can be cultivated, and his theory of fine art all appear to
suggest that there is a good taste as opposed to a merely apparent or
unrefined taste. However, one of the Critique of the Power of
Judgment’s original contributions is precisely its overcoming and
rejection of the concept of good taste, even though this may not be
immediately evident, given that the work describes the claims to
universal assent that are made in every individual judgment of
taste.
When we speak of good taste, we specify this faculty from a normative
perspective, in such a way that we maintain that, among different
individuals who judge according to the faculty of taste –that is, who
make a judgment of taste regarding what is beautiful–there is a
difference in degree between them. Consequently, we believe that some
people indeed have greater or better taste than others. We can also
understand the specific difference designated by the concept of good
taste in absolute qualitative terms, insofar as we recognise that some
people possess taste –namely, people of good taste– whereas others do
not, even if they may claim to have it. That matters of taste are often
a site of dispute seems to reinforce the idea that those who judge in
accordance with taste can hardly dispense with the concept of good
taste. In this regard, we argue with others over matters of taste
because we consider that they are mistaken in their aesthetic evaluation
of an object or experience. On other occasions, we privately acknowledge
that those who listen to certain types of music or enjoy certain films
do so because they lack taste –or at least a taste as refined as the one
we attribute to ourselves.
The belief in the existence of good taste is, in fact, independent of
whether we can effectively determine it through rules or precepts that
allow us to discern who possesses taste and who does not, or which
objects or experiences are capable of eliciting a genuine judgment of
taste. In other words, one may hold that it is impossible to resolve a
dispute concerning matters of taste, yet this position remains
compatible with the idea that, if two individuals are disputing about
taste, at least one of them lacks this capacity for aesthetic
appreciation. I may believe that not everyone has the same taste and
that some people have good taste while others possess it to a lesser
degree or lack it entirely, even while acknowledging that there are no
rules, precepts, or criteria that enable me to determine where good
taste resides and to settle any dispute definitively. For many
interpreters, this could be Kant’s position. This interpretation appears
to be supported by the philosopher’s defense of the existence of a
sensus communis, which serves as an ideal norm and a regulative
principle for judgment, alongside his recognition that it is not
possible to determine, by means of rules, the conformity of a particular
judgment to this norm.
However, I will argue that Kant’s position is considerably more
complex: while, from the standpoint of one who judges according
to taste, it is inevitable to presuppose, in one way or another, the
existence of good taste, the transcendental and philosophical
critique of taste –which critically reflects, as a second-order
discourse (Tinguely 2013), on this faculty of human reason– detects the
transcendental illusion inherent in this belief, which is characteristic
of human experience. At the same time, it questions whether the concept
of good taste, as just described, is adequate for a philosophical
account of the specific nature of this faculty. Defending this thesis
fundamentally requires distinguishing between two dimensions, which are
intertwined— at times without any clear discontinuity—in the
Critique of the Power of Judgment. First, Kant describes how
the one who judges according to taste represents their
own experience; this is a description of the critique of taste,
that is, the critique exercised by taste itself, which is essentially a
critical faculty of judgment. Second, we encounter the
transcendental critique of taste, the philosophical critique
that focuses on taste, that is, the second-order discourse aimed at
clarifying the conditions of possibility of this faculty or dimension of
human reason
From this perspective, I will argue that the concepts presupposed in
the natural way in which one who judges through taste represents their
own activity do not necessarily have to be dogmatically retained by the
transcendental critique of taste. In relation to the issue at hand, this
can be expressed as follows: to judge according to taste is effectively
to lay claim to good taste, yet the transcendental critique reveals that
this concept does not, strictly speaking, possess objective meaning,
even though it is an integral part of how we judge and must therefore be
explained within a philosophical understanding of the faculty of
taste.
2. Historical background
Both empiricist criticism and rationalist classicism presuppose the
objective validity of the concept of good taste. In the positions of
Hutcheson, Hume, Home, and Burke, we find the general idea that the
experience of taste arises from a sensory, physiological, or
psychological response of the human being, such that agreement or
concurrence in matters of taste among different agents is explained by
the empirical universality of human nature (Guyer 1997: 4ff.). For
Hutcheson, taste is not a private subjective response but rather
reflects universal principles based on harmony and proportion (1725:
sect. I, § 8). Due to the similarities between aesthetic and sensory
responses, he speaks of a “sense of beauty,” in such a way that wherever
there is a beautiful and well-proportioned object, it will necessarily
be pleasing to whoever contemplates it (1728: 11). David Hume, in Of the
Standard of Taste (1757), argues that, although there may be
disagreement among individuals in matters of taste, an experienced
critic can establish reliable standards of aesthetic appreciation. This
is because beauty is properly a form that produces pleasure, just as
deformity produces pain (1739–1740: 167ff.). A physiologically grounded
explanation is found in Edmund Burke, for whom an object is pleasing to
the subject insofar as it acts upon them by relaxing their senses (1757:
149ff.). However, even though the aesthetic response is based on a
relationship between the object and the subject’s perceptual or
physiological system, this does not prevent these authors from defending
an empirical universality of taste, derived precisely from the belief in
the universality of human nature (Guyer 1997: 4). It is precisely this
human nature that accounts for the common sense that taste appears to
presuppose. There may be disagreement in matters of taste due to
individual particularities, but if the cultivation and education of this
faculty are assumed, every human being can ultimately learn to judge
correctly and possess good taste.
On the other hand, in the historical development from Leibniz’s
Meditations to pre-critical Kant, we observe a progressive recognition
of the specificity of a sensory type of cognition (on this issue, see
Sánchez-Rodríguez, 2014). For Wolff and Baumgarten, when we appreciate
beauty, we are in fact cognising the perfection of objects in a
different manner—namely, in an indistinct, confused, or sensory way. For
Wolff, the feeling of pleasure is a type of sensory cognition of the
perfection that ultimately underlies objects (1713: §§ 404, 417). Thus,
despite the differences between Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, and Meier,
and despite the clear influence these authors exerted on Kant in this
domain, it can be said that they regard the judgment of taste as a type
of cognitive judgment in which, although not through distinct analysis,
we confusedly detect or recognise the perfection of objects through the
feeling of pleasure. For Baumgarten, then, taste is a faculty of judging
in a sensory manner, which allows for both empirical cultivation –based
on practice and experience– and theoretical formalization –based on
distinct cognition (1739, § 607). Regardless of whether we apprehend
perfection in a sensory or intellectual manner, in both cases, we
cognise the same thing. In this respect, we must acknowledge that a
judgment of taste can be false, as Baumgarten himself asserts: “The
lapses of sense judgment are deceptions of the same” (1739, § 608).
Thus, despite their fundamental differences, both in the Anglo-Saxon
philosophy of common sense and in the rationalist aesthetics of the
Leibnizian-Wolffian school, it is ultimately presupposed that the
judgment of taste expresses a certain type of sensory cognition –either
as an expression of a universal human nature or as a way of confusedly
and sensibly detecting the inherent perfection of objects. In both
cases, an objective universality is likewise presupposed.
In common sense philosophy, it is assumed that there exists a
universal human nature, understood in both physiological and moral
terms, such that when we correctly judge something to be beautiful, we
are in fact aligning our individual judgment with this nature. In
rationalism, the concept of perfection ultimately expresses a structural
conformity between cognition and reality: each subject empirically
cognises from a particular perspective and in a partial manner, but the
presupposition of common principles of intelligibility allows us to
maintain that different representations of reality are representations
of the same thing –namely, an object whose intelligibility is possible
due to the order or harmony among all things. Thus, my judgment of taste
is true when it effectively corresponds to the harmony and order that
make intelligibility possible, which is experienced as pleasure by those
who succeed in judging according to taste.
These are ways of understanding that a valid judgment of taste is one
in which an objective conformity occurs –either with human nature in
particular or with nature in general. In both cases, therefore, if two
people dispute matters of taste, at least one of them effectively lacks
this faculty, even though it may not always be easy –or even possible–
to determine who genuinely possesses taste.
Taste, therefore, just like beauty, truly exists as an objective
fact, even if our ability to discern it remains uncertain and
contingent.
3. The critique of
taste is not an aesthetics
The concept of critique and criticism emerges in modernity precisely
within the Anglo-Saxon tradition and exerts a fundamental influence on
Kant’s intellectual development. In the aesthetic domain, Kant
incorporates into his philosophy the core idea of this tradition
–namely, that taste is not subject to prescriptive rules. However, in
his thought, we find a radicalisation of this idea.
Although the tradition acknowledges that we cannot resolve a dispute
in matters of taste by appealing to rules or precepts, it simultaneously
presupposes that there are correct, successful, or true judgments of
taste. Kant, by contrast, questions whether an understanding of the
critical capacity of taste can lead us to accept such an idea, for
having taste does not consist in actually possessing taste or in having
good taste in contrast to others who would lack it. His reflection
critically re-examines the very formulation of this problem: it is not
merely that good taste cannot be taught or determined by rules, but
rather that it does not properly exist as a psychological faculty or a
natural state within human nature or society.
What truly exists is the individual claim [Anspruch] to possess
taste, a claim that can only be justified through transcendental
idealism and the rational concept of the supersensible.
Precisely due to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, from the
late 1760s and early 1770s onwards, Kant repeatedly upholds the thesis
that the principles of taste do not function as precepts, criteria, or
rules according to which the faculty of judgment that is taste could be
governed (for example, Refl. 1989, AA 16: 115ff.). Taste does not admit
of doctrine but rather of critique. There can be no
doctrine capable of determining which representation will produce in us
a universal feeling of pleasure.
This is the fundamental idea present in the well-known note at A 21
of the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant declares the futility of
Baumgarten’s plan to reduce the critical judgment of the beautiful to
rational principles, precisely because philosophy cannot provide rules
by which this faculty should be governed, as so-called aesthetics seeks
to do. We know from a parallel text that this position is dependent on
the influence of Elements of Criticism by Home: “Allein richtiger hat
Home die Ästhetik Kritik genannt, da sie keine Regeln a priori giebt,
die das Urtheil hinreichend bestimmen” (Log, AA 09: 15). The passage at
A 21, presented in the context of the Transcendental Aesthetic of the
first Critique, aims to reject the use of the term “aesthetics” to
designate the philosophical treatment of taste and beauty. Certainly, in
the second edition (B 35ff.), Kant introduces clarifications to this
passage, but none implies a retraction of this idea, as if the discovery
of the possibility of a priori principles of taste in the late 1780s had
led him to resume the rationalist project of an aesthetics
–that is, a discipline that would provide rules or principles according
to which taste, or rather good taste, could be corrected, normatively
defined, or discerned.
In fact, in the First Introduction to the third Critique, Kant
explicitly denies the possibility of an aesthetics understood as a
science (EEKU, AA 20: 222), precisely because the “aesthetic” to which
the work refers has nothing to do with the relation between
representation and the object but exclusively with the subject: “Wir
werden die Kritik dieses Vermögens in Ansehung der ersteren Art Urtheile
nicht Ästhetik (gleichsam Sinnenlehre), sondern Kritik der ästhetischen
Urtheilskraft nennen” (EEKU, AA 20: 247). Despite Kant’s clarity on this
matter, we are still accustomed to seeing critical studies of this work
titled something along the lines of Kant’s Aesthetics.
In accordance with this formulation of the problem, whereby the work
contains a critique of taste but not an aesthetics, Kant repeatedly
insists on the idea that the Analytic of the Beautiful sets out and
justifies the a priori principles of taste –that is, the normative
conditions that universally and necessarily define the faculty of taste
as such, or in general. However, this does not imply that such
conditions can be used by the individual who judges to determine in
concreto whether their judgment is a genuine judgment of taste. Thus,
what follows from these principles is precisely the thesis that the
individual cannot decide whether their judgment of taste is true. This
is not a deficiency of the theory but rather its positive
contribution:
Unter einem Princip des Geschmacks würde man einen Grundsatz
verstehen, unter dessen Bedingung man den Begrif eines Gegenstandes
subsumiren, und alsdann durch einen Schluß herausbringen könnte, daß er
schön sey. Das ist aber schlechterdings unmöglich. Den Bestimmungsgrund
ihres Urtheils können sie nicht von der Kraft der Beweisgründe, sondern
nur von der Reflexion des Subjects über seinen eigenen Zustand (der Lust
oder Unlust), mit Abweisung aller Vorschriften und Regeln, erwarten. (AA
05: 285s.)
Now, Kant is not denying the possibility of principles of taste;
rather, he is clarifying how these principles, as set out in the work,
should not be understood. Despite the claims of art critics
who reason subtly [vernünfteln] about the correctness and refinement of
our judgments of taste in order to formulate a universal principle that
determines such judgments, this remains an impossible endeavour. The
critique of taste is not a science insofar as it is an aesthetics, but
rather insofar as it is a transcendental critique of taste –that is, a
philosophical critique of taste– and in this respect, it must be limited
to deriving “die Möglichkeit einer solchen Beurtheilung von der Natur
dieser Vermögen, als Erkenntnisvermögen überhaupt,” so that “[s]ie soll
das subjective Princip des Geschmacks, als ein Princip a priori der
Urtheilskraft, entwickeln und rechtfertigen” (AA 05: 286). Therefore,
the critique of taste is a second-order form of knowledge, which does
not focus on particular beautiful objects or particular judgments of
taste, but rather on the possibility of this faculty as such
[überhaupt].
4.
The Deduction of Judgments of Taste and the concept of sensus
communis
In another work (Sánchez-Rodríguez 2013), I have argued that the
reason why we find multiple versions of the deduction of the a priori
principle of taste in Kant lies in the circumstances surrounding the
drafting of the work. Sections such as the Dialectic of
Aesthetic Judgment, both Introductions, and the Analytic of the Sublime
were written after the Analytic of the Beautiful, in a process during
which Kant refined and deepened his conceptions while drafting the
sheets he sent to the scribe, incorporating more mature versions in the
later sections –without, however, revising the earlier ones, which
gradually became somewhat outdated. This explains why the version of the
deduction found in the Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgment revisits the same
problems that the deduction presented in §§ 34–38 had seemingly
resolved, while also developing the arguments of the earlier versions in
a novel way.
According to Kant, a judgment of taste does not genuinely claim
validity insofar as it is successful, true, or actually conforms to the
judgments of others, but solely and exclusively insofar as it claims
such conformity. However, this is not a case like judgments of
cognition, where, once they are valid, they may subsequently turn out to
be materially true or false. For Kant, a valid judgment of taste is
neither true nor false, neither correct nor mistaken, and if it were to
be verified as such, it would only be insofar as it had ceased to be a
judgment of taste. The deduction of taste displaces
the concept of good taste insofar as Kant demonstrates the volatility of
the concept of a successful or correct judgment: first, because it is
impossible to determine when a judgment of taste actually is such;
second, not only because it is impossible to detect true taste, but
because no such thing exists. In human experience, there exists nothing
but each individual’s claim that their own judgment is genuinely a
judgment of taste –a claim that is valid precisely insofar as it is
asserted as such.
The clearest textual support for this interpretation can be found in
the Analytic, § 8:
Das Geschmacksurtheil selber postulirt nicht jedermanns Einstimmung
[…]. Die allgemeine Stimme ist also nur eine Idee […]. Daß der, welcher
ein Geschmacksurtheil zu fällen glaubt, in der That dieser Idee gemäß
urtheile, kann ungewiß seyn; aber daß er es doch darauf beziehe, mithin
daß es ein Geschmacksurtheil seyn solle, kündigt er durch den Ausdruck
der Schönheit an. Für sich selbst aber kann er durch das bloße
Bewusstseyn der Absonderung alles dessen, was zum Angenehmen und Guten
gehört, von dem Wohlgefallen, was ihm noch übrig bleibt, davon gewiß
werden; und das ist alles, wozu er sich die Beystimmung von jedermann
verspricht: ein Anspruch, wozu unter diesen Bedingungen er auch
berechtigt seyn würde, wenn er nur wider sie nicht öfter fehlte und
darum ein irriges Geschmacksurtheil fällete. (AA 5: 216)
For every individual, it remains uncertain whether their judgment of
taste is successful –that is, whether their judgment is indeed shared by
others and thus effectively conforms to a common sense. However, if one
claims that their judgment is a judgment of taste when expressing that
they are confronted with beauty, without relying on restrictive
conditions such as sensation or determinative conditions such as a
concept, then their judgment ought to be [seyn soll] a judgment of
taste. This is because what normatively constitutes the possibility of
such a judgment is the a priori and ideal reference to this universal
voice, not actual conformity with it –something that is, in any case,
impossible.
There are two levels of indeterminacy or uncertainty in this
thesis.
First, someone who believes himself to be making a judgment of taste
may be mistaken about to whether they are indeed expressing beauty and
referring to the idea of universal communicability, precisely because
empirical introspection is fallible. Only in this case can a judgment of
taste turn out to be mistaken –that is, if, despite the belief regarding
one’s own attitude, the judgment is not purely
grounded in mere subjective reflection. Just as it is absolutely
impossible, in each case, to determine through the experience provided
by the keenest introspection whether what has motivated an action in
accordance with duty has truly been the representation or consciousness
of the moral law (Grundlegung, AA 04: 407), so too is it impossible, in
the case of judgments of taste, to know whether what we take to be a
judgment of taste is not, in reality, a judgment about the agreeable or
the good, which surreptitiously presents itself to us as a pure judgment
of taste.
Second, a judgment of taste that abstracts from all sensation
(judgment of the agreeable) and from any concept of reason (judgment of
the good) is specifically different. In such a case, the subject who
judges makes a judgment of taste insofar as, from their individual
position, they refer to an intersubjective community. However, this does
not imply that my judgment of taste is necessarily shared to a greater
or lesser extent, nor that I am correct in regarding my judgment as
such. In the feeling of the good, we also find a claim to universal
assent. However, in this latter case, the intersubjective validity
contained in the judgment of what is good ultimately derives from an
objective law of practical reason, through which this claim presents
itself as an effective and determinative command for every subject
insofar as they are rational (AA 5: 291, 319ff., 356). In the case of
taste, by contrast, the subject claims this intersubjective assent
without, however, being able to guarantee that others will coincide with
their position.
The same theory is expressed in § 22, in the context of the concept
of the exemplary necessity of the beautiful:
Also ist der Gemeinsinn, von dessen Urtheil ich mein
Geschmacksurtheil hier als ein Beyspiel angebe und weswegen ich ihm
exemplarische Gültigkeit beylege, eine bloße idealische Norm, unter
deren Voraussetzung man ein Urtheil, welches mit ihr zusammenstimmte und
das in demselben ausgedrückte Wohlgefallen an einem Object, für
jedermann mit Recht zur Regel machen könnte: weil zwar das Princip nur
subjectiv, dennoch aber, für subjectiv-allgemein (eine jedermann
nothwendige Idee) angenommen, was die Einhelligkeit verschiedener
Urtheilenden betrift, gleich einem objectiven, allgemeine Beystimmung
fordern könnte; wenn man nur sicher wäre, darunter richtig subsumirt zu
haben” (AA 05: 239).
A judgment of taste can only be made as an exemplary case of a norm
that, however, cannot be adduced; if my judgment were to effectively
presuppose it –that is, if I could be certain that I had correctly
subsumed my judgment under this norm– then my judgment would indeed
conform to common sense and could objectively demand the assent of
others, like any other judgment of cognition.
Kant is not engaged in a frustrating and uncertain attempt to explain
the possibility of successful judgments of taste, as Crawford thinks
(1980: 291, 293); rather, he is positively expounding the specific
nature of the intersubjective validity of this type of judgment and
introducing a second sense in which we must understand how a judgment
presupposes a principle. In the case of judgments of taste, this
presupposition occurs insofar as, in individual judgment, we claim that
ours is a judgment of taste, as is made clear in the continuation of the
cited passage: “Diese unbestimmte Norm eines Gemeinsinns wird von uns
wirklich vorausgesetzt: das beweiset unsere Anmaßung Geschmacksurtheile
zu fällen” (id.). In response to Kant’s argumentative strategy, some
interpreters express perplexity, stemming from their failure to
recognise Kant’s thesis. Once one is erroneously convinced that Kant,
like the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of common sense, is maintaining that
there truly are examples of good taste, only that we cannot determine
with certainty which they are (Kemal 1992: 87; Ameriks 1983), the
interpretation can only oscillate between two positions: either reading
Kant’s statements on the impossibility of determining the correctness of
judgments of taste as inadequate solutions to a problem that he never
intended to solve (see, for example, Kemal 1992: 98), or reading
–contrary to Kant’s own words– the conditions of possibility of taste as
criteria that allow us to determine the correctness of the judgment
(see, for example, Kemal 1992: 95).
5. Autonomy and Disagreement
in Taste
It must therefore be acknowledged that contingency and fallibility
are essential to the logic of taste. Although the representation must
serve as an occasion for us to perceive in the mind a subjective
causality in accordance with purpose, the ground of the feeling of
pleasure cannot reside in the form of the representation, in its
conformity with the play of the imagination, or in the actual
psychological relation between the cognitive faculties involved in each
case in the act of judgment.
This concept of the specific validity of judgments of taste entirely
surpasses the concept of good taste. One who judges according to taste
lays claim to having (good) taste and seeks the assent of others, even
through the supposition that their judgment is an example of good taste
that ought to receive approval, in contrast to others who lack taste.
This pertains to the phenomenological level of the ars critica exercised
by taste and to how the subject considers their own act of judgment.
However, at the philosophical level of the transcendental critique of
taste, Kant maintains that it is a faculty that is claimed, not attained
or possessed, regardless of who the subject is or the empirical
conditions that define the particular position from which they carry out
their act of judgment.
This conception finds its strongest and most mature foundation in the
Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgment. Communicability of feeling in the
judgment of taste is based on the possibility of communicability among
human beings as rational beings, insofar as this is grounded in an idea
underlying this communicability, that is, the hope “durch
wechselseitigen Widerstand der Urtheile Einhelligkeit derselben
hervorzubringen” (AA 05: 238), or the aspiration of casting light on
disputes of taste.
The accord among human beings that is presupposed in debates on taste
arises, in reality, from the idea of universal human reason, developed
in the concept of sensus communis. Therefore, taste rests on common or
universal sense insofar as this concept is considered an ideal norm of
reason. In § 22, this norm is described as a principle or idea, which
should be interpreted as “subjective-allgemein” (KU, AA 05: 239), even
though the unresolved question remains here concerning whether this idea
“in der That nur eine Vernunftforderung sey eine solche Einhelligkeit
der Sinnesart hervorzubringen, und das Sollen, d. i. die objective
Nothwendigkeit des Zusammenfließens des Gefühls von jedermann mit jedes
seinem besondern, nur die Möglichkeit hierin einträchtig zu werden
bedeute, und das Geschmacksurtheil nur von Anwendung dieses Princips ein
Beyspiel aufstelle” (KU, AA 05: 240). In § 40, sensus communis is
defined as follows:
Unter dem sensus communis aber muß man die Idee eines
gemeinschaftlichen Sinnes, d. i. eines Beurteilungsvermögens verstehen,
welches in seiner Reflexion auf die Vorstellungsart jedes andern in
Gedanken (a priori) Rücksicht nimmt, um gleichsam an die gesamte
Menschenvernunft sein Urtheil zu halten, und dadurch der Illusion zu
entgehen, die aus subjectiven Privatbedingungen, welche leicht für
objectiv gehalten werden könnten, auf das Urtheil nachtheiligen Einfluß
haben würde (AA 05: 293).
Through the concept of sensus communis, criticism no longer
designates the objective fact of a judgment commonly shared due to the
psychological or empirical conformity of human nature; rather, it refers
to a rational idea for the heteronomy of the power of Judgment (EEKU 20:
203; KU, 05: 259). Therefore, any principle of reflective aesthetic
judgment legislates over how we ought to judge and the use of the
faculties involved in judgment. Thus, our singular judgment holds
validity insofar as, when we judge, we are not actually asserting
anything about the world, nor about other actual judging subjects or
their agreement with our judgment; rather, we are reflecting on our own
singular act of judgment. The subjective principle of taste merely
defines how we ought to proceed in our judgment, in which we must take
into account the standpoint of any other and subject our partial and
individual position to “gesamte Menschenvernunft”. Ultimately, this
represents the inversion of the common sense tradition. If we lack the
starting point provided by transcendental idealism and cannot conceive
of the universality designated by this concept other than as an
empirical generalisation, we then run the risk inherent in all discourse
concerning good taste: namely, that of passing off a partial and
phenomenal position as commonly shared taste, such that any divergence
from conventional normal aesthetics comes to be regarded as bad
taste.
Only the rational and unconditioned concept of the supersensible can
provide the ultimate foundation for the principle of purposiveness (AA
05: 34014–15), which does not serve to cognise
anything about the object or the sensible nature of humanity, but
through which alone a judgment of taste can claim universal
intersubjective validity (AA 05: 339ff.). According to Kant, if we
disregard this concept, then we not only deny that there is an a priori
principle that grounds the judgment, but we are also forced to admit
that “ein Geschmacksurtheil nur sofern für richtig gehalten zu werden
verdiene, weil es sich trift, daß viele in Ansehung desseblen
übereinkommen […], weil die Subjecte zufälliger Weise gleichförmig
organisirt seyen, oder man müßte annehmen, daß das Geschmacksurtheil
eigentlich ein verstecketes Vernunfturtheil uber die […] Vollkommenheit
sey” (AA 05: 346).
With this statement, the perplexity surrounding the specific nature
of taste found in empiricism and rationalism is definitively overcome, a
perplexity arising from the failure to recognise the antinomy in this
domain of human reason and the inability to resolve it –something that,
according to Kant, is only possible through transcendental idealism. A
judgment of taste is neither the result of a contingent and actual
agreement among subjects nor of a confused cognition of the perfection
of the object. In both cases, it would ultimately be a judgmentof
cognition –an empirical judgment in the first case, a transcendent
rational judgment in the second. Neither of these theories, due to their
inability to properly ground the a priori principle of taste, can
adequately account for the common experience of this faculty by
subjects. For having taste is expressed not only through the claim to
conformity or correctness in judgment but also through dissent, even
with respect to an actual community of subjects who will never share my
point of view. This is a property that any aesthetic theory must
acknowledge, yet in the end, it is compelled to overcome it in one way
or another, that is, the autonomy of individual judgment: “Der Geschmack
macht bloß auf Autonomie Anspruch. Fremde Urteile sich zum
Bestimmungsgrunde des seinigen zu machen, wäre Heteronimie” (AA 05:
282).
One who judges according to taste does not in any way claim to be
judging as people commonly do in society; rather, quite the opposite
–they claim to have taste because they claim that others ought to judge
as they do. Now, in this, it becomes exemplarily clear what a judgment
of taste consists of for Kant and why the concept of good taste is
useless, when we recognise that there is a natural dialectic in the very
attitude by which an individual claims to have taste in contrast to
other, something they cannot do without at the same time granting others
this faculty and, therefore, their capacity for dissent:
Er sagt daher, die Sache ist schön; und rechnet nicht etwa darum auf
Anderer Einstimmung in sein Urtheil des Wohlgefallens, weil er sie
mehrmalen mit dem seinigen einstimmig befunden hat, sondern fordert es
von ihnen. Er tadelt sie, wenn sie anders urtheilen, und spricht ihnen
den Geschmack ab, von dem er doch verlangt, daß sie ihn haben sollen (AA
05: 212s., cursiv my own).
Precisely because a judgment of taste is neither a judgment of the
understanding nor of reason (AA 05: 2851–2), one does not allow oneself
to be convinced by any norm that defines what ought to be legitimately
pleasurable, such as those offered by classical critics like Batteux or
Lessing (AA 5: 284), nor by what commonly pleases people of good taste.
Naturally, one might act like the majority precisely “um nicht für
geschmacklos angesehen zu werden” (AA 5: 284), but in that case, one
would not be genuinely claiming to have good taste; rather, one would be
adopting an attitude that is specifically different from that of taste,
which could well belong to the empirical-practical domain, such as the
attitude of prudence. A negative judgment from others may, in any case,
give us pause for thought, but “niemals aber von der Unrichtigkeit
desselben überzeugen” (AA 05: 284), “denn ich muss unmittelbar an der
Vorstellung desselben die Lust empfinden und sie kann mir durch keine
Beweisgründe angeschwatzt werden” (AA 05: 285).
It makes no difference whether I am a young poet of dubious taste (AA
05: 282) or a renowned Calderón de la Barca, one who judges according to
taste does not allow themselves to be intimidated by experts who claim
to know what (good) taste truly consists in: “ich stopfe mir die Ohren
zu, mag keine Gründe und kein Vernüfteln hören und werde eher annehmen,
daß jene Regeln der Kritiker falsch seien, oder wenigstens hier nicht
der Fall ihrer Anwendung sei” (AA 05: 284).
In this article, I have argued that Kant breaks with the tradition of
aesthetics and with a concept inherently tied to it, namely, that of
good taste or correct taste. This thinker not only acknowledges,
alongside the Anglo-Saxon traditions of criticism and common sense, that
it is impossible to demonstrate who possesses taste, but also maintains
that there is nothing to be demonstrated in this regard. For taste does
not admit of degrees, as if it were a psychological faculty or a matter
of fact, such as social recognition at a given historical moment and
under specific empirical circumstances. The principles of taste should
not be understood as prescriptive rules; rather, they are second-order
principles that do not concern how we ought to judge in each case but
rather what properly constitutes the specific possibility of taste as
such. What follows from the correct interpretation of these principles
is a thesis that challenges the aesthetic tradition and the concept of
good taste, for through its principles and the way it defines their
origin, scope, and validity, it asserts that taste should not be
understood as a judgment about objects or about subjects understood as
an actual community. Taste is valid insofar as, through it, we reflect
on our own act of judgment, independently of how the world is or how
others are. In doing so, we judge that our act of judgment ought to
claim the assent of others –an assent that can only be justified through
the rational concept of the supersensible. All efforts aimed at
extracting an aesthetics from these ideas not only contribute to reading
into Kant a classicism absent from his work but also fail to recognise
the philosophical significance of this conception of intersubjective
validity and its radical novelty in the history of philosophy.
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