Comments and Questions to: John Protevi
LSU French & Italian
Protevi Home Page

Classroom use only. Do not cite w/o permission.

Course given at University of Warwick Fall 1995
 

9 Sections [30-38]: not really very interesting, to be fair.
 
 

K: we need a deduction [justification of claim to universality and necessity] if we judge about the form of an object, as in JB, where purposiveness is based in the object;

that is, we need to justify judgment that the object appears as if it were designed to provoke free play in us
 

K: but we do not need a deduction for JS [their exposition is their deduction], because what we judge purposive is not the object, but our use of the object

that is, our use is already purposive [designed to reveal superiority of reason over sensibility {imagination}]; this superiority is the very basis of the will [will is designed to be governed by pure practical reason]; so as internal and matching our very power of purposes, we need not justify our use of a reflection that relies on the superiority of reason
 
 

K: what we need to justify is universal validity of singular judgment about subjective purposiveness of empirical presentation of the form of an object; this must be a priori, not through mere "gathering votes"; thus we have two peculiarities, to be dealth with in #32 and 33: 1) universality of a singular judgment; 2) necessity must be a priori, but cannot be a proof.
 
 

K: demand for autonomy of judgment: must not be imitation of others or based on desire for approval; this raises problem of tradition: we must have examples, but not patterns for copying; we must have guidance, yet it must be non-conceptual.
 
 

K: no empirical basis of proof [no appeal to consensus; each JB must be autonomous]; no a priori basis of proof [then it would be cognitive judgment]
 
 

K: no concept of the beautiful can produce deductive judgements [in other words, we can't do a determinative judgment by fitting [determining] a particular apprehension under a pre-given universal concept to see if the characteristics of the object fit the criteria for beauty]; rather, "I must feel the pleasure directly"
 

K: nonetheless, critics can perform a useful task: investigate cognitive powers and clarify by examples what subj purposiveness is.
 

K: critique of taste finds rules for [producing] free play; this is either 1) an art: by example; 2) a science: derives possibility of free play from nature of cognitive powers. Thus only 2), the science, is a transcendental critique.
 
 

K: as a judgment, JT must have a principle by which it refers a particular to a universal; but as an AJ, it must be nonconceptual, so its principle can only be subj conditions of judgment, i.e., free play of imagination [power governing particularity of intuitions] and understanding [power governing universality of concept]; this free play is what allows imagination to be subsumed under condition that allows understanding to proceed from intuition to concepts [that condition is schematism]; thus JT is based on sensation of free play/mutual animation of free imagination and lawful understanding. Thus principle of subsumtion of JT is principle that allows subsumtion of imagination under understanding [that is, harmony of freedom and lawfulness].

In other words, we judge about the conditions of judgment: we judge judging itself.
 
 

K: this is actually the problem of transcendental philosophy as such: how are synthetic judgments possible a priori?
 
 

K: only the universal validity of the felt pleasure connected w/ judging the object
 
 

K: liking is form's subj purposiveness for power of judgment [ability to provoke free play which is condition for all judgment, since it brings power of particularity {imagination} in tune with power of universality {understanding}]; we can presuppose that all people have similar makeup of their cognitive powers, for otherwise we couldn't agree, as we do in fact do, about scientific demonstrations; we must however, remember the proviso of purity in these judgments, that is, that we judge only the form of the object, not any concepts or sensations concering it; nevertheless, such a mistake is only a misapplication that doesn't threaten the right of making the claim to universally necessary agreement
 
 

K: the deduction is easy because it doesn't need to justify objective reality of a concept [e.g., that causality applies to all possible objects of experience]. However, correct application of principle of JT [i.e., keeping JT pure of agreeableness or goodness] is "unavoidably difficult," so that mistakes are "easily made."