Success or Failure of Kant in Inferring Judgment of Taste

In his critique of judgment, Kant tries to show that the aesthetic is neither tied to perception nor to conceptualization of reason; and that it is a certain type of experience which results from harmony of imagination and understanding. This experience necessarily involves pleasure and it is known without any concept of its object. In his analysis of beauty, Kant meets a contradiction: on the one hand, aesthetic judgment is pure judgment of taste and is merely personal judgment; on the other hand, it is universal and essential judgment. Kant attempts to solve this contradiction. The present paper intends to evaluate Kant’s attempt to solve the contradiction. In specific, it provides answer to the question whether Kant succeeds to find a solution. The conclusion is that the priority of the subjective principle of taste is the guarantee for the universality principle and the essentiality of aesthetic judgment. The paper ends with the discussion of the critics of Kant’s view.