Robert Clewis on Kant and Aesthetic Normativity

Abstract In the Origins of Kant’s Aesthetics , Robert Clewis characterises Kant’s early views of aesthetic normativity in terms of a synthesis of a rationalist appeal to laws of sensibility and an empiricist appeal to rules of taste that are arrived at through consensus about great works of art. On the consensus approach, sharing the experience of beauty with others is itself a source of pleasure and normativity. For Clewis, the mature Kant no longer ties aesthetic normativity to sociality, but instead grounds it in the a priori principle of judgement. In these comments, I challenge Clewis’ narrative about Kant’s development and argue that the mature Kant continues to connect aesthetic normativity to the sociality of taste.