The Esthetical Universality In Kant's Critique Of Judgment

In the west aesthetics history, there are a few discussions that take the esthetical universality as the core issue. The ancient aestheticians, such as the Plato and Plotinus, were apt to believe that the beauty is an object's attribute. Therefore, there is an objective universality for the beauty. The English empiricism aestheticians turn the study of beauty to the subjective of human. Though Hume specially search the appreciation standard and reason the esthetical universality then, the universality, which is in the scope of Hume's empiricism, is without the inevitability in his study. Therefore, it is uncertain in Kant's opinion,.The esthetics critique is also named appreciation critique by Kant. In Kant's practical anthropology, he minutely analyzed the conception of appreciation. He takes the appreciation and appreciation ability as an equal conception, and believes that it is the universal applicable selection ability and sociality judgment ability. Then he had studied it from the view of universality. Farther more, in the book of critique on the judgment, he brings forward the soul-search judgment from point of his philosophy, and believes that it is an ability to search the universality from the individual. It is just the judgment that presumes a transcendental principle for itself, which is the natural conformity to tend, for the sake of taking the world as an organic whole. By it Kant made the former two critiques in line, and answered the reason of the esthetical emotion coming into being.In the analysis Of the beauty, from the point of esthetical judgment, Kant believed there should be an universality for the judgment. On the other side, he believed the objective word is not the attribute of the subjective word's, but the aesthetic subjectivity's judgment. So hebelieved the universality is subjective, not objective. In the activity of appreciating the beauty, only the free consensus between the imagination and the intellectuality is universal communicable. The pleasure in the appreciating the beautiful is the objective form and the cognition ability. It is the consensus of the conformity to tend, which is between the imagination and the intellectuality. Therefore, the esthetical universality is just the mood of expecting being praised by others. But this expecting is under the limitation of inevitability. This limitation issues from he transcendental common sense. So, though there is an universality for the appreciating of the beauty, the universality is subjective. It is quite different from the objective universality in the cognizing, and it does not relate to the intellectual conception, because it is not the activity of appreciating the beauty but the activity of cognition when it relates to the intellectual conception. Since there is an universality, it must relate to the idea, even the idea is uncertain. Therefore, though the beauty does not relate to the intellectual conception, it relates to the rational idea.There are a directly influence on the west aesthetics by Kant's study about the esthetical universality. The influence mainly manifests in the phenomenology and semeiology, for both of them emphasize the universality in the study of beauty. Furthermore, it is significant of Kant's discussion to our country's study on beauty in the contemporary era. It is not only the way, which Kant used, is enlighten to us in the study, but also it manifests in the complex viewpoint in discussing the question.