Aesthetic Solidarity "after" Kant and Lyotard

by Bart Vandenabeele

Whatever view we hold, it must be shown / Why every lover has a wish to make / Some other kind of otherness his own: / Perhaps in fact we never are alone.
—W. H. Auden

Introduction

Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating aspects of Kant's aesthetics is the link that the Königsberg philosopher establishes between aesthetic judging and the idea of being-together and being-in-community. This connection is developed through a subtle analysis of aesthetic communicability or shareability (Mitteilbarkeit). A judgment of beauty, what Kant terms "a pure judgment of taste,"—that is, a judgment "that is not influenced by charm or emotion (though these may be connected with a liking for the beautiful), and whose determining basis is therefore merely the purposiveness of the form" (CJ, §13, 223)—does not postulate everyone's agreement. Yet Kant claims that it does require this agreement from everyone.