How to save Kant's deduction of taste

Abstract

Kant has been taken to argue in his deduction of taste that aesthetic response is grounded in a perception of form that engenders a feeling of proportion which is a "subjective state" necessary for all cognition. He then seems caught in being able to preserve the necessity of taste only by holding the quite non-Kantian principle that all objects are beautiful, t Those who recognize this difficulty think the only way out is to take aesthetic response rather to involve a special kind of sensitivity in particular people that would avoid making all objects beautiful only at the cost of not allowing a ground for the claim that aesthetic judgments are universal and necessary. 2 I shall argue that there is a better way to escape this difficulty, one that allows for Kant's claim of the universal validity of taste to be maintained. I shall also note that the price of saving Kant's argument here is to restrict its significance, but this is a fact Kant can and does accept.