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Robert Clewis on Kant and Aesthetic Normativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2025

Jessica J. Williams
Jessica J. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
*
Email: jjwilli7@usf.edu
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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.

Keywords

aesthetic judgementaesthetic normativitycommon sensebeautyaesthetic communitarianism
Type
Author Meets Critics
Information
Kantian Review , First View , pp. 1 - 7
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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