Kant’s Antinomy of Taste

— Cornelis de Bondt

In his Critique of Judgment, in paragraphs 56 and 57 on the ‘antinomy of taste,’ Kant revisits an earlier observation (from the first paragraphs of the Critique) that the judgment of taste is not based on concepts. Therefore, ‘good taste’ can never be proven or demonstrated. However, at the same time, you can exchange thoughts about it with others; while taste cannot be debated, you can quarrel about it, he says, and this cannot be without reason — there must be a foundation upon which this ‘debate’ can have meaning. But then, Kant argues, the judgment of taste is indeed based on concepts. That is the antinomy.

Kant then explains how this thesis (‘the judgment of taste is not based on concepts’) and the antithesis (‘the judgment of taste is based on concepts’) can lead to a synthesis. To do this, he distinguishes between two types of concepts: on the one hand, determinate concepts, and on the other hand, an indeterminate concept, namely that of the supersensible. With this distinction, the antinomy can be resolved. Kant summarizes it as follows: the thesis should state that the judgment of taste is not based on determinate concepts; and the antithesis that it is based on an indeterminate concept, namely that of the ‘supersensible substrate of appearances.’ That is to say, of things that transcend ordinary sensory experiences, such as the concepts of ‘soul’ and ‘God.’ According to Kant, there is apparently some kind of common ground or consciousness that makes us collectively agree on what is beautiful and what is ugly, though we have no way to demonstrate this. Kant calls this common ground Gemeinsinn (common sense).

Kant literally says that we ‘can do no more than resolve the contradiction between the above mentioned thesis and antithesis.’ In this way, taste can be understood as a ‘purely reflective aesthetic judgment,’ in which ‘the two seemingly contradictory starting points can be united, because they can both be true.’ — Which should be enough, he adds.

This also means that we can share the judgment of taste as humanity, just as we share pairs of concepts like love and hate, and life and death. So, there is something we share that makes us human. And that is significant! It also means that the judgment of taste transcends sheer randomness, even if we cannot substantiate it with our understanding of knowledge; we do not need to submit to the laws of the market, which indeed belong to that understanding of knowledge.

‘Which should be enough,’ says Kant. I would go further: it is fundamental. The artistic quality-judgment evaluates an artistic act or a work of art. Art rises above the concepts of understanding. An artistic judgment must therefore do the same. A purely rational artistic judgment of taste would be as nonsensical as proof of God’s existence. The appeal we must make, according to Kant, to an indeterminate concept is not born out of poverty, but is a necessary condition to say anything meaningful about art. And it is certainly not the case that we cannot appeal to determinate concepts for this purpose. In the judgment of a work of art or artistic act, rational techniques and analyses can very well be used. I have elaborated on this in the entry The Artistic Judgment.

— Cornelis de Bondt, Loosduinen, September 11, 2024