KANT ON AESTHETIC COMMUNITY: A REGULATIVE MODEL FOR A HUMAN FORM OF LIFE

In this article, I address the theme of the aesthetic shareability as presented by Kant in his Critique of the Power of Judgment. In the first part, I provide a brief overview of the topic, referring mainly to the Introduction of the Third Critique, in which I highlight the problematic nature of the normative character that Kant attributes to aesthetic judgment. I then analyse three theoretical positions, external to Kantian studies, showing their strengths and weaknesses in resolving some of the problems left open by Kant. I will refer to: 1. Hannah Arendt (aesthetics of sociability); 2. Samuel Fleischacker (aesthetics of liberty); 3. Pierre Bourdieu (popular aesthetics). In the last part, I return to Kant’s text, with particular reference to the Deduction of pure aesthetic judgments. Following a suggestion by Hannah Ginsborg, I refer to Stanley Cavell and propose to trace the justification of the aesthetic community back to the very concept of humanity, as forms of life to be taken as given.