Logical Purposiveness and the Principle of Taste

In both Introductions to the Critique of Judgment Kant seems to identify the a priori principle at the basis of aesthetic judgments with the principle that guides reflective judgment in its cognitive inquiry of nature, i.e. the purposiveness of nature or systematicity. For instance Kant writes: “In a critique of judgment, the part that deals with aesthetic judgment belongs to it essentially. For this power alone contains a principle that judgment lays completely a priori at the basis of its reflection on nature: the principle of a formal purposiveness of nature in terms of its particular (empirical) laws, for our cognitive power”. Passages like this have led some commentators (in particular Ginsborg) to accept this identification and develop an account of reflective judgment consistent with such an identification. Other commentators (for example Guyer) have suggested that the a priori principle of taste cannot be the same as logical purposiveness. Yet others (Düsing) have advanced the suggestive hypothesis that there could be an a priori principle at the basis of reflective judgment more basic than the logical purposiveness and capable of encompassing it as a particular application of reflective judgment in its cognitive enterprise. In the first part of this paper I will discuss the reasons that make Kant’s attempt to identify the two principles suspicious. In passing, I will also try to show that Ginsborg’s attempt to defend this identification ultimately rests on a very doubtful assumption. In the second part I will explore Düsing’s suggestion that logical purposiveness be grounded on a more basic principle: using Kant’s claim in §35 that the “principle of taste is the subjective principle of judgment as such”, I will argue that this more basic principle is nothing but the principle of taste. Moreover, in order to show that at least in a sense the principle of logical purposiveness rests on that of taste, I will argue that, in spite of the non-cognitive nature of the judgments that it directly licenses, the principle of taste can be seen as being at the basis even of the cognitive applications of reflective judgment, most importantly aimed at the formation of empirical concepts.