Kant's point here is very subtle. Let's make another one. The Great Wall of China is beautiful, or Mount Lu is beautiful. It seems that when making judgments, we are using a special example of Mount Lu. They are classified under a universal concept, which is the concept of beauty, but in fact, they are not.
In fact, we only perceive him as beautiful, so when we say that every judgment is called reflection, why do we have to go back to the previous one? It may be a question that we have already forgotten. Why do we still have the right to demand my judgment, just like a triangular pyramid is a triangle, demanding that others will also be effective for him? If he doesn't see this kind of rose, he will make the same judgment as me, just like if he sees a pyramid, he will definitely make the same judgment as a triangle, based on where?
Because he is clearly related to triangles, pyramids are triangles, not the same type of judgment. What is the reason behind this?
Kant said, yes. I am delighted to see peonies embracing me. Mentality is subjective, but our subjective mentality can be conveyed, not just in personal terms. Our subjective mentality has certain universal norms, so others will also make judgments like us.
Mentality is not purely subjective. Eating mung bean soup in the summer is not purely subjective or personal. Aesthetic judgment expresses our subjective mentality, but there are certain universal norms first. Such a subjective mentality is not purely subjective. It has certain things that can be universally accepted, and others will also be effective. The truth is here.
Of course, when making a judgment about something that makes us feel happy, we are not making a normative judgment.
Lying is not right, it is a normative judgment. Of course, we are not making such a judgment, but rather saying something about what we find pleasing to us, such as flies, which makes me unhappy. We try to make judgments about what is good and what is bad, but the standards for such judgments are not yet the same. When making subjective judgments about beauty, we are making normative statements about how we and all others should experience something.
This is very important, aesthetic judgment is actually making a normative statement about how oneself and everyone should experience something. Experience and norms, nature and freedom, are combined together. How to experience something is the same as in the natural world. I have experienced a triangle, a circle, and a thunderstorm. Experience is natural, and normative statements are inevitable. This is freedom. So, when we make aesthetic judgments, what should beauty do to everyone else?
When we make a natural judgment, there is no such thing as' should 'or' shouldn't ', 2+2 equals 4, and' no two plus two 'should equal 4. In what kind of judgment did' should 'exist before?
In moral judgment. Moreover, aesthetic judgment combines moral judgment with natural judgment, involving a natural object that should be used but not discovered. However, in our natural world, there is no such thing as' should '. When water reaches 100 degrees, it does not mean that it should be opened. All judgments in the natural world do not exist as' should'.
At the local level, it may sound awkward to read, but the truth is that there is nothing in the natural world about how we and others should experience it. On a day of 38 degrees, everyone will feel very hot. There is no saying that you should be very hot in 38 degrees, there is no explanation. If you say this, in special circumstances, when a person is seriously ill at 38 degrees and still feels very cold, the doctor will say that you should be very hot now. How could you feel cold? Only in this situation will he say that you should.
In the natural world, there is no such thing as "should" or "shouldn't" in general judgment. The mystery lies here, and we still need to combine the two together. Here, we are making an empirical prediction about how others should experience a certain norm, rather than an empirical prediction about how others will actually react to the object. It is not about how someone will react when they see this flower, but about what you should say about them when they see this flower, and you should also consider them beautiful.
What we are doing here is not a prediction of an individual's experience of how to react to an object, but a normative statement. When we make a judgment that something feels good when we drink it, what we are doing here is just reporting our personal subjective state to others. I cannot say that if you drink this glass of water, you should also feel good.
However, the aesthetic judgment is different. When I said that Mount Huangshan is magnificent, I did not report my private state, which is different from that when I drank a bowl of mung bean soup. I was reporting my private state, but said that Mount Huangshan is very magnificent. This is an aesthetic judgment, which is not reporting my private state. There are normative factors in it. In fact, I think you will make the same judgment in Mount Huangshan, or you should make the same judgment.
Therefore, we can now make a summary that aesthetic experience is fundamentally different from just discovering that something is pleasing to the eye through personal subjective experience. When making judgments about a quick and comfortable personal experience, we do not assume that we can convey to others anything about why they should also discover this thing, which is also something that makes them happy. When I say that this bowl of mung bean soup is very refreshing, I don't assume that you can also find that mung bean soup is also very refreshing. However, when making aesthetic judgments, we have experienced something that we can convey.
Why can it be conveyed?
Because it contains some standardization, I cannot convey to you how refreshing mung bean soup is. I can tell you that I feel it's refreshing, but I cannot convey any specific method. However, when I say that Mount Huangshan is beautiful, I convey the beauty of Mount Huangshan, and you will also say so. There are some factors that can be conveyed.
Although aesthetic judgment itself is not based on concepts, Kant repeatedly emphasized that we cannot simply state or indicate which rules conform to which ones, and that is beauty. Without it, we cannot say it. In objective judgment, water needs to open up to a hundred degrees, and we can force others to accept what is obtained from evidence.
You see, now it's a hundred degrees and the water is boiling. We can force others to accept it this way, whether they want it or not. However, in aesthetic judgment, we cannot force others to believe it this way. We can only make them believe it, not make them have to.
It's just that aesthetic judgment and normative judgment are different, and normative judgment shouldn't be the same. You should believe that this is a normative judgment, in which everything is transferred by concepts. However, in aesthetic judgment, there is no concept derived from human judgment. Aesthetic judgment is a bit lively, unlike normative judgment which is very rigid.
Aesthetic judgment, because they do not have a fixed judgment on what beauty is, but it is universal. Kant really posed a difficult problem for himself in this regard. It is not a fixed concept of a circle, but it is universally valid. There is really a concept that seems a bit like a square circle, and it is impossible to accomplish such an impossible task.
But Kant said it doesn't matter. You have to think about it, the experience of beauty and the refreshing experience of mung bean soup are different. They can be universally conveyed, why can they be universally conveyed?
Because it is constructed from universal norms, unlike 'very cool' where there are no universal norms at all. But this thing is beautiful, and Mount Huangshan is beautiful. There are universal norms in it. These universal norms are not concepts in themselves, because no rules can determine or stipulate what is beautiful. Therefore, the condition for the possibility of such aesthetic experience is simply to acknowledge that we humans have universal feelings.
Some people have a common feeling of aesthetic appreciation, which Kant later called the sense of commonality, "people share the same heart, and hearts share the same feeling." I'll rephrase it, we all have a sense of commonality, and it can also be universally effective. It is built on our shared sense of commonality. In the field of nature, 'people share the same heart and mind share the same principle', which is based on concepts because concepts are universal.
In aesthetic judgment, it is a universal principle that 'people share the same heart, and hearts share the same feelings'. It is not based on universal concepts, but on universal feelings.
To read Kant, one must be patient. He talks in a roundabout way, but you just need to organize the ideas one by one. If you are afraid of not having patience when reading Kant, you may not have patience when he talks in such a roundabout way. If you have patience and a clear organization, we will know what the elderly want to say. Therefore, we want to have a concept, not to be in a special subjective factor state, but to have the ability to demonstrate ability in experience and to judge based on effective usage rules.
I understand the concept of triangles, or do I have the concept of triangles? What does it mean?
It means that in real life, we can point out what is a triangle everywhere, and it also means how to effectively use the concept of this triangle without using it incorrectly. Only when these two conditions are met, will we say that we understand the concept of triangles, or that we have the concept of triangles. What does it mean to have appreciation now?
Having discernment means we have the ability to grasp an object as beautiful. I have this ability, I don't need a concept, I know it is beautiful. Unlike triangles, I know they are triangles based on concepts, but I do not have a concept of appreciation. However, I have appreciation ability, which allows me to judge whether an object is beautiful. Therefore, appreciation is an aesthetic appreciation ability, not the ability to say rules about what constitutes beauty.
We say that a person has aesthetic appreciation ability, but only that he can describe something as beautiful, not that he can define what beauty is. This is a non theoretical ability. I can judge what beauty is, but I cannot say what beauty is. If you ask me to define someone, I cannot, but my judgment is effective for everyone. My judgment is not personal, it has universal communicability or universal effectiveness. As long as you are a normal person, I expect you to have it too.
