Thursday, January 31, 2013

Communicability of Pleasure

A central concept of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment is the 'communicability of pleasure'.  However, it is unclear what Kant means by that.  For, on the one hand, the communicability of the judgment "I like Aesthetic object X", does not logically entail that a listener derive pleasure from hearing the judgment, nor is it reasonable, in most circumstances, at least, for its speaker to expect a posteriori that others would find the hearing of such a mundane expression pleasurable.  On the other hand, insofar as Aesthetic object X communicates ideas in the contemplation of which an audience derives pleasure, that pleasure is caused by X, not 'communicated' by it.  Now, in #41, Kant proposes that "sociability" is a factor in Aesthetic pleasure, and, hence, is a motivation to share one's enjoyment with others.  However, he subsequently dismisses that influence as of "no importance" to a priori judgments of Taste.  Furthermore, that proposal neither takes into account the possibility that sociability itself is a source of a pleasure that is independent of the pleasure of contemplating X, plus, how the communicability of pleasure is entailed in such sharing remains unresolved.  So, both the meaning of  'communicability of pleasure', and its role in Kant's theory, are problematic.

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