Now, because we presuppose a common sense, i.e. a communicability,
in our everyday communication, it may seem that we take it for
granted, but the very fact that it 'takes us by pleasure' in
aesthetic experience clearly indicates that we do not.
Let us start at the beginning, though. In section 40 Kant
distinguishes common sense from ordinary sound understanding
considering the latter 'vulgar'. The former, on the contrary, he
takes as an a priori taking into account of the 'collective reason
of mankind'.35 But what does this mean exactly? Surely everyday
sound understanding has its proper relevance for such a collective
reason; it will be mostly on this basis, if at all, that we
realize universal communicability. There is, of course, one way
not to use sound understanding in aesthetic argument: we cannot
justify a judgement of taste by referring to 'what the people
think'. Nevertheless, we have seen above how all judgements of
taste, pure though they may be, also depend on certain cognitive
considerations. Moreover, within aesthetic experience our
faculties are co-operating as they would in any cognitive
activity.36 And although it is not understanding but imagination
which takes the lead here,37 understanding is involved. Moreover,
Kant surely does not mean with what we have constructed as his
remarks on the permissibility of conceptual determination at the
subject place in our aesthetic judgements, that this only regards
scientific knowledge, at the expense of everyday, vulgar
considerations. So we may safely conclude that everyday sound
understanding will have something to contribute to the
determination of the valued object and will thus form part of what
the aesthetic judgement is all about. All this sustains the
conclusion that what is expressed in an aesthetic judgement is the
pleasure regarding the communicability of our everyday under-
standing of the object, and not merely of the more specialist
understanding provided by critics and experts.
Now Kant also describes the aesthetic feeling of pleasure or
displeasure, i.e. our awareness of the common sense, as a feeling
of life:
"Here the representation is referred wholly to the Subject, and
what is more to its feeling of lifeunder the name of the feeling
of pleasure or displeasure ..."38
If this identification is to help explain the judgement of taste,
then this notion of the feeling of life should not refer to some
vague and speculative principle of personal identity. Instead it
should involve certain concrete, though fundamental, feelings that
may serve as an evaluative criterion of our experiences and
emotions, in much the following way: whenever the feeling of life
(feeling of "Lust und Unlust") is enhanced, be it positively or
