The Crisis of Judgment in Kant's Three «Critiques»

This study focuses on Kant's attempt to find the link between feeling and cognition on "a priori" grounds in the three "Critiques" to make philosophical judgment possible. As such it treats the area of aesthetics and its formal principles. This work explores the enigma: How is it that Kant values the talent to judge more than understanding and reason; indeed the lack of it -no school can make good-. Yet, even though Kant demonstrates how "a priori" synthetic judgments and "a priori" moral judgments are possible as particular pronouncements, he analyzes the power of judgment itself as an independent faculty only in the last "Critique." The author argues that the aesthetic factor plays a recalcitrant, yet vital and necessary role in all human judging. Finding an adequate niche for feeling and its "a priori" principles becomes a key problem not just for Kant but for the entire philosophical enterprise."