Abstract

In the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason Kant develops models of knowledge and morality in which we know and exist in a world of sensible appearances while also belonging to a world of transcendent morality. This creates a gulf for us between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. In the Critique of Judgment Kant develops an account of reflective judgment as taste, whereby the experience of beauty bridges the gap between these two worlds. ;Evaluating the success of Kant's account requires us first to understand the conditions taste as reflective judgment must meet in order to mediate between knowledge and morality and secondly to ask whether it does meet these conditions. The thesis begins by examining sections of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason in order to unearth a Kantian model of the requirements of a successful mediator. The discussion then focuses on whether taste as reflective judgment and its concept of purposiveness without purpose meet these requirements. A major challenge to this is the relationship between reason and taste as reflective judgment; the goal of the discussion is to show that this relationship is not an obstacle to its mediation of knowledge and morality but, instead, that it helps to preserve the autonomy that makes the experience of beauty a bridge between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be