HUMA 024 Lecture 5: Kant on Modality
Document Summary
Modality is a philosophical term for the way something exists. Some philosophers like to divide things up so that everything falls into these three categories: things that are possible, things that are actually the case, things that are necessary or must be the case. These ways of being possibility, actuality, and necessity are called. Many perceptions are possible sources of pleasure, many are actual sources of pleasure, but kant thinks that things correctly judged as beautiful will necessarily be a source of pleasure for all human beings under normal conditions. This is why there can be a single, universally binding standard of taste, to which all judgements of taste ought to conform. To say it the way kant would: a demand for universal assent when it comes to aesthetic judgement is justified, given the universal sensibility or way of feeling that grounds such judgement.
