Judging Appearances : A Phenomenological Study of the Kantian sensus communis

Kants <em>Critique of Judgment</em> accounts for the sharing of a common world, experienced affectively, by a diverse human plurality. In order to appreciate Kants project, <em>Judging Appearances</em> retrieves the connection between appearance and judgment in the <em>Critique of</em> <em>Judgment</em>. Kleist emphasizes the important but neglected idea of a <em>sensus communis</em>, which provides the indeterminate criterion for judgments regarding appearance. <em>Judging Appearances</em> examines the themes of appearance and judgment against the background of Kants debt to Leibniz and Shaftesbury. Drawing upon treatments by Husserl, Sartre, Ricoeur and Arendt, Kleist delineates the proto-phenomenological method through which Kant uncovers the idea of a <em>sensus communis</em>. Kleist shows that taste is a discipline of opening oneself to appearance, requiring a subject who dwells in a common world of appearances among a diverse human plurality. This volume will prove valuable for anyone interested in a fresh approach to themes at the heart of Kants aesthetics.