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The project of the Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment consists in providing a ground for judgments of taste so that we are justified in claiming that everybody else can agree with our judgment (subjective universality) and that all others ought to agree with us (subjective necessity, normativity). This justification is supposed to be accomplished in the Deduction of judgments of taste. The section that carries this title (38) is surprisingly short and for this and various other reasons (some of them textual) commentators have often wondered about the precise location where Kant provides the deduction, whether it is really contained in that short paragraph or whether the argument might actually extend beyond 38. In my thesis, I want to reinvigorate the discussion about the location of the deduction and its interpretation by arguing that it takes place between 30-42.

In this dissertation I criticize and reconfigure the ontological framework within which discussions of the organization, ontogeny, and evolution of organic form have often been conducted. Explanations of organismal form are frequently given in terms of a force or essence that exists prior to the organism’s life in the world. Traits of organisms are products of the selective environment and the unbroken linear inheritance of genetically coded developmental programs. Homological traits share unbroken vertical inheritance from a single common ancestor. Species are the product of exclusive gene flow between conspecifics and vertical genetic inheritance. And likewise, race is ascribed on the basis of pre-existing essential features. In place of this underlying preformationism which locates the source of form either in the informational program of inherited genes or within a selecting environment, I suggest form is the product of an organism’s self-construction using diverse resources. This can be understood as a modification of Kant’s view of organisms as self-organizing, set out in his Critique of Judgment (1790). Recast from this perspective the meaning and reference of “trait,” “homology,” “species,” and “race” change. Firstly, a trait may be the product of the organism’s self-construction utilizing multiple ancestral resources. Given this, homologous traits may correspond in some but not all of their features or may share some but not all of their ancestral sources. Homology may be partial. Species may acquire epigenetic, cellular, behavioural, and ecological resources both vertically and horizontally. As such, they are best conceived of as recurrent successions of self-constructed and reconstructed life cycles of organisms sharing similar resources, a similar habitus, similar capacities for sustaining themselves, and repeated generative processes. Lastly, race identity is not preformed but within the control of human organisms as agents who self-construct, interpret, and ascribe their own race identities utilizing diverse sets of dynamic relationships, lived experiences, and histories.

In this thesis it is argued that Kant's Copernican turn depends on his doctrine of the imagination, and that by understanding the role of imagination as symbolic rather than schematic, the resources are provided to show that his critical philosophy has more radical possibilities than those of his post-Kantian critics. To display this, it is first pointed out that the crucial role the imagination plays in Kant's Copernican turn is not fully developed in his first Critique. Next, it is argued that Kant's doctrine of the imagination is not fully realized until the third Critique in which Kant radicalizes his notion of constructivism by introducing a distinction between determinative and reflective judgments. Finally, it is suggested that while Hegel believes that Kant?s idealism is not dynamic enough to support a full-fledged constructivism, in fact, when Kant?s mature doctrine of the imagination is taken into account, this is no longer the case because Kant believes that our particular experiences of the world unfold artistically and creatively according to the work of the imagination. It is suggested, therefore, that in many ways Kant anticipates the developments of thinkers such as Hegel and other post- Kantians and may even continue to lie beyond them.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker förhållandet mellan Kants estetiska omdöme, såsom det formuleras i Kritik av omdömeskraften, och Jacques Rancières estetiska projekt, framförallt i förhållande till begreppet dissensus. Dels försöker uppsatsen spåra arvet från Kant hos Rancière och visa hur detta tar sig uttryck, dels ställer den frågan om hur Kants omdöme politiseras med Rancières dissensus. Detta sker i två kapitel, varav det första är en läsning av Kants kritik av den estetiska omdömeskraften, mot bakgrund av idén om dissensus, och det andra en genomgång av Rancières formulering av dissensus, samt relaterade begrepp såsom konstens identifikationsregimer och ”fras-bilden”. Vidare jämför det andra kapitlet Rancières dissensus med Kants idé om det ”intresselösa” i det estetiska omdömet, samt visar vilka politiska eller metapolitiska implikationer Rancière tillskriver det senare. Uppsatsen visar hur Kants estetiska omdöme är oumbärligt för Rancières estetisk-politiska filosofiska projekt och att flera av hans viktigaste begrepp vilar tungt mot Kant. Den visar också, med hjälp av Rancière, på ett möjligt sätt att ge Kants estetiska omdöme politisk betydelse, delvis i motsättning till de politiska läsningar av den tredje Kritiken som främst tar fasta på sensus communis som ett vittne om en konsensuell gemenskap. Rancière visar med sina omformuleringar av Kants intresselösa omdöme att en sådan gemenskap alltid föregås av ett visst dissensus – ett brott med de dominerande formerna för den gemensamma sinnligheten. / This paper explores the relationship between Kant's aesthetic judgment, as formulated in the Critique of Judgment, and Jacques Rancière's aesthetic project, specifically the way in which the concept of dissensus is developed in the work of Rancière. The purpose of the paper is two-fold: first, to trace the legacy of Kant in Rancière and second, to pose the question of how Kant's judgment is politicized in Rancière's reading. This is discussed in two chapters, the first of which is a reading of Kant's critique of aesthetic judgment in light of the notion of dis-sensus; the second chapter examines the concept of dissensus in Rancière, as well as other related concepts, such as the regimes of art, and the 'image-phrase'. The second chapter also offers a comparison between Rancière‟s dissensus and the notion of 'disinterestedness' in Kant's aesthetic judgment, showing how Rancière draws out from the latter a set of political or meta-political implications. Ultimately, the paper serves to underline the essential role that Kant's aesthetic judgment plays in the development of Rancière's aesthetic project, examining how several of Rancière's most important concepts lean heavily on Kant for philosophical support. With the help of Rancière, the paper also provides an alternative way to give political significance to Kant's aesthetic judgment, partly in opposition to those political readings of the third Critique that primarily focus on sensus communis as a testimony of a consensual community. By way of rearticulating Kant's disinterested judgment, Rancière shows that this community is always preceded by a certain dissensus – a break with the dominant forms of a shared sensible community.