We have found that the ‘Deduction’ of aesthetic judgement reveals that the latter is based on the subjective conditions of cognition. In Chapter 5 I argued that the principle of taste or common sense is aesthetic in status, insofar as it counts as the principle of the faculty of judgement as such. Kant makes no mention of any other principle of judgement other than taste, so I disagreed with Allison's suggestion that taste is grounded on a further principle, namely, the principle of judgement in its subjective employment. In my view, the principle of taste is the only principle that expresses the autonomous use of judgement. My solution appears to give rise to a worrying result, namely, that cognition is grounded on an aesthetic principle. There are strong reasons, both independent and internal to Kant's philosophy, for resisting such a conclusion.

A related problem arises for my interpretation in the two Introductions to the Critique of Judgement insofar as Kant introduces a principle of judgement that does not at first sight count as aesthetic. This is the principle of the purposiveness of nature and is the basis for our presupposition of systematicity across the range of empirical laws, thus making possible empirical judgements. Kant suggests that the ‘Analytic of Aesthetic Judgement’ will serve as an exposition and deduction of this principle, thus it would appear that taste is grounded in the principle for empirical systematicity.