Kant’s aesthetic theory distances itself from palpable qualities present in art, and instead focuses on access to the oblivion of imagination and consciousness through them. By tapping into the mind’s a priori recesses Kant seeks to transpose mere aesthetic philosophy, and establish an intersection between moral relativity and political design based on a pure universality. Concerned with the rationality intrinsic to the human condition, his aesthetics’ versatility to simultaneously restructure the field, and introduce a practicality outside the vacuum of philosophy. While its central dogma have led to corrupt application, Kant’s original liberal optimism attempted to design a perpetual peace among humanity.
The field of Aesthetics regards the study of perception and reflections upon ‘art’ and the development of taste. In its many manifestations, aesthetics deals with the beautiful and the pleasures of the imagination -- pursuing a transcendental optimism intertwined with intellectual endeavors. Aesthetics distances beauty from the materiality of an object and the sensory reactions it provokes, and places it on a pedestal of indeterminate self-conception. Contingent on impalpable pleasure, the aesthetic beautiful disconnects from prejudice and bias. It offers purposiveness without purpose, or a concept that exists for its own sake. 
	For Kant, aesthetics bridges the gap between feelings and the faculty of judgement through a representation. Judgment inherently demands a decision of either the senses, conceptual alignment, or a higher free faculty. Of Kant’s three delineations of aesthetic judgement, he is primarily concerned with ‘pure’ judgements, not that of the senses (the agreeable) or the good (fitting neatly into an established concept). The ‘purity’ of a judgement disregards their corporeal properties or established concept, and accesses a pleasure attainable through its own contemplation -- the beautiful. 
	The value within judgements of the beautiful derives from the applicability of the higher plane it allows. Kant’s criterion for a proper judgment of beauty separates it from lower vulgarities; described in four “moments,” Kant creates a hierarchy of judgement through these requirements. A judgement of beauty requires disinterestedness, purposiveness without purpose, universality, and necessity. The former two were previously explicated to mean freedom of sensual allure and associated prejudice, respectively. 
	Universality and necessity correlate by defining the compulsory portion of Kant’s theory. An aesthetic judgement of the beautiful claims universality, demanding everyone who perceives the object to share this appreciation. Hence, because of its demanding nature, common sense necessarily dictates the universality of the judge’s taste. These claims assert a sort of objectivity regarding the judgment of taste, but Kant paradoxically asserts the subjectivity of their appreciative universality. Per Kant’s dismissal of a concept dictating beauty, no rules exist that mandate perceptions of beauty. Still, the assertion of universal validity in judgments demands a necessary agreement regarding an object's beauty abstracted from its physical principles. Kant’s ‘subjective universality’ describes a ubiquitous feeling of pleasure disconnected physical or conceptual preconceptions, that demands validity through a higher form of cognition. A self-justifying judgment that demands unity due to coginitions own a priori general composition.
