Cavell proposed that the ordinary language philosopher’s appeals to “what we say when” are to be modeled on aesthetic judgments in Kant’s sense. Both judgments express what Kant called “a universal voice.” However, both also share another feature that stands in tension with their universal purport in being open to seemingly intractable disagreement. Cavell’s insistence – following Kant – that there are judgments with such a logical form is significant, for the idea that there are judgments with this logical form cuts against a prevailing assumption: if a judgment does not enjoy the objectivity of a theoretical judgment, its content must be understood to be constrained by, or be an expression of, psychological or sociological fact.

These claims are essentially first-personal, not transferrable by testimony, are claims“in which” one’s community with others, or lack thereof, can be established, as opposed to claims that are made “about” a community, whether aesthetic or linguistic, from a third-person, anthropological point of view. Blindness to the existence of judgments with this pair of logical features is a form of psychologism about judgment, a failure fully to recognize the irreducibility of the first person, in both its singular and plural forms, in our relation to the world.

In "Aesthetic Problems of Modern Philosophy" Cavell draws together Wittgenstein’s philosophical procedures and the grammar of aesthetic judgment as Kant articulates it in the "Third Critique." Cavell primarily focuses on the universal voice. But there is an internal relation between the four different moments, and in particular, I would argue, between the second and the fourth, in which Kant shows aesthetic judgment to presuppose a common sense.

The relation between the universal voice and common sense is articulated in terms of a polarity of expression and ground. The expressive pole in aesthetic judgment is most evident in acts of criticism of art in which, judging with a universal voice, one takes oneself to be representative. But it is equally important that this expression be of a natural ground that underlies our common existence in language. The ground we stand on in judging is not a position, but rather a form of life in common. I end my chapter with an analysis of Cavell’s surprising turn to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to illuminate this recognition of a ground of attunement, a common world that can be called my world, in and through our judgments of art.