Therefore, the dilemma of aesthetic experience is, as the notion suggests, a double bind. On the one hand, aesthetic experience is universal; it is 'for everyone'. It is, to use the language of Kant, the product of an aesthetic judgement of taste, 'which can make a rightful claim upon everyone's assent'. 2 If it does not possess this universality, then it loses its unique c haracter and significance. For what makes aesthetic experience so significant—so revolutionary even—is that all of us have the capacity for it simply by being human. .
