David Hume Of The Standard Of Taste Thesis

Applying this to the dilemma at hand, it follows that we must be able to locate some standard of taste and beauty within the subject themselves.

Hume uses the example of wine tasting to elucidate this: those able to notice the minutia of a glass of wine are better fit to evaluate it, and therefore have a delicacy of taste.

Third, a true judge must have substantial practice, meaning that they frequently reapply their senses and sentiment.

If one were to argue that is the greatest work of art of all time, this is merely an indication of how your faculties perceive the world, and not an objective judgement on aesthetic truth.

Nonetheless, Hume thinks we can still seek out standards of sentiment, even if no one sentiment can be declared as the only true standard.

Thus when Burns addresses the mouse or the louse, he is not celebrating humility or an object of a lower status, but showing that a sharply perceptive sensibility can see emotion in any subject.

The poem is not about the animal, but about Burns’s projection of the nature of the world and his experience of it on to the creature.

This means that in order to make the most accurate sentiment possible, our organs need to be in a sound state.

The conclusion here is that while one can’t necessarily say that “yellow is a pleasing color,” it is at least a requisite that this person making the assessment be of sound mind.

Burns invests an apparently insignificant object with emotional significance, partly through the process of addressing it directly.

The Enlightenment's emphasis on reason shaped philosophical, political and scientific discourse from the late 17th to the early 19th century.