This is the final essay I wrote for my favorite philosophy professor. It was very well received.

In his essay “Of the Standard of Taste”, Hume put forth what could be considered an early aesthetic theory. Hume considered it “natural” to seek “a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled.” (229) Hume’s theory lays forth a procedure by which matters of taste may be decided and near universal consensus will be reached. I will look at the four parts of Hume’s theory and argue that his standard is not reasonable in the present world.

Section Zero: Hume’s Aesthetics

Hume’s aesthetics (as I will call it) consists of four important points to look at. At the time of his writing, Hume did not use the term we often used today, fine art, and like the term aesthetics that may be because the term was not in common use at the time of his writing. So when Hume uses the term art he is not specifically talking about fine art but rather the product of skill and workmanship (EHU). The product of a watchmaker is therefore his art. Hume however did use the term “Finer Arts” (as opposed to fine arts) and in doing so was referring to art forms such as painting, sculpture, poetry and most likely dramatic writing such as was written by Shakespeare. Hume seems to be writing from the prospective that the intent and goal of the “finer arts” is to be, though he would never describe it in such vulgar terms, beautiful. Hume also seemed to be under the opinion that this beauty should be apparent, that is to say nearly universal. Hume’s standard of taste that he is putting forth then is a way to reach near universal consensus as to which products of human workmanship are most skillful and, as for the finer arts, which are most beautiful and therefore deserving of our approbation.

Hume’s method for reaching this consensus relies on two inputs. Since we experience all arts through our senses a proper judge of said arts would have to have properly functioning senses, or as Hume
wrote:

“A man in a fever would not insist on his palate as able to decide concerning flavours; nor would one, affected with the jaundice, pretend to give a verdict with regard to colours. In each creature, there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment.” (SOT 233-234)

The other step in Hume’s method is that the judges (I assume that Hume would accept that all men with properly functioning senses could receive the proper training and thereby be considered a acceptable judge) of “taste and sentiment” receive the proper homogeneous training that would allow them to reach a consensus as to that which should be viewed with “approbation or blame” (SOT 233). This proper training will involve proper practice and exposure to the arts so that the judges are adept at forming comparisons (necessary when giving praise to quality craftsmanship and assigning blame to poor craftsmanship). The training method to produce the proper consensus will also have to be such as to keep the viewer from being prejudiced in their judgments. A Scottish man who thought Hume was the greatest philosopher and that Smith was the greatest Economist of all time might be prejudiced by the fact that they were also Scottish, therefore a proper judge concerning the matters of taste will have to be free from prejudice to properly assign blame or praise to the work. Hume’s theory can therefor be stated that among men with properly functioning senses, that have received the proper training method, they will produce near universal consensus regarding matters of taste and sentiment. The next four sections we will look at the four keys to Hume’s aesthetic theory, his definition of art, the idea of properly functioning senses, his proper training method and the idea of the universal consensus, though not exactly in that order.

Section One: Proper Aesthetic Training.

In the paper “Hume’s Standard of Taste and the De Gustibus Sceptic,” Ribeiro puts forth a very persuasive argument concerning the limitations of Hume’s proper training method. He brings up the issue of the possibility of competing training methods. The argument being that there could be two or more possible training methods that would both bring about near universal consensus regarding matters of taste, but however the conclusions reached between the two different methods would be different and that there would not be a non-arbitrary method for deciding which method should be preferred, that is that it would be underdetermined. Ribeiro’s paper more eloquently and persuasively puts forth the arguments for rejecting Hume’s idea that there even could be a training method, considered be a proper training method, than I ever could. Therefore at this point I am going to assume that there is good reason to reject the idea of a proper training method because adding to Ribeiro’s arguments or improving on them would be outside the scope of this piece.

Section Two: Properly Functioning Senses

The judges of taste and sentiment in Hume’s theory must have properly functioning senses, however I believe there are several problems with this idea. The first being that Hume is somewhat vague as to what does and does not qualify to be labeled as a properly functioning sense. Considering that Hume is putting forth a theory whereby there will be near universal consensus, it seems that in Hume’s theory the properly functioning sense perception would have to be one that was inside the statistical mean of human sense perception ability. That is those with abnormally functioning sense perception would not have a properly functioning sense perception ability. It seems reasonable that a blind person’s opinion as to the quality of painting would be unimportant in determining whether it should be viewed with approbation or disapprobation because the blind person’s sense of sight, the single sense used when perceiving a painting, is abnormal. At first sight this line of thinking seems very reasonable concerning abnormal sense perception. However, this only addresses the abnormal perceiver at the low end of human perception. There are perceivers at the higher end who would also qualify as abnormal, the perceiver with eyesight better than 20/20 for example. I would imagine that Hume at first would respond that this perceivers having better than normal perception would qualify as having a properly functioning sense perception since they would be able to perceive all that the normal art consumer would and therefor the only abnormal perceivers would be excused from being a judge would be those with below average perception ability. The problem I see with this is that there are examples when the abnormally superior perceiver would come to conclusions contrary to the normal perceiver not because his sense perception is not properly functioning but because in comparison the normal perceivers sense perception is inadequate. For this argument let us allow that Hume was correct about the proper training method and that among the perceivers with normal properly functioning senses (that would be the statistically normal perceivers) that when they tasted wines they came to a near universal consensus regarding which ones are superior and which are not. Now let us introduce the wine taster with an abnormally superior sense of taste who has had the same training method we allowed the normal perceiver. It does not seem unreasonable that this perceiver of wine could reach a different determination than the normal perceivers. Let us also assume that this singular wine taster with the superior sense perception does in fact represent a descending conclusion to the main stream that most any wine taster with an equally superior taste ability would reach. It doesn’t seem reasonable though that we could ever say that the abnormal perceiver is wrong as to which wine has the most superior taste, however inside Hume’s argument, if we did not dismiss the superior wine tastier as having an improperly functioning sense perception ability, we would have to dismiss the statistically normal perceivers as having the improperly functioning sense ability. I do not think Hume would allow us to dismiss the vast majority though, sense his theory has the goal of producing near universal consensus in matters of taste and nearly universally dismissing all perceivers would very much be counter productive.

Despite whatever conclusion Hume would come to regarding the wine tasters, he would still hold that there would have to be at least some minimum level of sense perception ability required to be an acceptable judge concerning matters of taste. We have looked at the potential problem of the high end perceivers, now let us look at some issues concerning the low end perceivers. In the modern world there is music performed, believe it or not, for people who are classified as deaf. Sound travels as vibrations, through both air and solid materials. Deaf perceivers of music can therefore perceive music by their sense of touch and thereby form judgments of quality and enjoyment. It might be unreasonable to accept the deaf perceivers judgement concerning music as being correct for all perceivers, but it would, as I hope we will see later in section four, be inappropriate to dismiss the deaf perceivers judgement as being wrong in some way. We have looked at the problems of the low end and high end sense perceivers, but what if there were perceivers who had developed a new sense, a sense lacking in most other perceivers?

In the modern world there are people who perceive in a radically different way than the statistically normal perceiver, they are called Synaesthetes. Though there are several different types of synaesthetes, the common factor they all appear to share is that one or more of their normal senses are connected to another sense or emotion. There are synaesthetes who when they hear a note experience the sensation of a color, though they will acknowledge that they did not see the color per-se but they did experience it. That is a synaesthete might hear a C sharp and experience the C sharp as being orange. There are synaesthetes that might experience the color blue and tell you that it is a happy color whereas red is sad. It would seem entirely logical to assume that the synaesthete, even when provided with same training would reach radically different value judgments concerning matters of art and taste. Hume would most likely respond that these individuals simply have malfunctioning senses and therefore are not qualified to be judges. However let us imagine a world populated with people who who are missing a sense that most of us have, the sense of taste. If one of us were to travel to this world, we would most likely report matters of opinion based on our sense of taste that the tasteless citizens would reject. If they had our science, they would come to the conclusion that our sense of taste was a mutation of our sense of smell, and they would be correct. We would not however, let them tell us that we had a malfunctioning sense, we would assume that we had a sense they did not have and thereby were more qualified to make judgments concerning matters of food. Now imagine that the synaesthete’s ability to experience letters as having a color or sounds having a shape were not a malfunction of their neurology but rather the emergence of a new sense. If that where the case, just as the wine taster, they would be more qualified to make judgments concerning matters of taste than we are. Hume would therefore have to, assuming he would want to protect the majority’s ability to make judgments concerning matters of taste provided they had the proper training, say that they had malfunctioning senses and dismiss them as judges of taste. However, I think this would make the judgments of taste much more arbitrary, because we have dismissed perceivers with superior ability, and that seems counter intuitive to Hume’s aim of creating a system in which the “correct” value judgments are made.

Section Three: Hume’s Definition of Art

Hume, as I mentioned earlier believes the goal of the “finer arts” to be beauty and even in his time there were objections to this. Hume addresses some of these objections in his essay “Of Tragedy.” The problem of tragedy, as put forth by Hume is that if the goal of art is beauty and people enjoy art for its beauty, then why do people enjoy tragedies such as those written by Shakespeare? Hume responds in two ways, the first being that people take great delight in that which is novel and new, the other being that a tragedy works as a contrast to the joys in our life and amplifies them. The first argument is rather simple, it says that the people who enjoy going to the theater to watch tragedies are actually enjoying the novelty (OT 262) of the experience. This would explain why, even though as an art form the tragedy isn’t especially beautiful or pleasing to the senses, people enjoy them and continue to consume them. A modern objection to this is that of repeat viewing. I say modern because film motion pictures have taken the concepts of the stage and magnified them and made them endlessly reproducible and re-experience-able. The fan of a tragedy film, such as “Citizen Kane”, can watch the film repeatably and many do. These fans often report finding new things to enjoy in each repeat showing, and this would seem to prove Hume’s theory of the joy of the novel. However, with each viewing the cineast finds less and less that is new and novel yet his enjoyment and appreciation becomes greater and more amplified with each additional viewing. The point comes when such a film will lose all novelty and in doing so however it does not lose its admiration and approbation in the hearts and minds of the cineast. Hume, if he were familiar with the modern film art form though could easily explain that the joy the cineast enjoys in repeat viewings of great films such as “On the Waterfront” and “Citizen Kane” and in viewing cult films such as “Pulp Fiction” is not the joy of novelty but the approbation one has when viewing a product of great skill and craftsmanship.

The most apparent counter argument to this that there are cult films that enjoy very great repeat viewing, however, when the quality of the skill they were made with and the level of craftsmanship that the demonstrate is looked at, there popularity can not be explained by Hume in the same way that “Citizen Kane” could be. That is to say that there are films that are repeatedly consumed by their fans not because they are novel or because they are of high quality. The Troma films such as the “Toxic Avenger” are a fine example of this type of modern human behavior. Hume could respond that these fans just have not received the proper training that we discussed earlier. While it is true that these fans have not received any kind of uniform training designed to produce near universal consensus it seems highly unlikely that they have not been subjected to the majority values of the modern world, values that would tell them that they should not approve of such films. That is to say that it seems most likely that the vast majority of these fans have been subjected to some form of basic aesthetic training, though of course it would not be labeled as such, and still they enjoy and repeatedly view these films. A Humian response might appeal to his second explanation of tragedy, and that is that such tragedy can contrast with the mundane joys of everyday life and in doing so amplify them and highlight them for the joys that they actually are (OT 263). That is the fan of the “Toxic Avenger” might very well enjoy the film because it reminds him or her to appreciate the joys of their own life, they are not hideously deformed monsters with an abnormal attachment to a mop and are joyful for that. Evan though that seems reasonable, it can not neatly explain the fans of the grotesque. In recent years there has been a trend of horror movies, of the family of movies often called slasher films, that take delight in displaying the most extreme forms of human torture and mutilation. These films are so dark and disgusting and dehumanizing that, though they provide contrast to the joys of the normal human life, it is not possible that that contrast is adequate to compensate for and be greater than the disgust and disapprobation that any sane human should feel at viewing such a carnival of suffering and wretchedness. This extreme art form though was not unknown even in Hume’s time:

“Such is that action represented in the Ambitious Stepmother, where a venerable old man, raised to the height of fury and despair, rushes against a pillar, and striking his head upon it, besmears it all over with mingled brains and gore. The English theater abounds too much with such shocking images.” (OT 265)

Hume’s response being that there is not an explanation of such fans. Just as Hume would say that for the unrepentant sensible knave:

“If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect, that his practice will be answerable to his speculation.” (EPM 9.23)

That is that there is no training or system of reasoning that would apply to such people. They do not contain in them some basic form of human sentiment that would allow them to be reasoned with. If Hume had the psychological vocabulary we have today he might reefer to these people as schizophrenic. The hope would be that there are not enough of these people in the world to be a problem in actuality. Though many of Hume’s defenses do seem to work, his definition of art does not represent the full range of complexity exhibited in the modern world. for reasons that will be addressed in the next section.

Section Four: The Idea of Near Universal Consensus.

Hume’s taste standard would, according to him, produce near universal consensus as to matters of taste and sentiment, this would apply to art also. However, there is a wide variety of art that is not intended to be consumed or enjoyed universally. I call this minority art, not because it is produced by minorities (other than the artist which are a minority of the general public), but because it is intended for and created for but a small minority of the public. For example, Tarantino (his film Pulp Fiction was mentioned earlier) produces films for a small percentage of the movie going public. In fact Tarantino has said that his intended audience is himself, meaning that it is created for the enjoyment of a certain number of like minded individuals. Though a proper training method applied universally might possibly keep such art from being created or accepted, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason why we would want to do that. Modern fine art does more than just present itself to us to be enjoyed for its beauty. We have approbation for modern art because it is sometimes intended to contain a message, it is a tool for communication. Hume could argue that such art could be viewed with approbation for its skill and craftsmanship in its ability to communicate a thought, feeling or idea, however, if the goal is communication of a thought feeling or idea than a painting of green circles or a film about a red balloon does not seem to be the best method to communicate such an idea. We wouldn’t view these pieces of art with approbation for being an inferior method of communication and we would, in the modern world most assuredly wish to identify these works as art. We view these works with approbation for their ability to communicate such an idea to the intended target audience inside the medium it does, if there was a system whereby a near universal consensus was reached by consumers of art than these pieces might not be deserving of that approbation and thus the full range of artistic expression would be seriously harmed.

Given the needs of the modern world that art meets, it seems unreasonable to accept or embrace Hume’s or a Humian view of art, as it seems that all its pieces are either subject to serious doubt or at the very least under-determination. There appears to be severe problems with his definition of Art, especially that it is intended to present itself to viewers with joy and beauty. Hume’s requirement of properly functioning senses also seems to be lacking. Hume’s idea of a proper training method is at the very best ambiguous. It is questionable whether the notion of nearly universal sentiment is even possible, let alone desirable.

Tags: David Hume, Essay, Philosophy