The Standard of Taste

Hume's problem of the standard of taste asks how, given that beauty is not a property of objects but a sentiment in the mind, some critical verdicts can still be better than others.

Definition

The standard of taste is the criterion, sought by Hume, by which some aesthetic verdicts count as correct despite the subjectivity of beauty; Hume locates it in the convergent judgments of ideal critics meeting specified qualifications.

Scope

This topic covers Hume's essay 'Of the Standard of Taste' and the tradition it founds: the apparent conflict between the variety of taste and the persistence of canonical judgments, the proposal that the standard lies in the joint verdict of qualified critics characterized by delicacy, practice, comparison, freedom from prejudice, and good sense, and the interpretive disputes about circularity and the basis of the standard. It does not cover Kant's transcendental account, treated in a sibling topic.

Core questions

• If beauty is a sentiment, can any aesthetic verdict be more correct than another?
• What qualifications make someone a good judge of art?
• Is Hume's appeal to qualified critics circular?
• How can a stable standard accommodate legitimate diversity of taste?

Key theories

The joint verdict of true judges

Hume argues that the true standard of taste is the agreed verdict of qualified critics—those with delicacy of taste, practice, the capacity to compare, freedom from prejudice, and good sense—whose convergence over time fixes what is beautiful.

Breaking the circle

Interpreters such as Kivy address the worry that identifying good critics by their good verdicts and good verdicts by good critics is circular, proposing that the qualities of critics can be specified independently of their conclusions.

History

Hume's 1757 essay framed the problem of taste for the empiricist tradition: reconciling the maxim that there is no disputing about taste with the durable preference for Homer over inferior poets. His solution through ideal critics became the touchstone for later sentimentalist aesthetics, and twentieth-century commentators including Kivy and Costelloe debated whether the account is circular and how the critic's qualifications are to be specified.

Debates

The circularity objection

Whether Hume defines good critics by good verdicts and vice versa, rendering the standard circular, or whether the critic's qualifications are independently specifiable, is the central interpretive dispute.

Diversity vs. a single standard

Whether Hume's standard can accommodate the legitimate variation he acknowledges among cultures, ages, and temperaments without collapsing into relativism remains contested.

Key figures

• David Hume
• Peter Kivy
• Timothy Costelloe
• Jerrold Levinson

Seminal works

• hume1757

Frequently asked questions

Does Hume think beauty is in the object?

No. Hume holds that beauty is not a quality in things but a sentiment in the perceiving mind, which is exactly why he needs a standard of taste to explain why some verdicts are still better than others.

Who counts as a qualified critic for Hume?

Someone with delicacy of taste, much practice in a kind of art, the ability to compare works, freedom from prejudice, and good sense; the joint verdict of such critics constitutes the standard of taste.