Hume on the Standard of Taste

Dr. Ellie Anderson, philosophy professor and co-host of Overthink podcast, discusses Hume's essay "On the Standard of Taste", breaking down his distinction between judgment and sentiment. Hume also offers five criteria in order to help us answer the question: is there a standard of taste? Are aesthetic questions purely matters of personal feeling? Textbook is Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology reader, ed. Cahn and Meskin (Blackwell, 2008).
This video is part of a series introducing philosophers' views of art and aesthetics.
For more from Dr. Anderson, check out Overthink on KZbin, or listen to our conversational podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We've got numerous audio podcast episodes on the philosophy of art!

[@Carlos-ln8fd]

So glad i found this channel

[@nabaneetsharma451]

This channel is a blessing in disguise

[@lillilii4443]

Love this! It would be amazing if you did one on philosophy of elegance & grace ❣️

[@helloface001]

Great summary. I am not the biggest podcast fan but I may check it out after this.

[@jonathantaylor964]

As an art teacher and artist- wow thanks! So clear, to-the point, and engaging. Started with your Dewey Art as Experience and am going to keep going. These are the videos I have been looking for- for years!

[@kuk_forgoraren69]

Thank you so much for this! You summarized and explained this text in much less time and in a much less convoluted way than my own aesthetics professor did.

[@giovannisoda6206]

My first (and rn only) paper is on Hume’s concept of taste, thank you so much for covering the argument

[@theotherone7619]

Dr. Anderson-- This is highly beneficial, and I thank you. I am an amateur artist, having only recently turned to abstraction. I have been reading Kant and studying some of the post-WW II abstract expressionists. You should consider doing a video on the philosophies (as well as his abhorrence of capitalism) of Mark Rothko. I would love to hear your take on his work, life, etc. vis-a-vis what is discussed in this video. I look forward to learning more!

[@janessalynna1190]

This is an amazing resource, thank you

[@Dino_Medici]

Love all the art talk. I’m going to buy the textbook and I’m not familiar with all the readings yet to make a request. But anything on the will of the artist would be amaze.

[@BarryOm]

You're the reason, I love books 📚

[@dilbyjones]

Yes ! ❤ I appreciate a different approach but glad you have spotlighted.

[@berniv7375]

Thank you for the tasteful video.

[@BillyMcBride]

I have to say that not yet having read Hume on aesthetics, I am a bit confused, but now, because of this good way of describing Hume's points in your video, I want to find a copy of Hume's book in question.

[@jerrypeters1157]

Thanks so much for sharing. You gave me lots to think about. For instance: if an artist has a few pieces of art (be it paintings, poems, sculptures, songs, etc.) they keep updating through a lifetime while exploring other artists in their genre of expression, what are the chances of those pieces of art becoming bad art? My assumption is that the probability lessens over time. Am i wrong?

[@charliemoll5435]

Wow. I am literally in the middle of reading this right now. Good thing I took a procrastination break lol

[@artlessons1]

As a retired art teacher and artist this podcast reflects close to home . I find many viewers and students identify with what is culturally or existentially the “ in thing “ rather than being honest with their true senses. Unfortunately many produce art from this perspective. When one says subjective l take it as coming from their own senses not identifying with a object but experiencing the moment through their art !👩‍🎨

[@artlessons1]

Additionally, so true that the immediate reaction is not the real response. Being art, music or literature the whole thing comes to life and makes sence a long way down the journey. Like knowing is feeling as now l understand. Thanks 👩‍🎨

[@revensf622]

ELLIEEE GIVE US A BOOK SHELF TOURRR!!!

[@GugaStroeter]

you are a genius!!! congratulations from Brasil

[@agmaxwell6476]

There are criteria which are applied in the valuation of excellence, truth, nobility of creation, correspondence to life. Education of emotions, cultivation of sensitiveness to the finer things of life can develop an artistic view.

[@EdgarGiovanniRodriguez]

beatiful!

[@ddv2nine722]

Great vid, thanks. I have a question: Isnt this universal sense of taste that allow masses of people to judge something as good or bad (such as the song example), and which presence conbined with unique deviations for each person generates most part of the taste, in contradiction with the need of eliminating prejudice for a good evaluation of a piece of art? This universal taste must be determined by time and places, no?

[@TheD3cline]

YOU ARE TEARING ME APART LISA!!!

[@oomenacka]

If we follow these steps and come to recognize the universal principles of taste, does Hume believe that all people will naturally come to agree on which pieces of art are good or bad? Would art critiques become for him more in line with judgements than sensations once these steps of cultivating proper taste are accurately followed? And if so, would it follow that there would be a necessarily "correct" answer as to whether, for instance, the Mona Lisa is a good piece of artwork? After all, judgements, unlike sensations, have a truth value that can be assessed.

[@jren7015]

I seems like Hume's bracketing of prejuduce is in tension with comparison; if aesthetic judgement is in part based on comparison, then novel art or art from different cultures is going to be incommensurable with the experience of the one making the judgement. Delicacy is interesting as well - it obviously informs judgement, particularly in the wine analogy, but the judgement of good/bad can't be solely based on tasting notes or tannin content. Wine is also a well-defined and homogenous category.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

I read these more like "things you need in order to properly judge". So I guess when approaching novel art or art from a different culture, you'd have to defer your judgement for a while because of your lack of ability to compare.

[@dkmagos]

a personal struggle for me is being surrounded by people who are vocal and somewhat entrenched in their taste - often devaluing mine or perhaps I defer to their tastes. Does this mean I should refine my tastes so I feel more confident in my taste? Should I double down on my take so as not to defer to others?

[@moveonupcb]

Yes, the reality is one is always coming across people who say that they like something you absolutely hate. Now, how one acts in those situations today is pretty frustrating. A lot of people in ordinary life certainly don't have the intelligence to even consider the factors needed by Hume to judge taste. Sometimes to be polite I'll tell a lie just to please the other. Other times I'll be perfectly honest and be brutally honest but if somebody is obviously in love with what they like I don't see any point in getting into a debate about it. I suppose one sticks to others with similar tastes in the end. Sometimes one just has to go with the flow even though you can't stand it. Other times I just leave. An example being terrible music in a bar!

[@eepshitahazarika2660]

You are great 💟💟💟💟

[@user-xn5cm6ik3h]

Make a video on Herakleitos.

[@addammadd]

4:37 on Friday “by Rebecca Black” (positioning of quotes intended): Rebecca Black did not write that song. She was a child laborer who was used by producers Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson to perform that piece. The aesthetic debate here seems less interesting if we regard the subjective quality of the work and much more interesting if we judge the objective merit of it as art in the first place. To my mind, there is an objective difference between an artist practicing art and a worker crafting a product. I am confident in saying that nothing about Friday “by Rebecca Black” constitutes art so much as it does a product and the question of good or bad is entirely irrelevant.

[@masauditopendi9482]

could you please talk about Zizek?

[@alst4817]

I’m not sure this is enough to explain why artistic tastes in a given culture change over time, or why artistic tastes differ between cultures?

[@lilg9601]

holy smokes, a rebecca black example in 2023 😂 I love it

[@LeopardKing-im4bm]

Whether or not one agrees with Hume's exact criteria for taste, there has to be an underline logic to it. If this were not the case, no one can be taught to play an instrument. How can anyone get better at playing the guitar if expert strumming has no qualitative difference from novice experimentation?

[@exiletheexile9856]

It’s immediately biased to describe art from the perspective of a critic, or a wine taster. This is the subjective, there is no objective in art, the person that produces the paints and the person that views art specifically for the purpose of having an ascetic reaction are both on different categories of subjective interpretation of art.

[@something-uj4eq]

The Room is so bad it’s good- it’s a sign of great taste to enjoy how good it is at being bad lol

[@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy]

We have an episode on Bad Movies: www.overthinkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-76

[@something-uj4eq]

@@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy Just read the beginning of “Why It’s Okay To Love Bad Movies”. Thanks for the reference!

[@BreezeTalk]

Friday 🤣🤣🤣

[@Hughdoggy]

I think Hume is cool

[@mokshadalokhande9121]

Your videos are extremely crisp and perfectly entail the essence of the concepts, however, If I may suggest something, try to keep your eye movements more stable, more natural... It's quite evident that you're either camera conscious or have difficulty maintaining eye contact. I really appreciate your courage to challenge your fears and keep on making videos but your eye movements tend to be distracting and shift our focus from the topic to your body language...

[@shanecommins7968]

My issue with this kind of thing has never been that it's wrong, exactly - just today I was reading James Wood, an amazing literary critic who is absolutely, definitely, no-doubt-about-it 'better' at reading and judging fiction than I am. The problem is that asserting hierarchies of judgement is inherently elitist, and therefore, given the economically stratified world in which we live, classist too. And wouldn't you know it, respectable criticism tends to err on the side of, and reinforce, bourgeois taste. The end result of which is that I get hopelessly confused and don't trust my own unrefined, working-class opinions. Oh well.

[@robertalenrichter]

It would be nice if the monied actually had good taste, but most of them don't. This might have been relevant in bourgeois France before 1970. Nowadays, one can't establish any correlation between wealth and cultivation. Just look at the vulgarity in the so-called "luxury goods" market, where the label is gigantic because it's more important than the actual object. Granted, academics tend to have academic offspring as well, but nobody would take this as an argument against education. And, how would you categorise all the impoverished artists? Are they not "elitist"? The fallacy lies in confusing money and class with refinement. I will go to my grave an avowed elitist, but not out of any sentiment of exclusion or snobbism. I simply believe in quality and hope that as many people as possible will nurture this aspiration as well -- there isn't any contradiction between subjectivity and refinement. Everybody knows that sophistication grows with experience. It's as simple as that, and class consciousness has nothing to do with it.

[@robertalenrichter]

I absolutely love what Hume is saying here, but nowadays, the arts establishment, though it certainly perpetuates, as ever, the notion of acquired sophistication, at the same time rejects the idea that there can be a standard of taste. Contemporary aesthetic theory has no time for the examination of form itself, except as a signifier. They've outsourced appreciation to other criteria than sensibility, but this is a mistake because working with form develops perceptual, conceptual sophistication, "attunes" consciousness towards subtlety, to use one of Hume's terms. I'm not here promoting a classicist ideal, drawing the figure etc. I mean, quite simply, developing an ear for the poetry in the world and a curiosity about which forms it could take. This will inevitably lead to the discovery of certain universal principles, which of course will always be expressed in new ways. On a related note, I read recently, to my horror, that the UK has slashed funding for the arts by half and is shrinking the Humanities in education in favour of the STEM subjects. The Philistines are creating a world in their image.

[@michaelvandenheuvel317]

I can’t help my self, I loss all my senses.

[@jankafka7330]

Why does it seem that the majority of individuals who comment on your videos are ignorant of the subject matter, not overly intelligent, and egotistic enough to believe their inane musings are worth sharing with others?

[@garywillis7467]

Thanks - Grateful 🪄

[@ruskiny280]

To much thinking is as ineffective as to little thinking. The purpose of thought is action. Effective people are activists for the greatest happiness of the greatest number.