Aesthetics - Hume & Kant

8/13/2019 Aesthetics - Hume & Kant

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Student ID: 22608281 Page 1/7

How, if at all, does Hume's claim that a 'true judge' must 'preserve his mind free of all prejudice'

differ from Kant's claim that a pure judgement of taste is 'disinterested'?

During this piece, I shall be discussing David Humes insistence that a true judge must

preserve his mind free of all prejudice as I interpret it. I shall then move on to Immanuel Kants

notion that a pure judge of taste is disinterested before comparing and contrasting both

viewpoints. I intend to conclude that the philosophers reasonings, conclusions and intentions

behind these claims-- despite surface appearances --have little in common.

As an empiricist, David Hume encounters difficulty in explaining how it is natural for us

to seek a Standard of Taste (Hume,1757:300) with a seemingly subjective concept:

appreciating or judging taste and beauty. In Of the Standard of Taste, Hume concludes that

our undeniable inclination to judge Ogilby as an inferior writer to Milton is based on a rationalist

concept: common sense. For Hume, our evaluative convictions are neither true nor false, yet

some convictions are supposedly better than others, since some judges of them are superior.

Hume sets out five criteria a superior or true judge (Hume,1757:331) must meet in

order to hold this title which are: [s]trong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by

practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice (Hume,1757:331). The criterion

we shall mostly be concerned with is that [a true critic] must preserve his mind free from all

prejudice (Hume,1757:324).

Humes argument against prejudice relies on the assertion that [i]t is well known...[that]

prejudice is destructive of sound judgement, and perverts all operations of the intellectual

faculties (Hume,1757:327), since where [one] lies under the influence of prejudice, all his

natural sentiments are perverted (Hume,1757:331).

It is not clear what Hume is referring to when he uses the term prejudice. It seems like a

broader term than just bias of being friends or enemies of an author, but appears to delve even


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more deeply into denying ones own identity, individual being and... peculiar circumstances

(Hume,1757:325). This seems like a reasonable and fair comment, as it is the case that we

shouldnt be biased in a way which exerts preference over something based on our own

particular experiences. For example, lets say that I had my hands completely mangled in a

meat machine when younger which then had to be amputated. I now hold a deep-rooted

resentment for anyone with hands, so judge all fine art as poor, offensive or ugly if the

subject has hands on the end of her arms. What this demonstrates is that in order to be a just

and fair critic, one must strip down his experiences so that no prejudice can corrupt our

sentiment of beauty (Hume,1757:327).

However, since another criterion of becoming a true judge is to [perfect taste] by

comparison (Hume,1757:331), it createsthe impression that as a true judge one must adopt

other-- more commonly accepted --prejudices in order to critique works of art within a context.

As a result, it seems to me that Hume is wanting judges to discard their personal preferences

and prejudice and replace it with an appeal to popularity. According to Hume, [a prejudiced

persons] taste evidently departs from the true standard; and of consequence loses all credit

and authority (Hume,1757:326) as a result of not adopting the social context the work of art is

set in, so perhaps a better interpretation of Humes use of free-from-prejudice is flexible and

able to adopt prejudices of others.

Ill now move on to Immanuel Kants views. In the Critique of Judgement, Kant sets out

to discuss judgement of beauty in four sections (or moments). In the first of which, he claims

that [t]he judgement of taste... is not a cognitive judgement, is not logical, but is aesthetic

(Judgement,1:1:1). He goes on to argue that that which is aesthetic cannot be other than

subjective (Judgement,1:1:1) since it is concerned with interior pleasure we individually

experience from a representation in our minds of an object in the external world.


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For Kant, judgements of beauty are therefore based on sentiments or feelings, so if this

is the case, what makes statements about beauty different from emotional attitudes? Kant holds

that judging matters of taste is concerned with disinterested pleasure which expresses no

desire for the object and in order to do so, [one] must preserve complete indifference [to it]...

(Judgement,1:1:2). This means that although our judgements are rooted in pleasure, it is a

pleasure distinct from our usual conception of physical pleasure. To offer my own example to

illustrate this idea, to paint or look upon a naked man might make you feel awkward with no

physical desire for him, yet you could appreciate the contours of his body and the shape of his

thighs and find him beautiful from a purely aesthetic standpoint.

Kants point here-- as I take it --is subtle. The idea is that we can recognise and

cognitively reflect upon the beauty that the modes of representation (Judgement,1:1:5) of

objects produces in us without having desire to possess or utilise them, or as Nick Zangwill put

it: that disinterested pleasure has a desire-free 'causal-functional' role (Zangwill,1992:149).

In order to have a pure judgement of taste, we need to separate the object from its role

or concept. For example, to judge the beauty of a chair, we need to detach our understanding,

experiences and connection of that object with our concept of chair or for sitting on and regard

it solely as the bunch of disinterested feelings that we have of it. This is the way the fine art

student is today taught: to disregard any context or modes of identity and to just see what is

there.

Having outlined Kants ideas on judgements of beauty as disinterested, it is clear that

his concepts of beauty require some rejection of a posterioriexperience, which is what Hume

also insists that a true judge must do (to a degree) to be free from prejudice.


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Hume highlights the factthat Milton is more of a genius that Ogilby, just like an ocean being

bigger than a pond. If there is any disagreement about this, then someone must bewrong, as

there is just reason for approving one taste, and condemning another(Hume,1757:300).

Kant, on the other hand, leaves us a little confused about his stance on disagreements.

With a subjective foundation to his theory, it makes it difficult to see how he can reconcile

possible conflicts in opinion. One could possibly argue that the disagreement could arise as a

result of one judge being more interested than the other but to be able to confirm which one

would be impossible. Since, for Kant, judgement of beauty is a pure intuition known a priori,

judges would requireagreement instead of merely postulating: as Hume suggests they would.

As a result, Kant leaves us more sceptical than Hume about our possible knowledge of beauty.

So, to conclude, both Hume and Kant use similar terminology such as concepts of

imagination, feelings and subjectivity. They would seem to agree on the foundations of our

experiences regarding beauty but even with such similar starting points, they end up in very

different destinations.

Their views have often been conflated with their ideas of freedom-from-prejudice and

disinterest and, in my opinion, this is mistaken. This misunderstanding could possibly be down

to translation issues or even down to poor writing or format that these two ideas have been

considered as similar. On the surface -- separated from arguments -- the claims look as if they

would achieve the same result: to be a fair, true judge without bias, however Hume appears to

then add and justify somebias through experience, whereas Kant claims that true beauty can

be judged through introspection and reflection. In order to understand and compare claims, you

need to be able to examine the intention and background conditions. As wed expect fromrival

empiricists and rationalists, in the case of taste, Hume and Kant rarely agree on these.


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Humes argument seems contradictory in my opinion and leaves an idea of a real

standard of taste too flimsy and open for interpretation and change. The examples he uses

mostly apply to the performance arts, where society and context is important, but when you

commit them to notions of the aesthetic arts such as fine art, they fall apart or become less

relevant. Someone can appreciate a painting without knowing its history, value or context

whereas (in my opinion) going to a drama play where you dont speak the language affords you

little enjoyment. As a result, I see Humes argument to be too broad.

In comparison to Hume, Kant sets out to explain nothing more than beauty. He doesnt

explain what makes a poem beautiful, as he is concerned with aesthetics and the reflection of

looking at things devoid of context. It leaves questions open concerning whether there are other

types of deeper beauty, although Im sure Kant would afford these types new words or see them

as resulting from other kinds of intuitions.

Humes theories appreciate and give room for relativity, cultural change and social

differences to an extent, yet appear to still insist on something being superior to another

regardless of other factors such as deep reflection. As a result, Humes ideas on a true judge

would be more allowing, in my opinion, for modern or contemporary art to be beautiful.

However, it is difficult to see how both he and Kant would attest to the beauty of some of the

displeasing political art strewn with anger and blood from the Fluxus movement to which I,

personally judge as the most beautiful type of art.

Footnotes1my understanding of Kants response to this empiricistviewpoint as outlined is due to Allison,

H.E.2001 Kants Theory of Tastepp130. New York, USA - Cambridge University Press

Bibliography


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Hume, D.1757Dissertation IV Of the Standard of Taste in Four dissertations. Oxford, UK :

University of Oxford - Electronically developed for iPad by ECCO-TCP

Kant, I.1790 The Critique of Judgement. Electronically developed for iPad by MobileReference

Kivy, P.1967 Hume's Standard of Taste: Breaking the Circle in British Journal of Aesthetics7:1 January Edition. Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press

Zangwill, N.1992 UnKantian Notions Of Disinterest in British Journal of Aesthetics Vol. 32

No. 2 April Edition. Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press

Aesthetics - Hume & Kant

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