A Contradiction in Hume’s Aesthetics?
By Hume’s lights, any inquiry into aesthetics operates under the pretense that that any r
ule or standard associated with taste is ascertained solely by experience and not by demonstration or reasoning a priori. In “Of the Standard of Taste,” Hume asserts this thesis rather than proves it (see Paragraphs 9 and 10). Perhaps for some, Hume’s suggestion may strike them as intuitively correct and without need of conceptual rigor or proof. However, a closer look reveals that Hume’s aesthetics is subservient to epistemological commitments developed and expounded independently of “Of the Standard of Taste,” and it is to these commitments that one ought to direct one’s attention in order to determine whether the premise of Hume’s aesthetics holds up under philosophical scrutiny.
Early in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume draws what is minimally a conceptual distinction between two types of knowledge. On the hand are what he calls “relationships of ideas,” which include mathematics and any other sort of thinking whereby propositions are intuitively or demonstrably discovered. On the other hand are the broad and seemingly boundless “matters of fact,” which are conclusions and assertions whose arrival necessitates moving beyond the operation of thought, as well as beyond experience: “All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be based on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can beyond the evidence of our memory and sense” (ECHU 22).
Hume’s criticism of the customary affirmation of the a priori rule of causality is well known and needs only fleeting mention here. For Hume, the relation of cause and effect arises out of experience and habitual expectation rather than out of any a priori reasoning. He rejects the notion that the mind can ever discover the effect in a given cause. And so, he reasons, the mind must “invent or imagine” each scenario of a particular and peculiar effect proceeding by necessity from a cause. Now, Hume does not deny that causality is something real; rather, he holds that the mind cannot discover this principle intuitively or demonstrably and extend it to any future event.
At the conclusion of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume places the consideration of beauty and taste within the enquiries of matters of fact. The implication, of course, is that any “standard of taste” would inevitably be denied any intuitive or demonstrative value. Accordingly, “Of the Standard of Taste” carries out an investigation of taste in a strictly empirical mode. Thus, the full scope of “Of the Standard of Taste” is premised upon an epistemological position that, incidentally, has been seriously challenged by philosophers, not least of whom is Immanuel Kant, whose discovery of the synthetic a priori threatens the validity of Hume’s position on the purely experiential arrival at any rule of causality. It seems to me that Hume’s aesthetics cannot get off the ground without the validity of his epistemological division between relations of ideas and matters of fact.
Curiously, not only does Hume assume his tenuous epistemological commitments in “Of the Standard of Taste,” but he also seems to assume an intuitive principle of causality in his formulation of that sought-after standard. He asserts: “It must be allowed, that there are certain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to produce those particular feelings [of beauty and deformity]” (Paragraph 16). Remarkably, it appears that Hume is stealing a card from John Locke’s deck, suggesting that there are “qualities” in objects that cause or “produce” the particular and varying feelings of beauty and deformity. Recall that Locke forwarded a casual theory of perception whereby the arrangement and power of “primary qualities” in objects produce the “secondary qualities” of perception. It appears that Hume has allowed this empiricist claim to slip in the backdoor of his aesthetics, committing him to a position that he actually rejects in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that is, that any rule of causality is an invention of the mind and not a principle that resides in the actual objects of perception. Hume seems to suggest that the standard of taste that arises out of the “uniform consent of nations and ages” is based upon qualities in objects that consistently cause certain sentiments (albeit in those who have a rather advanced “delicacy of taste”). And yet, how can Hume make this claim in “Of the Standard of Taste” when he denied in the Enquiry that causality is a knowable fact in reality?
My intent here is only to point out that Hume’s aesthetics are problematic in at least ways: 1. His aesthetics assumes a dubious epistemological distinction; 2. His aesthetics seems to violate his theory of causality, which is a constitutive aspect of the distinction. Am I being unfair to Hume?
Filed under: Aesthetics, Epistemology, Hume
Hey Michael,
You say:
“…Immanuel Kant, whose discovery of the synthetic a priori threatens the validity of Hume’s position on the purely experiential arrival at any rule of causality. It seems to me that Hume’s aesthetics cannot get off the ground without the validity of his epistemological division between relations of ideas and matters of fact.”
There are a couple of things going on here that I’m not quite following.
First, Kant doesn’t really seem to disagree with Hume about reason’s inability to discover any causal relations in reality? Kant would certainly say there isn’t any, and Hume, I think, would agree with this. Causality, for Hume, is simply a psychological habit cultivated through experience, aiding in ‘conjoining’ different events. No ‘connection,’ however, is ever discovered. How, then, does Kant’s formulation of synthetic a priori propositions threaten Hume? The necessity for determining how such propositions are possible indicates how Hume set the stage upon which Kant was to perform his own song and dance.
Second, are you saying that Hume’s distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact stands in need of further demonstration? It seems that Hume has come across a rather sure way of doing just that insofar as he appeals to the principle of non-contradiction as establishing relations ideas (what Kant would later describe as ‘analytic’). Matters of fact, on the other hand, must be confirmed by experience. Kant himself is in agreement with Hume in this regard as can be seen with what the former says about determining the truth of analytic and synthetic a posteriori propositions; the problem arises, however, as you noted, with synthetic a priori propositions which, because they are synthetic, cannot be determined through non-contradiction. But because they are a priori cannot be determined through experience. Again, it seems that Kant fundamentally agrees with Hume if only to emmend the Scott; or, as Kant says in the Prolegomena, to provide a rudder with which to steer Hume’s ship rather than allow it to run aground.
But perhaps I’m missing something–cheers.
pilgrim says : I absolutely agree with this !