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The True Judge of Beauty and the Paradox of Taste
Author(s) -
Gaiger Jason
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
european journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1468-0378
pISSN - 0966-8373
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0378.00098
Subject(s) - taste , appeal , beauty , aesthetics , impulse (physics) , epistemology , philosophy , set (abstract data type) , sociology , law , psychology , political science , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , programming language
This paper addresses two key works in the eighteenth‐century debate on the problem of taste: the Abbé Du Bos's Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719) and David Hume's ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ (1757). A successful solution to the ‘paradox of taste’ should sustain the democratising impulse behind Du Bos's appeal to the judgment of the ‘public’ whilst, at the same time, acknowledging the role of learning and discovery which underpins Hume's recourse to the opinion of the best qualified critics. This can be achieved, it is argued, by taking up a standpoint which is internal to our actual arguments or disputes about art, drawing upon and recommending a set of practices which allow for the development and revision of our judgments about works of art.