Single Idea 18552

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude]

Full Idea

Hume suggest we get away from the fruitless discussion of beauty, and simply concentrate on the qualities we admire, and ought to admire, in a critic - qualities such as delicacy and discernment.

Gist of Idea

Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics

Source

report of David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 6

Book Reference

Scruton,Roger: 'Beauty: A Very Short Introduction' [OUP 2011], p.123


A Reaction

We might wonder how you can admire 'discernment' without some view of the thing being discern, which is in danger of being beauty. How do you judge delicacy and discernment without judging the objects of the critic's taste? Mere authority?