Hume, points of view and aesthetic judgments

Abstract

Hume elaborates upon these comments in terms of the example of oratory, but his clear intention is to extend this principle to all other genres of art. As I understand it, the good critic is required by this principle to adopt a point of view that both excludes considerations of one's particular circumstance and includes certain cultural predispositions of the work of art which are unlike those of his own "age or nation." For instance, friendship or enmity with the author of the work of art must be forgotten and the peculiar views and manners of the audience to which it is addressed must be allowed for.: Our credibility as aesthetic witnesses relies, then, in part, upon our ability to shift our point of view from its customary position and accommodate ourselves to another one which, while familiar to the author and his audience, is initially unfamiliar to ourselves. In some ways Hume's mind "cleared of all prejudice" resembles the "aesthetic attitude". But there is an important difference between most versions of attitude theory and this part of Hume's theory of taste. For the attitude theorists the aesthetic experience is defined in terms of a universal frame of mind characteristic of every genuine aesthetic encounter. Its exponents (e.g. Stolnitz, Schopenhauer and Bullough) understand the aesthetic attitude to be one of detachment from all practical concerns, impositions of will, and interests peculiar to oneself, a Generally, the authentic aesthetic consciousness is described by the attitude tradition as a kind of attention and contemplation that is disinterested in a sense very close to what Kant had in mind for the pure judgment of taste. 4 Hume's claim that the