Hume's Principles of Taste: A Reply to Dickie

Abstract

George Dickie argues that Hume's principles of taste have value-laden properties as their subjects, including those properties we now refer to as 'aesthetic'. I counter that Hume's principles have value-neutral properties as their subjects, and so exclude those properties we now refer to as 'aesthetic'. Dickie also argues that Hume's essay on taste provides 'the conceptual means for recognizing the problem of the interaction of aesthetic properties with other properties of artworks'. I counter that the very passages Dickie takes to provide these conceptual means in fact suggest that Hume recognizes no such problem.