Hume's Taste for Standards. Experience and Aesthetic Judgment Reconsidered

This essay considers the foundation of aesthetic judgment, moving from the apparent contradiction between the variety of taste and the uniformity of human nature assumed by David Hume. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how an interesting lesson on aesthetic judgement can be drawn not only from the Humean standard of taste, but also from the exceptions that can be found to challenge it; and how any effort to solve the problem raised by these exceptions can benefit not so much from Hume's analysis of the concept of taste, but from his implicit suggestions regarding standards.