David Hume, “O f the Standard o f Taste”, Essays Moral, Political, andUterary,ed. Eugene F. Müler (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund: 1985) 241.
33 Alan Goldman uses this response-dependence structure to underpin an antirealist theory o f aesthetic judgment, one which also makes use o f supervenience. It seems, then, that Goldman holds that the supervenience o f the aesthetic on the non-aesthetic does not constitute an adequate anchor to some set of mind-independent properties, or at leat not adequate enough to make such a view realist. I have argued from the position that a workable supervenience in these terms might well entitle the view to the realist label. See Alan Goldmsiii, Aesthetic Value(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995).
31 Crispin Wright, Tndh and Objectivity120-124; also 132-135.
Mark Johnston, “Objectivity Refigured: Pragmatism \SCithout Verificationism”, in Crispin Wright and John Haldane (eds), Reality, Representation, and Projection(Oxford: Oxford Urriversity Press, 1993) 125.
36/ w 126.
32 Philip Pettit, “Realism and Response-Dependence” 616.
Max Kozloff, “Thiebaud” 5 May 1962, in Meyer, Peter, ed. Brushes With History: Writing on A rt fromThe Nation, 1865 — 2001 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2001) 292.
39 Philip Pettit, “Realism and Response-Dependence” 616.
^0 Paul Boghossian and David Velleman, “Colour as a Secondary Quality”, Mind98 (1989) 84. ■11 ibid.
to the task o f providing an acceptable metaphysical and semantic account o f our art-related thought and talk. In the chapters remaining, I shall develop a tlieory that, I contend, best captures those practices. I suggested at the outset that the various theories on offer can be seen as responding to an apparent tension between two beliefs about artworks: first, that our judgments about them are objective in some substantial sense, and second, that the
distinctive qualities o f artworks are bound up with our thoughts about them. Thus far, aU of the theories examined have treated the two intuitions as in tension with one another, and have sought to revise one o f tiie intuitions. To reiterate my primary goal: I claim tliat there is logical space for a theory that accommodates both intuitions. Doing so will not involve denying one o f die intuitions as misguided, but rather revising some odier o f die attendant notions underlying a theoretical understanding o f our practice o f aesdietic judgment. In this chapter, I wish to survey one historical position that occupies the same logical space as the view I develop. Various reconstructions o f Hume’s aesthetic theory have been
conscripted to a number o f very different contemporary views, including Simon Blackburn’s quasi-realism, Alan Goldman’s supervenience-reliant antirealism, Eddy Zemach’s Robust Aesthetic Realism, and many others. I am not interested here in die question o f Hume’s true metaphysical allegiance. My interest in investigating Hume is to show how an antirealist theory can coherendy maintain bodi the claim that aesthetic properties are not ‘in the world’, independent of our thoughts regarding them, together with the claim that our aesthetic judgments can be truth-apt and cognitive. In this respect, Hume anticipates the kind o f view I develop in Chapter 6.
How can a survey o f Hume’s aesthetic theory illuminate a project in analytic philosophy? I think it is best to be modest about the expected gains ftom such an examination. The right
cautionary note is struck by Michael Ayers, in a review of Jonathan Bennett’s books Learmng
From Six Phi/osopbers: “Within every great philosopher a perceptive analytic philosopher is struggling to get out. Bennett is there to help.”* Ayers’ ironic comment serves as a reminder
that tlie projects o f philosophers in previous centudes differed from contemporary analytic ones. So it would be a mbtake simply to assimilate the concepts and arguments o f Hume to this project. It would also be a mistake to assume that because Hume wrote in English that he uses liis words in the same way we do. Hume’s arguments are unclear and equivocal in many places. Applying a principle o f charity, it is possible to clarify and extrapolate from Hume’s express views, but the results o f this activity must be considered Humean, not Hume’s. Bearing these caveats in mind, I shall consider in detail what Hume says about aesthetic judgment, paying special attention to the arguments supporting the location of Hume’s view in cognitivist antirealist territory. Doing so will also require examining
reconstructions of Hume^. My main interest, again, is to show what a historical view o f this variety looks like, to identify difficulties that a contemporary view must avoid, and to flag promising lines o f argument.
Any complete discussion o f the logical space in which I wish to situate aesthetic judgment must also include Kant. Kant holds that aesthetic judgments are subjective but universal. He rejects the view that aesthetic judgments are strictly rational, as well as the view that they are merely expressions o f feelings. His theory clearly is to be placed under cognitivist
antirealist ones in my taxonomy. However, I will not discuss Kant’s thought in any significant detail. Kant treats the subject o f aesthetic judgment directly in the ‘Analytic of
the Beautiful’ in his Critique of Judgment. Many commentators on Kant’s aesthetics have
treated the Analytic as a free-standing essay on aesthetics. But this is a mistake. Kant’s development o f the theory o f aesthetic judgment needs to be situated in the larger context of
arguments running through the Critique of Judgment and the Critique of Pun Reason^ and so an
adequate treatment o f his views would take us far from the immediate concerns o f this enquiry. Secondly, Kant is overwhelroingly concerned with judgments o f the form ‘This is beautiful [or ugly]’. While such judgments according to Kant have the same logical status I have urged for judgments o f particular qualities, the analysis o f judgments o f beauty is much less amenable to an approach that has principally involved the content and use of aesthetic judgments. The word ‘beauty’ in Kant’s usage never signals an aesthetic disvaluing, and for that reason would function as a ‘thin’ aesthetic concept; our investigation has focused exclusively on ‘thick’ concepts and avoided discussion o f strictly evaluative ones. Finally, Kant’s obsession with system leads him to some very strange views about artworks. For
judgments of beauty, Kant claims o f paintings that “The colors which light up the sketch belong to the charm; they may indeed enliven the object for sensation, but they cannot make it wordiy o f contemplation and beautiful.”^ Any theory which explicitly holds that the color o f painting is aesthetically irrelevant rightly arouses suspicion. N o doubt tliere are re interpretations available to the dedicated neo-Kantian, but such a project is a significant undertaking, and ultimately unnecessary for the present purpose, wliich is to explicate a liistorical theory that can be categorized as cognitivist antirealist. So now I turn to Hume.