Although I will agree that there are subjective and objective judgments a person can make about art. If a painting is of a cat then all people can likely agree it has a cat, but they will not all agree that the cat makes it feel cheerful or something like that because that is a judgment. Hume does not make this distinction. He thinks everyone will have the same judgments if distractions are removed. He does not explain what constitutes a lack of distraction though. It does not seem to be achievable to lack all experiences that could lead someone and so anyone, even someone who was considered an expert, would have some sort of distraction. If we are looking for no distractions from experience and culture, which would be impossible, then we are judging good art based on genetic inclination. Hume seems to assume that nobody would have genetic differences. Either that or that is another destructor, but one people would never be able to get over unlike age etc. Although is every age entails distractions than age will also always be a problem. Hume’s ideas about art do not seem to be able to have any practical usage.
Do you think Hume’s ideas could have any practical usage as an explanation about art?
Hume says that the reason for a difference of opinion stems from different distracters in life. These distracters come from the differing points of view of people. These differing points of view come from the various cultures, chemical and emotion influences, age, etc. that are experienced. More than that though, it alludes to anything that would influence or change a persons’ outlook or way of thinking. Whether physical or genetic differences it still remains as a variance in life that could make for a difference of point of view. Once separating the things that create these differences you are left only with the things that are common among every member of the human race. In essence this means everyone is the same. If everyone was the same and had the same points of view then it would only be natural for their thoughts and opinions to be the same. As an idea this is sound. However, since this type of breakdown is highly improbable in this world the idea has no real practical application beyond saying that if everyone was the same there would be no difference of opinion.
ReplyDeleteSaying that if everyone is the same all opinion would be the same is obvious and adds nothing to the conversation. It is like saying if every rose was red all roses would be red. I do not think this is what Hume thinks or wants his argument to boil down to.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this was a critical over-simplification of Hume's argument. However, I felt that when broken down to its basic form his theory it was precisely this idea. In showing it in this basic form my goal was to show the futility or basic flaw in his reasoning. Hence the lack of practical application. Possibly this type of breakdown was misconceived or in error, but to me it seemed like a fair assessment.
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