Originally published as one of the Four Dissertations and then included in the 1758 edition of the Essays, the 1757 paper “Of the Standard of Taste” qualifies as David Hume’s official contribution to criticism.1 A few exceptions aside, no real or thorough effort has been taken by its critics to place the essay in the overall context of Hume’s science of human nature.2 Hume has certainly his share of responsibility in this: “Most of these essays were wrote with a View (...) of being published as WEEKLY-PAPERS, and were intended to comprehend the Design both of the SPECTATORS & CRAFTSMEN. But having dropped that Undertaking, partly from LAZINESS, partly from WANT OF LEISURE, and being willing to make Trial of my .. (shrink)

<P>While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. </P> <P>Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of (...) poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses. </P>. (shrink)

David Hume's celebrated essay ‘‘Of the Standard of Taste’’ is the central text for understanding Hume's aesthetic theory, yet an important claim in that essay has received inadequate attention in the literature. Although it is understood that Hume stresses the importance of delicacy of taste, it is less well understood that this delicacy is a delicacy of imagination, which is distinct from a delicacy of perception. Using both the essay and other texts to elucidate this thesis, it appears that Hume's (...) account of taste faces unresolved difficulties in defending a standard of taste. (shrink)

While there is hardly an aspect of Hume’s work that has not produced controversy of one sort or another, deciphering and evaluating his views on aesthetics involves overcoming interpretive barriers of a particular sort. In addition to what is generally taken as the anachronistic attribution of “aesthetic theories” to any thinker of the eighteenth century, Hume presents the added difficulty that unlike the other founding-fathers of modern philosophical aesthetics, he produced no systematic work on the subject, and certainly nothing comparable (...) to his efforts in epistemology, morals, politics, history, and religion. Even interpreting Hume’s most definitive expression of his views on aesthetic questions—the famous essay “Of the Standard of Taste”—is fraught with difficulties and, as the diversity of views on the piece demonstrates, only the most confident reader would take it as an unambiguous statement of Hume’s position. (shrink)