23 January 2007

On Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste"

Hume understands as taste that which characterizes a culture from the others. To him, what “departs widely from our own taste and apprehension” we call it barbaric, and he acknowledges that this feeling reciprocates on the other side as well. Hume argues that this creates two “right” sides clashing because of the generalities guiding them. And this happens not only among societies but also between individuals. To solve this struggle, the critics, philosophers or legislators, create a set of rules or, as he sees them, generalities that only restart the conflict because they try to limit the individual’s sensitivity. Nonetheless, Hume tells us that there’s, deep within, a universal and natural agreement among men that doesn’t really need the assistance of these laws. Strangely enough, Hume rants against Islam and call it a “wild and absurd performance,” when this religion takes from the Judeo-Christian tradition and in essence follows and worships the same Good. His writing keeps on turning more and more romantic when he assures that “all sentiments are right.” From this we can conclude that he’s claiming that the individual is above the mass just because he/she feels and puts reason apart. This common person is capable of grasping the GOOD, which differs in subject but not in meaning: what’s pretty is pretty only to you. Variety in taste is greater in reality than in appearance, he says. Some of us might think the speed limit unfair because we feel like driving 120 mph on the Border Highway. Not that I have done but I’m quite certain that it feels amazing to step on the gas while your engine explodes with every revolution. I meant to say that some like driving fast and other don’t even like driving. But Hume argues that the creators of generalities mean to label things, sentiments, and the relationship between these two. This doesn’t mean that they understand these relationships, but need to explain them somehow. As Dr. J told us, “thunder is angels pillow fighting.” He tries to show his point when he writes that Homer and Fenelon characterize a contrasting version of Ulysses. This seems to be problematic. We could certainly doubt that the latter author wanted just to mimic the classic Greek poet. All this concepts, or generalities, mean nothing to Hume; they’re empty to him because they could mean everything but what every single one of us really feels toward something. That these sentiments are right is explained only, according to Hume, by the different sensations an object provoke on different people. Your significant other may be pretty to you, but your mom thinks he/she’s a stinking good-for-nothing. Could we say that both are right? What if mom finds out just the opposite or you stop admiring his or her prettiness, I mean, loving him-her? He also argues that we cannot trust these laws because only in exceptional cases men concur in certain generalities that follow nature, a sort of random nature. And part of this hit and miss in nature translates in human behavior as the diverse tastes or sentiments. It’s through the experience of these sentiments how we get to The Good. Experience is the foundation of all understanding for Hume, and is the only vehicle to reach the capacity to discern. Analytical processes or putting “works reduced to geometrical truth and exactness, would create insipid and disagreeable.” For him the critic should be free of prejudice. But according to Hume, the critic is that one well-experienced individual capable not only of discerning what’s good from what’s not, but also the one that leaves behind the morals and acts according to its own passion, for that is what is true, claims Hume. In his take against philosophy, Hume says that “none of the rules of composition can be fixed apriori,” meaning that nature is unique and mysterious. His sentimentalism is so big that it takes him to assure that all the youth has warm passions, while older people start to analyze and “philosophize.” Thus we understand that old people are obsolete? That modernity and innovation is at the core of The Good? Just wondering.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blame Hume for the romanticism of progress and the war against formal logical thinking,and even for the tyranny of relativist construction and the death of argument! Yeah Man!

Miss Neumann said...

Las reglas fueron hechas para romperse!!!!

besos

Zion Kid said...

Entonces el "no matarás" que suena a una regla harto razonable es totalmente prescindible, de acuerdo con Miss Neumann. No creo que las reglas estén hechas para romperse sino para mutar en lo que la sociedad, el contexto histórico—el tiempo y el espacio—demanden. Y en ese sentido matar sólo cobra sentido cuando uno está en guerra.