Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 33:

1
Philosophy and the Arts,Lecture 33

• The Perfect
• Critic

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Old Profs and Coeds

• I left the faculty party at the same time this
  cute coed was leaving, and wanted to impress her,
  so I said, Hume was a Subjectivist (in Ayers
  sense) in Ethics, but in Aesthetics, he held an
  Ideal Observer Theory, of a relativistic sort.
• Then I thought, Hey, thats right!! And I
  still think it is.

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David Hume (1711-1776)

• David Hume was possibly the greatest thinker ever
  to do Philosophy in the English Language.
  Therefore the literature is vast. You might
  begin with my website on Hume and his Critics,
  named for a course I taught for some years. Its
  really an extended bibliographic essay.

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How can we decide??

• Everyone tries to tell us what art is good how
  do we know who to believe?? Hume thinks we should
  listen to someone who has
• (1) a certain delicacy of taste, as when we
  speak of someone having an ear for music,
• (2) add to this a bit of practice in one or more
  of the arts,
• (3), and it would help if our critic had made
  comparisons can a person be an expert on opera,
  if he has attended only 1 performance??

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How??

• (4) We expect our critic to be free from
  prejudice,
• (5 ) and we hope he will have good sense (not be
  some kind of nut??).
• Does this means critics will always agree?
• Sadly, no. Young people will still prefer things
  the over 30 crowd hates.
• And people from different parts of the world will
  still have differing tastes.

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Many books.

• Hume wrote many books, but felt the essay was his
  best form of expression. The long story of how
  this set came to be published is interesting in
  itself, but his major work on the philosophy of
  art was his Of the Standard of Taste, published
  as one of Four Dissertations, in 1757.

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Hume had his critics, too!

• One of his most harsh critics was James Beattie,
  shown here in a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
• His Essay on Truth was directed at Hume (and
  maybe Voltaire).

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An Ideal Observer??

• I want to say this adds up to an Ideal Observer
  Theory. Whats that? Well, suppose we say a
  daffodil is yellow. We dont mean just I see it
  as yellow.
• We mean it would be seen as yellow by someone
  with certain characteristics, under certain
  conditions.

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Why bother?? Whats the point??

• In the 20th century, the theory was brought into
  ethics by Roderick Firth. He suggested that when
  we say, for example, that honesty is good, we
  mean it would be found to be good by someone who
  was dispassionate, disinterested, consistent,
  etc.
• One clear advantage is that this makes it
  possible to say moral judgments might be true,
  without saying goodness is a quality (like being
  short, tall, or green), either non-natural or
  otherwise.

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John Hospers hates me!!

• Not really, but he has argued that an ideal
  observer theory wont help us in aesthetics
• A good critic is just one who makes good
  judgments, as a good bridge-builder is simply a
  guy who builds good bridges.
• I have tried to show that he is wrong if we are
  having a new bridge built, of course, we want to
  know what qualities to look for in good
  builders---why shouldnt the same be true, if
  were looking for a good critic??

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One point beyond debate

• I said earlier that the Hume literature is vast
  look again at the syllabus for my Hume and His
  Critics.
• Now let me add that nobody has done as much work,
  as much really high quality work, on Humes
  aesthetics as Peter Jones, Professor Emeritus,
  University of Edinburgh. The list is too long to
  reproduce here,

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The Source??

• I leave hanging one more tidbit worth further
  research. Prof. Jones has argued that one reason
  Hume hesitated so long in publishing his essay
  was that he thought his readers would recognize
  that so much of it was taken from this work by
  the Abbe Du Bos. The book appeared in an English
  translation in 1748, but Hume had read it in
  French many years before.
• Remember the Auld Alliance!!

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Another Ideal Observer??

• I shouldnt do this, but must add that I find
  traces of an Ideal Observer theory in the work on
  ethics by Humes close friend, Adam Smith, The
  Theory of Moral Sentiments----when Smith says our
  acts are to be judged by an Impartial
  spectator.
• One final shotit will not do to object that
  (except God, possibly) there is no Ideal
  Observer. So? Nobody is completely impartial, and
  always consistent but we ask this of our judges,
  dont we??

• I really shouldnt do this, but must add that I
  think one also find traces of this sort of theory
  in the work on ethics (The Theory of Moral
  Sentiments) by Humes close friend, Adam Smith. I
  know some (such as D. D. Raphael) disagree, but I
  find an Ideal Observer lurking in Smiths
  Impartial spectator.
• Much more could be said about that.