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These annotations were prepared by Theodore Gracyk.
(Copyright
Theodore Gracyk 2002) They may be freely reproduced, so long as
this complete citation is included with any such reproductions.
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Paragraph #2
when critics come to particulars
When critics examine specific examples. "Particulars" are
individual objects, in contrast to abstractions or generalities. Hume is
making the point that our agreement about abstract principles does not
translate into agreement about specific works. You and I can both endorse witty
dialogue as a valuable element of a comedy, but disagree whether the
film Ghost Busters is better than Annie Hall.
In contrast, Hume claims that scientific disagreements tend to be
about generalities, not particulars. (In the eighteenth century, it
would not be unusual to find that two scientists would agree about
certain facts while disagreeing on which of two rival theories to
apply.)
Paragraph #3
found morality on sentiment
A "sentiment" is an emotion. Hume is describing his own
position. Hume is denying that distinctions between what is good and
bad can be based on reasoning about things: "Morality ... is more properly felt than judged
of; though this feeling or sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle that we are apt to confound it
with an idea." See Book 3 of the Treatise of Human Nature (1740).
Hume's contemporaries attacked this position for opening the door to relativism,
which they regarded as the inevitable consequence of saying that moral differences are based on human feelings.
HOMER down to FENELON
Homer is the Greek epic poet. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey
are attributed to him, although both works were probably assembled from
multiple sources. Fenelon (1651-1715) was a French theologian and
poet. Hume is referring to the poem Telemaque (French spelling
of Telemachus, son of Odysseus of Greek mythology). The Latin name of
Odysseus is ULYSSES. He is the hero of the Odyssey. To learn
more about Ulysses, click
here.
disapprobation
Disapproval. Hume also uses the term "approbation," meaning
approval. Consistent with what he says earlier in this paragraph, Hume
regards approbation and disapprobation as sentiments, that is,
emotional responses. (Approbation is a feeling of approval;
disapprobation is a feeling of disapproval.)
ACHILLES is one of the principal characters of the Iliad.
In Greek legend, he was the mightiest warrior to fight in the Trojan
war.
For more information, click
here.
Paragraph #4
"the ALCORAN"
Today we know it as the Koran (or the Qur'an),
the fundamental sacred text of Islam. Devout Muslims believe that the
Arabic text is the literal word of God.
Hume's discussion of the moral position of the Koran sets the
stage for the moderate moralism endorsed in Paragraph
# 34.
Paragraph #6
to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule
At this point, Hume explicitly identifies the standard with a rule.
Later, he will inconsistently say that specific works of art serve as
the standard. The theme of rules is explored in paragraph
#9. But until now, Hume suggests that specific works and artists
(e.g., Homer and Milton) are the standard of taste, a theme that returns
in paragraph #26. To really confuse things, paragraph #23 identifies the
standard with the joint verdict of true judges.
Paragraph #7
All sentiment is right
We have a cliché, "To each his own." Hume is summarizing
the core idea of his theory of moral and aesthetic value, that they
are based on sentiment (emotion) and not judgment. Taste is based on a
feeling, and a feeling of pleasure is a personal response to
something. You either have the feeling or you don't, but if you do,
nobody can accuse you of having a mistaken feeling! The point of this
paragraph is to set up the problem that there seems no objective
beauty if taste is a matter of sentiment.
mental, as well as bodily taste
Bodily taste is literally the taste of something that we put in our
mouth, such as the flavor of the anchovies on my pizza. But the flavor
is the cause of a further response, our pleasure or displeasure.
(Yummy or yucky!) Mental taste is a parallel case, generally
restricted to auditory and visual sensations. It usually involves exercise of the audience's imagination, as would be expected
of any theory grounded in so many literary examples, where the object of taste is
the total literary work (something that we must pull together in
imagination).
Paragraph #8
this axiom, by passing into proverb
The Latin proverb is "de gustibus non est disputandum" or
"There is no disputing about tastes."
"OGILBY and MILTON, or BUNYAN and ADDISON,"
Scottish poet John Ogilby (1600-76) translated Aesop's fables and
rendered Homer and Virgil into English verse. The engraved plates
that were published with his Virgil are better remembered than the
translation. John Milton (1608-74) wrote Paradise Lost, among
other major poems. John Bunyan (1628-88) wrote Pilgrim's Progress;
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) co-authored several important British
periodicals, including the Tatler and the Spectator.
Addison's
essays on theater, taste and the pleasures of the imagination were
frequently reprinted and were highly influential.
TENERIFFE
Volcanic peak in the Canary Islands, now spelled Tenerife. |
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Paragraph #9
rules of composition: Consistent with Hume's empiricism,
this paragraph claims that these rules are arrived at by a process of
empirical generalization. There is considerable disagreement about
what Hume has in mind when he refers to these rules (notice that he
also refers to them as "laws"). They are sometimes described as rules of
criticism, and sometimes as rules followed by artists. It is pretty
clear that Hume thinks that these rules describe "a certain conformity or relation
between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind" (paragraph
#7). My own opinion is that each rule takes two different forms
(as a
rule of composition and as a rule of criticism). In each case, the
rule links a particular response with either a particular aesthetic
quality or a manner of composing art. For a painter, the rule might take the form, "If you
want a pleasing composition, limit the use of black paint." For a
critic, the same rule might take the form, "Paintings employing
lots of black paint do not please good critics." (Why this appeal
to good critics? Because they can't be
rules that depend on everyone's response. Paragraph
#2 denied that possibility.)
reasonings a priori: reasoning about a subject in advance of
learning the relevant facts. The opposite of inductive
generalization in which one generalizes from a sample. For Hume, the
only legitimate reasoning a priori is a relation of ideas, a situation
in which a sentence is true by definition. However, Hume also holds
that no relation of ideas can, by itself, imply any matter of fact.
Reasonings a priori must be combined with factual claims in order to
generate factual conclusions. For more information, click
here.
ARIOSTO is Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533) and the book in question is Orlando
Furioso.
Paragraph #10
catholic: lower case spelling means all-embracing. Not to be
confused with the religion, Roman Catholicism.
Paragraphs #14 & 15
DON QUIXOTE. Book by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes
(1547-1616). SANCHO is Don Quixote's sidekick.
Here is the text from Don Quixote (John Ormsby translation,
1922), part 2, chapter 13:
"But tell me, senor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine?"
"O rare wine-taster!" said he of the Grove; "nowhere else indeed does
it come from, and it has some years' age too." "Leave me alone for
that," said Sancho; "never fear but I'll hit upon the place it came from
somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having such a great
natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let me smell
one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour and
soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that
appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family,
on my father's side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known
in La Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a
thing that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out
of a cask, to try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality,
goodness or badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of
his tongue, the other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first
said the wine had a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger
flavour of cordovan. The owner said the cask was clean, and that
nothing had been added to the wine from which it could have got a
flavour of either iron or leather. Nevertheless, these two great
wine-tasters held to what they had said. Time went by, the wine was
sold, and when they came to clean out the cask, they found in it a
small key hanging to a thong of cordovan; see now if one who comes
of the same stock has not a right to give his opinion in such like
cases."
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Notice that Sancho draws a slightly different conclusion than Hume.
Sancho thinks that good taste is inherited, whereas Hume insists that
it is largely a matter of practice. Is
it?
Paragraph #26.
"But in reality"
Notice the shift here. The difficulties are exaggerated and more
apparent than real! Despite his reputation as a skeptic, Hume frequently
appeals to reality.
EPICURUS, and DESCARTES
Two philosophers. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.) was a philosopher who taught
that human happiness lies in the avoidance of pain. Rene Descartes
(1596-1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician whose rationalist
views were frequently challenged by Hume.
TERENCE is Publius Terentius Afer,
writer of Roman comedies and dramas (c. 190-158 B.C.E.). Of African
descent and brought to Rome as a slave, he was freed in Rome and was a
successful playwright beginning with his first play.
For more information, click
here. VIRGIL is Publius Vergillius
Maro (70 to 19 B.C.E.), Roman poet and author of the epic poem The
Aeneid.
CICERO is Marcus Tullius Cicero: considered the greatest Roman
orator. Also known as a statesman and philosopher (106 B.C. to 43 B.C.)
For a sample of his work, click
here.
Paragraph #29
OVID (43 B.C.E.-18 A.D.) and HORACE (65-8 B.C.E.) were Roman poets.
TACITUS (55-117 B.C.E.) was a Roman historian.
Paragraph #30:
raillery is ridicule or mockery.
Paragraph #31
"the ANDRIA of TERENCE, or CLITIA of MACHIAVEL"
In Terence's Andria, the female character of Glycerium never
speaks.
MACHIAVEL is Niccolo (di Bernardo) Machiavelli (1469-1527),
Italian author and statesman. He is best known for The Prince
(written 1505), a work on securing and holding political power.
In Machiavelli's drama La Clizia (1525), the character of Clizia never
even appears! The prologue of this play informs the audience that comedies
have two purposes: to amuse and to benefit the audience. In this case,
the benefit seems to its suggestions that private life is in need of
moral reform. Machiavelli therefore seems to endorse Hume's own
position of moralism in criticism.
Paragraph #32
the poet's "more durable than brass"
The poet is Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus,
65 - 8
B.C.E.): Odes 3.30.1
"And now 'tis done: more durable than brass
My monument shall be, and raise its head
O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread
Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
Nor the long lapse of immemorial time."
(translation George Bell and Sons, 1882.)
Fardingale
(now "farthingale")
Skirts shaped into a large cone from one to 2 yards wide,
held out with bone ribbing. Originally a Spanish fashion, it
was the height of fancy Elizabethan garb in 16th century
England.
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Paragraph #34
"They are therefore eternal blemishes"
| For examples of the sort of "bigotry and
superstition" that counts as a blemish, see Paragraph #35.
Hume is advocating a position that is now know as moderate
moralism. (For a lot more on this topic, click
here)
It is distinguished from three other positions
about the relevance of moral advocacy in works of art. Those
three are:
Radical autonomism is the position that morality and
aesthetics are completely independent. The moral position
advanced by a work of art should not be a factor when evaluating
that work: morality is independent of aesthetics, and moral
judgments should not be directed at works of art. Oscar Wilde is
famous for endorsing radical autonomism: "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
(Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Moderate autonomism is the position that works of art
can be evaluated from a moral standpoint. Nonetheless, this
evaluation must remain distinct from any evaluation of the
work's aesthetic or artistic value. A work's moral value can
neither add to nor subtract from the work's aesthetic or
artistic value.
Radical moralism is the position that morality and
aesthetics are completely independent, but holds that there is
not really any such thing as an aesthetic evaluation. Works of
art can only be evaluated by evaluating the ideology that they
promote. A belief in aesthetic evaluation is itself treated as a
dangerous ideology.
In contrast to these three positions, moderate moralism
is the view that aesthetic and moral evaluations of an artwork
can and should influence one another. Moral goodness can be a
reason that a work is aesthetically good, and problematic
morality can be a reason that a work is aesthetically
"blemished." But not every moral defect is an
aesthetic flaw, as Hume makes clear early in Paragraph # 34,
when he proposes that "the absurdities of the pagan system of theology must be overlooked by every
critic" in reaching a "just" evaluation of
ancient "pagan" authors (e.g., Virgil, Ovid, and
Horace). Hume argues that the speculative errors of the pagan
system (factual errors about the gods and their role in human
life) can be set aside. But religious views are relevant to
aesthetic judgment whenever they introduce a level of bigotry
that is inconsistent with "the natural boundaries of vice and
virtue." (For more on Hume's account of this natural
boundary, click
here.)
Although Hume does not give any examples of a moral virtue
that improves a work of art, we can presume that they must be
moral virtues as defined within his "natural boundaries of vice and
virtue."
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Paragraph #35
"mahometans":
Muslims
POLIEUCTE and ATHALIA
The former is a tragedy by Corneille (1642), the latter is a tragedy by Racine (1691). Hume's
description of one scene is drawn from Racine's Athalia. "ACHILLES tell
AGAMEMNON . . . or JUPITER threaten JUNO"
As related in Homer, Iliad, 1.225 and 1.56-67 A
disagreement between Achilles and Agamemnon sets off the events
leading to Achilles' death in Homer's Iliad. Jupiter is the
Roman name for Zeus, king of the gods in Greek mythology, and Juno is
the Roman name of his queen, Hera.
Paragraph #36
PETRARCH is Francesco Petrarca (1304-74), Italian Renaissance
poet. BOCCACE is Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75). Hume cites the Decameron,
a collection of sexually charged stories, introduction to "The Fourth Day."
After relating a story about a young man's initiation into sex,
Boccaccio says this:
"armed as I hope to be, with God's aid and yours, gentlest
ladies, and with fair patience, I will fare on with this that I have
begun."
(John Payne translation)
Chaucer
must have known the Decameron, since several of his tales
parallel stories from Boccaccio. The Decameron is also notable
for beginning
with a lengthy description of the Black Plague.
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