I found David Hume’s fascination to find the scientific understanding of man to be quite interesting in his Of the Standard of Taste. His idea that everything man knows comes from one of two things, experience or observation, strikes up much thought within me. While I never considered this to be an option of how we know and learn the things we do, I can relate to what he is saying and understand where he is coming from. He actually reminds me of John Locke in the respect that Locke also felt that what we know comes from experience. Locke takes it a step farther though and explains that whatever it is that one experiences is experienced through senses. This is our most immediate way to interact with the world around us. Whatever it is that one senses, it is the most immediate and direct aspect of that object. Lock then argues that after the sensation, inner thoughts occur as one steps back to think about it and learn from that experience.

Hume on the other hand takes his ideas in a different direction and begins discussing taste and whether there is something as objective taste. He writes, “Men of the most confined knowledge are able to remark a difference of taste in the narrow circle of their acquaintance, even where the persons have been educated under the same government…” In this quote I understand Hume to be saying that at first glance it seems there is a great variety of taste. He then goes on to make an interesting point that we all seem to use the same words, like beautiful for example, but when asked why whatever is being discussed is beautiful, people do not agree on what beautiful means. This can be seen in his quote, “As this variety of taste is obvious to the most careless enquirer; so will it be found on examination, to be still greater in reality than in appearance. The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same.”

Hume continues on to say how there is a science world and an art world. The science world is of fact and “judgment,” as he puts it, and the art world is of emotions, personal opinion and “sentiment.” While science can sometimes be wrong, sentiment is always right because it is only how one feels. I can agree with Hume on this level. How can someone be wrong about how they feel? Feelings are personal and something that moves someone in one direction may not move others that same way. For this reason, sentiment is never a matter of truth, but a matter of personal feeling. Hume wrote “ a thousand different sentiments, excited by the same object, are all right.” I agree whole heartedly with that statement.

Hume then touches base on how the human race is somewhat contradictory of themselves when looking as something artistic. Once again, I can relate to Hume on this idea because on one hand we want to believe that taste and beauty are private and personal but on the other hand people want to agree on what is beautiful together. How is that possible? It is simply not. If we say that something is one’s own opinion, then there is no need to make sure that others agree with you, because they are entitled to their own opinion as well. What is objective about art though, is the fact that people can be moved by it. Take a painting for example, maybe the picture portrayed is not even real, but yet there is something about the picture that moves those who look at it. The audience is not all moved in the same direction, some may find it beautiful while others repulsive, but the fact that all are moved is objective. There is something in that piece that can move the audience is such a way that it is not arguable, their is something objective and universal to all good art.