Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

English Language and Literatures

First Advisor

Anthony Jarrells

Second Advisor

Brian Glavey

Abstract

Originally published in 1757 as part of his Four Dissertations essay collection, David Hume’s essay, “Of the Standard of Taste,” occupies a prominent place in Enlightenment aesthetic studies. Due to an oversaturation of print materials being produced, eighteenth century society was concerned with evaluating and ranking the massive quantities of art being produced. Philosophers such as David Hume attempted to define criteria for determining a standard of taste, aiming to hierarchically rank works of art based on aesthetic experience. For centuries, critics such as Timothy Costelloe, Noel Carroll, David Marshall, Jonathan Friday, James Shelley, and many others have engaged in conversation discussing Hume’s essay, claiming that his argument is full of challenges. However, the twenty-first-century aesthetic environment is one that calls for the same type of evaluation of works of art as eighteenth-century society. Due to the oversaturation of artworks produced through the digital medium, aestheticist and critics seek to determine a way to hierarchically rank works of art, similarly to eighteenth-century philosophers. Despite the attempt to do so, twenty-first-century critics have not been able to persuasively define and defend a standard of taste. Through examining Michael Clune’s book A Defense of Judgment with the support of other critics such as Alessandra Stradella, James Shelley, and Jarrold Levinson, I will examine twenty-first century attempts at defining and defending a standard of taste. Through this examination, I consider what it means to discuss a twenty-first-century standard of taste, and whether we should. Although contemporary society has created an environment that is incapable of setting a true standard of taste, attempting to discuss a standard of taste in the twenty-first century is necessary as a means of sociocultural critique. To consider a contemporary standard of taste is to consider the social and cultural hinderances of such a standard. Revealing social differences, inequalities, and injustices through various aesthetic experiences, aesthetic judgment as a practice must continue as it becomes a sociocultural reformative tool.

Rights

© 2025, Lydia Margaret Lee

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