Reading: David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste” (CT, 308–315). Be sure to look at my outline of the essay.

       Question: What point does Hume intend to make by means of Sancho Panza’s story (pp. 310–311)?

       Further questions for thought and discussion:
       1. What might Hume mean by the “rules of composition” or “rules of art” of which he speaks (pp. 309b, 310a)? What might be an example of such a rule? Can you derive any such rules from, e.g., Hume’s discussion of Ariosto (p. 309b)?
       2. What reason does Hume offer for holding that “amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation and blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind” (p. 310b)? How can Hume reconcile the supposed existence of such principles with the “great variety of taste” that he spoke of at the opening of the essay (p. 308a)?
       3. Why should the “joint verdict” of those possessing the virtues that Hume enumerates count as “the true standard of taste and beauty” (p. 313b)? Why should the possession of a delicate taste improved by practice and so forth make one person’s judgment more authoritative than that of someone who lacks the virtues in question?
       4. One of the virtues that Hume requires of a true judge or critic in matters of taste is freedom from prejudice (p. 312). Yet he holds that there are certain cases in which a text expresses or presupposes sentiments into which “I cannot, nor is it proper I should, enter” (p. 315a). What are these cases, and how is this sort of refusal of sympathy different from the “prejudice” that Hume censures earlier in the essay?