Continuing the Series: Four Key Concepts in Aesthetic Philosophy
This post is part three in our four-part series exploring foundational ideas in philosophical aesthetics: beauty, the sublime, taste, and aesthetic experience. In earlier posts, we examined beauty’s enduring importance and the overwhelming power of the sublime. Now we turn to the curious and complicated concept of aesthetic taste—how we judge what is beautiful or not, and why those judgments matter.
From Objectivity to Subjectivity
Ancient and medieval philosophers grounded beauty outside of the human mind. Plato located beauty in the eternal realm of Ideas, Aristotle in the physical world through experience, and Augustine in the mind of God. For these thinkers, aesthetic appreciation required effort, discipline, or divine alignment. Whether through knowledge, virtue, or spiritual attunement, beauty was something one had to approach properly in order to experience it fully.
Even when they acknowledged pleasure, these philosophers largely treated beauty as objective. Something gives pleasure because it is beautiful, as opposed to something is beautiful because it provides pleasure. As a result, they had little reason to discuss taste, which only becomes important when beauty is understood as something felt or judged by an individual. Only later—particularly in the 18th century—did philosophers shift focus toward the subjective dimension of aesthetic experience.
The 18th Century: The Century of Taste
George Dickie famously called the 18th century “the century of taste”—also the title of one of his books. In this period, theories of taste emerged suddenly and with energy, only to fade almost as quickly. While we can’t revisit every idea from the time, several major perspectives still shape how we think about taste today.
Taste as an Innate Sense
Some thinkers, especially in Britain, saw taste as an innate capacity, something akin to our five senses. Francis Hutcheson championed this view. While he believed taste was natural, he also argued it was clearly distinct from physical senses. It wasn’t simply heightened vision or hearing. You could have perfect eyesight and still fail to enjoy a painting. For Hutcheson, this aesthetic sense allowed people to perceive beauty in art, music, or literature on a different plane entirely.
Moses Mendelssohn held a related but different view. Rather than an internal sense, he believed that taste was grounded in reason. A rationalist by training, Mendelssohn saw reason as the source of knowledge and used it to guide his aesthetics. In On Sentiments, he describes preparing himself intellectually and emotionally in order to experience beauty more fully. Despite their differences, both Hutcheson and Mendelssohn agreed: taste isn’t fixed. It must be refined through practice, exposure, and development over time.
Associating Ideas: Taste and Memory
Alexander Gerard and Archibald Alison proposed theories based on associationism, which is the idea that we perceive and evaluate new experiences by connecting them with previous ones. Gerard referred to this as “relishing.” We don’t merely perceive something; we compare it, associating it with broader principles like novelty, sublimity, imitation, harmony, oddity, and virtue.
Alison extended this into what he called “trains of taste,” similar to trains of thought. According to him, perceiving an object might elicit a basic emotion, like cheerfulness. This emotion would then spark a chain of associated feelings, shaping our overall response. While the terminology is outdated, the concept still resonates: we tend to like what’s familiar. An object too foreign might alienate us; something overly familiar may fail to engage us. Taste, in this view, is deeply tied to memory and emotional resonance.
Hume’s Ideal Judge
David Hume offered one of the most influential theories of aesthetic taste. He famously proposed the notion of the “ideal judge.” Why imagine such a person? Because, as Hume observed, many things can distort our aesthetic judgment.
A headache, hunger, or fatigue could lead us to view a performance unfavorably. A noisy child nearby could break our concentration. On the flip side, we might inflate a positive judgment. For instance, if we find a singer attractive, we might believe their voice sounds better than it actually does.
Moreover, while it’s tempting to say that “everyone is entitled to their opinion,” we still instinctively weigh some opinions more heavily than others. If I’ve never seen a painting before and make a judgment, it would hardly compare to the opinion of a seasoned critic who has studied thousands. Hume addresses this with his concept of the ideal judge, someone whose taste provides a standard we can aspire toward.
According to Hume, this ideal judge possesses “a strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice.” In short, good taste involves sensitivity, refinement, and experience—not mere opinion.
After Hume: Decline and Shifts
Following Hume, philosophers became less interested in developing new theories of taste. Most relegated the idea to the history books. But taste never entirely disappeared.
In the 20th century, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu reignited the discussion by linking taste to social class. Through experiments involving music preferences, he showed that people from the same class often preferred the same songs. In his view, taste was not universal or innate but shaped by cultural capital—one’s education, upbringing, and social environment.
In the 21st century, the aesthetics of food led to renewed interest in taste—this time in both literal and metaphorical senses. Wine tasting offers a useful analogy: some people can identify distinct notes and flavors with remarkable precision. This ability mirrors aesthetic taste more generally—the capacity to make fine distinctions and articulate them. It’s a skill that can be developed, and some people are more attuned to it than others.
Taste and Identity
More recently, Joerg Fingerhut and colleagues conducted research exploring the relationship between aesthetic taste and personal identity. (Fingerhut 2021) Participants were asked to evaluate how much certain changes would alter someone’s identity. Predictably, switching from atheist to religious, or conservative to progressive, ranked as significant transformations. More surprisingly, changes in taste—like switching from classical to pop music—were also seen as identity-altering.
Participants believed that such shifts could make someone no longer “the same person.” This research, though still emerging, resonates with everyday experience. Disagreements over music, movies, art, or even interior design often feel personal. People can become defensive when their taste is criticized—not because it’s irrational, but because it feels tied to who they are.
Why Taste Still Matters
Although academic philosophy has mostly moved on from theorizing about aesthetic taste, the concept still shapes our lives. We judge the taste of others, cultivate our own, and use these judgments to express identity, form communities, and make decisions—from the clothes we wear to the art we appreciate.
Taste, in the end, is more than preference. It’s about perception, discernment, and values. And as long as people continue to argue over movies, debate music, or decorate their homes with intention, aesthetic taste will remain a meaningful—if quietly contested—part of our shared human experience.
Look for the next post on aesthetic experience.
