ABSTRACT
David Hume’s thesis is embedded within a complex metaphysical framework, but insofar as his comments on aesthetics can be isolated. His preoccupations were the validity of aesthetic preferences and the criteria by which works of art are to be judged, but although he is resolutely subjectivist he does not explore in any detail the nature of aesthetic pleasure. An aesthetic judgement predicates universal validity without specifying any determinate property of the object. Some theorists have attempted to explore the nature of the aesthetic response by starting, like Hume and I. Kant, from a concept that it is the pleasure which art affords which provides its raison d’etre. There would be little point in reviewing all these, even if that were feasible, and majority opinion, insofar as there is such a thing, appears to be against the hedonist line for the reasons.
