Named source · 1757

Of the Standard of Taste Quotes by David Hume: Context & Meanings

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Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

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“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

David Hume

Meaning & context

Hume begins from the variability of aesthetic response, locating experienced beauty in the relation between an object and the perceiving mind.

Source details

“Of the Standard of Taste,” first published in 1757 and represented by Fordham’s Modern History Sourcebook transcription. Hume subsequently qualifies this apparent subjectivism by discussing practiced judgment and durable critical standards, so the sentence is not the whole essay’s conclusion.

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