Learning to live in an emotionalized world. A look at Hume

Abstract

Today we live in an emotionalised world in which ethical, political, cultural, and aesthetic debates are shown as feelings or affections (and are legitimised because we have the right to feel what we feel) and it is difficult to find room for reasoned reflection. In this paper, I argue that Hume’s reflection on aesthetics can be of help in this regard. Although Hume begins his well-known essay “On the Criterion of Taste” with the assumption that the variety of taste is great, in reality it is only apparently so. In this essay, Hume allows us to construct a space for discussion (albeit not entirely rational) on sentimental questions. This space is distinguished by conversation and the sociability it implies: the beautiful, like any emotion, is educated in the conversation we establish between those who converse with us. There is nothing prior to it, but it is enough to live with others.