Hume

One of the things we talked about in class on Friday was David Hume's theory of art and its relation to Dewey's theory of art. Dewey said that art was prefigured in our nature as animals. We do things that we know will give us pleasure and art is one of these things. This ties somewhat indirectly into Hume's theory of art. Hume blieved that art is simply a matter of taste but this taste, usually, lined up with one anothers' taste so that there is a universal and somewhat correct view or judgment on a piece of art. This idea that art and what it is supposed to be and how we are to create and view it lines up with these two philosophers. Hume believed that if a person did not agree on the universal verdict on a piece of art, there was something psychologically wrong with them. This idea that art and the "right" view of it is already in our nature was shared by both men. The idea that humans, as advanced and intellectual animals, view art in a similar way. I feel this view and idea of humans as intellectual and superior animals is incredibly common and somewhat false. While obviously humans are as a society more technologically advanced, I do not think this means we are more above other animals in a artistic or necessarily intellectual sense. Animals instinctively know how to do everything we had to learn. Many animals, from birth, know how to feed themselves and find and fend for themselves. We depend so much on technology that I do not think we would know the first thing about surviving in the wild. Animals also seem to respect and appreciate nature and everything that surrounds them because they depend on it so much. Who is to say that isn't art? They find pleasure in little and simple things and look at the world not as enemy as humans do. This, to me, is artistic. What have humans done with art in a viewing sense that makes us so much more superior to animals, over analyzed it?