David Hume on Taste and Tragedy

For this meeting we will be discussing two of Hume's essays concerned with art: Of the Standard of Taste and Of Tragedy. (Both can be found in Cahn). The first essay aspires to the establishment of objective grounds for judgements of taste but then seems to retreat in the face of various qualifications. The second essay delves into the curious fact that humans are drawn to productions that both distress us and yet do so in an agreeable way. Hume is one of the best writers, if not the best, of philosophical prose in English and should not be missed.