Abstract

The 18th century is the age of aesthetics. This is evidenced not only by the birth of the discipline, but also by the extraordinary production in the field of aesthetic studies, particularly in Germany, England, France, and Italy. David Hume’s Of the standard of taste (1757), a veritable manifesto of aesthetic subjectivism, is also set within this framework. More than two and a half centuries later, how can it be read? In this paper, I will attempt to support a thesis: to identify traces of Hume’s theory of taste in some 20th century authors, in particular Adorno, Jauss, and Dickie.