An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

uneasiness of the melancholy passions is not only overpowered and effaced by

something stronger of an opposite kind, but the whole impulse of those

passions is converted into pleasure, and swells the delight which the

eloquence raises in us.^13

In effect, Hume denies (1). Though wearemoved by the fate of Anna Kar-

enina, it is not that fact by itself that induces us to read about her career. It is

only when the sadness we feel at misfortunes is“converted”by eloquence or

artfulness into a kind of pleasure that we enjoy sad stories and have a good

reason to read them.^14 We are not pleased by the fate of Anna Karenina itself,

but by the artfulness with which it is presented.

This answer has some truth in it. Some of our engagement withHamletis

due to the glories of its language; some of our delight in Cézanne’sBathersis

due to its pleasing arrangement of colors. But it cannot be the whole story. In

assimilating pleasure in art entirely to the delights of artfulness of arrange-

ment, Hume is failing to capture the character of our engagement as

members of an audience in working through the subject matter of the art.

For Hume, it is as though our pleasure in art and in being moved by art were

like the pleasure of a warm bath, supposing that that languid pleasure is also

enlivened by bracing perfumes or occasional infusions of cold water. For

Hume, the surface of our experience matters more–at least for pleasure–

than what we explore in the work.

This stance fits well with Hume’s suspiciousness toward claims that we have

much to learn from tragedies and other works of art. Hume regards such claims

as of a piece with the baseless pretensions of religious narratives to afford

genuine insight into the workings of nature and humanity. He remarks, for

example, that errors concerning religion (what god or gods exist, what we owe

them, etc.) are“the most excusable in any compositions of genius”precisely

because in general“good sense is not hearkened to in religious matters.”^15 That

(^13) Ibid.
(^14) For a detailed reconstruction of Hume’s doctrine of the“conversion”of aversion into
pleasure, see Alex Neill,“‘An Unaccountable Pleasure’: Hume on Tragedy and the
Passions,”Hume Studies24, 2 (November 1998), pp. 335–54. Neill argues, aptly I think,
that Hume is not committed to either the view that pleasure simply overpowers aversion
or that aversion is itself directly and wholly transformed into pleasure. Rather the
“emotions or movements [mental energies?] produced by the negative passions...are
appropriated and converted”(p. 347) so that delight in artistry is swelled.
(^15) Hume,“Of the Standard of Taste,”p. 267.
206 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art