I
“Taste” is relevant to the history of ideas as the power
of liking or disliking something, and of ruling one's
judgment or conduct according to this power. Still, in
this broader meaning, “taste” is used very widely but
rather atypically; it is of major importance only as
applied to aesthetics, where it becomes, during the
seventeenth century, one of the central and most con-
troversial notions. As such, it is the subject of many
discussions and of extremely wide implications—the
basic dimensions of which follow below.
The main feature of aesthetic taste is that it is con-
ceived as an instinctive feeling, independent of reason-
ing; but, for many authors, reflection may at least
partially modify its responses. An inferior kind of taste
is considered to cherish some aspects of beauty which
do not, or do not necessarily, correspond to absolute
aesthetic value as established by the rules of art; a
superior kind of taste, increasing its importance with
the crisis of “classical” aesthetics, is itself the standard
of aesthetic value and the foundation of the rules. As
such, taste is first considered as the power of evaluating
beauty insofar as it is inherent in objects; afterwards,
it is rather seen as the power of evaluating the response
of the mind to objects, with beauty no longer being
a characteristic of things in themselves, but consisting
in a relationship between the mind and its objects.
The increased importance of taste as a standard of
beauty raises the problem of its being universal or
merely relative, a problem particularly felt by “neo-
classical” aesthetics, once more in quest of established
values; but as tastes are manifestly different in man-
kind, a universality of taste may be asserted only with
respect to “good” taste, in contrast to a “bad” taste
which is relative. But who is endowed with “good”
taste? A minority of people, of course; for some au-
thors, only a few connoisseurs living in nonbarbaric
ages. The basic condition for belonging to this minority
may be that of having a good education and polished
manners; here it is assumed, as most authors do, that
taste may be educated by exercise or by study. On the
other hand, the factual disparity of tastes in different
nations and eras raises the problem of elaborating a
typology, and of justifying historically and psychologi-
cally this diversity, which, though generally considered
as not consistent with perfect “good” taste, is not
always referred to as altogether “bad” or “perverted”
taste, but as an intermediate condition.
Another question is that of the foundation of taste.
Is taste a simple, unique faculty or an assemblage of
different faculties? How is it connected with other
faculties, especially with reason and with other feel-
ings? Its relationship to reason does not only concern
the possibility of arguing about taste, but, more basi-
cally, the problem as to whether taste should be con-
sidered as a power related to that of immediate assent
to basic truths, i.e., to right reason (common sense,
natural light of reason). If so, in taste, is the judgment
about beauty founded on the pleasurable feeling raised
by beauty, or vice versa? An identification of “taste”
and “judgment” (of beauty) is frequent, but neither
universal nor univocal. A further basic problem is that
of the relationship of taste to the judgment of truth,
and to the judgment (or feeling) of utility, of bodily
pleasure, and of goodness. In the course of the eigh-
teenth century taste grows more and more independent
of other factors: at that time aesthetics is being recog-
nized as a particular science, and it tries to assert its
individuality by claiming to rest on an original princi-
ple, not subordinated to those of other branches of
knowledge.
