The Seventh Sense
Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-century British Aesthetics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4160186 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ronald W Hepburn (University of Edinburgh, corresponding author), Ronald Hepburn |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 445-447 |
| Publication date | 2005-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayi056 |
| OpenAlex | W2063272367 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-century British Aesthetics, 2nd edn: Revised and Enlarged. By PETERKIVY. Clarendon Press. 2003. pp. xiv + 402. £47 (hbk); £18 (pbk). THIS very substantial volume consists of a reprint of Peter Kivy's study of Francis Hutcheson's aesthetics and the idea of a ‘sense of beauty’ in other eighteenth-century British authors, first published in 1976. To this Kivy has now added seven further essays on Enlightenment aesthetics, making a supplement of 115 pages. The original publication dates of these essays range from 1976 to 1995. The first edition was, deservedly, well received, with appreciative reviews in this journal and in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Peter Kivy gives his reader by no means only a historical narrative, but a carefully considered, thorough, and constantly probing analysis. John Locke was Hutcheson's ‘guiding spirit’ (p. 25): empiricism and English Platonism (via Shaftesbury) worked together in his writing. Kivy's Chapter I outlines the situation ‘Just Before Hutcheson’. Chapter II examines the concept of ‘sense’ in Hutcheson: Chapters III and IV the ‘sense of “beauty”’ and of “beautiful”: ‘in the following Papers’, Hutcheson wrote, ‘the word Beauty is taken for the Idea rais'd in us, and a Sense of Beauty for our Power of receiving this Idea’. And the cause of this idea being raised in us? Hutcheson's answer is the complex of objective qualities, ‘Uniformity (or Unity) amidst Variety’ (p. 59). Strictly, nothing counts as ‘beautiful’ but the ‘idea’ of beauty itself. The ‘simple idea of beauty’ seems to be located—perplexingly—somewhere between Locke's primary and secondary qualities. Under another description, the idea is ‘a pleasure of some special kind’ (p. 67
Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Criticism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Nothing · Power (physics · Historical Art and Culture Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |