Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue

Daniel Floyd (University of Aberdeen)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

The

INQUIRY into the Original of our Ideas of BEAUTY and VIRTUE

¹ was Hutcheson’s best-known work for his contemporaries and later philosophers and went through four editions in his lifetime. Although many authors had commented on taste, Hutcheson was the first writer in English to provide a systematic theory, and in its two interrelated parts—on aesthetics and ethics —he tried to establish universal truths based on what he held to be innate responses of approbation, abhorrence, or (presumably) indifference, to specific actions and objects.

Treatise I, Concerning BEAUTY, ORDER, HARMONY, DESIGN, begins with an attempt to prove the existence of an internal sense of beauty that produces pleasure upon the perception of objects. Mental senses, Hutcheson insisted, correspond to the

2076 words

Citation: Floyd, Daniel. "An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 May 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16819, accessed 22 November 2024.]

16819 An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.