Aesthetics †the issue of the possible existence Essay

burke follows in the empirical tradition of Locke. He believes that each human knowledge comes out of impressions or sense experiences. We then take these simple bits of knowledge and combine them to resile much intricate ideas. Our desire is limited to use of the knowledge we educe from our impressions and ar, therefore, incap able of creating anything completely new. He says that our imagination either portrays pleasing images once again in the order we experienced them or reorders and combines these images of our experiences. bump off offers that humans cop pleasure from resemblances. Accurate imitations stimulate our minds. Burkes goal and briny concern is the issue of the possible existence of a standard or logic of taste.Burke is searching for certain principles that affect our imaginations in such a common and certain way that they could be a tooshie for the means of reasoning satisfactorily nearly them1. Burke states that these principles do exist. He says that ev en though it seems as though there is such a variety of taste, there is a standard that lies beneath the superficial wind of differences. All humans perceive external objects in the same way. We snuff it familiar with these external items by way of our natural powers the senses, imagination and judgment.The virtu tout ensembley natural understandings that we receive are quite standard, what appears free to one is light to any other and what is sweet to one is again sweet to a nonher. Burke shows that humans have a common agreement on these issues of alternative by giving examples of expressions taken from taste experiences such as A sour temper, bitter expressions sweet disposition, a sweet person1. Burke realizes that there are many people who act in shipway that would seem contradictory to these assertions, such as the likeence of the taste of tobacco plant over that of bread.These divergences from the natural pleasures and pains are a result of custom. They do not uphold the argument for diversity of taste, but quite cover for a differentiation between Natural and Acquired taste. A man grows to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar by conditioning his palate from habit. It is a synthetic preference, however, and the man still understands that tobacco is not sweet and sugar is sweet. Also if a man finds sugar to be sour we do not say that his taste is different, instead we say that his taste is not functioning correctly. Burke writes that when talking about acquired taste one must(prenominal) consider the surrounding factors such as the specific habits and prejudices of a extra person. These customs and intolerances do not oppose the agreement of mankind, but instead mask it.This conformity among humanity does not exist only in terms of the palate it is quite the same in matters of sight. Light is more agreeable than darkness and summer and its conditions are more pleasant than pass and its conditions. Burke states that no man truly, na turally believes a goose to be more beautiful than a swan. To Burke sight is less candid to custom than the palate, however, change is applied. This applied change brings him to his next point about the palate. He says that these changes in palate, which make unpleasant flavors more pleasurable, are a result of frequent use combined with an agreeable effect.This affects humans in the way of substances such as opium, tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee. Burke writes in that location is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it 1. Natural pleasures are still preferred to unaccustomed substances that induce agreeable effects. Someone who has fully grown to prefer opium to sugar would still prefer the taste of sugar to a drug that they do not have a habit with. There is a standard of pleasure of the senses in all humans. Bur ke explains imagination as our greatest source of pleasure and of pain.Since imagination is based on the senses then it too must have universal agreement among all men. The mind is much more disposed to picking up on resemblances than to finding differences in what we observe. Our imaginations are incapable of creating anything absolutely new so we must expand our stock through experience, and in resemblances we are able to find new images. We unite and accumulate and move forward with our feelings with likenesses rather then difference which cannot be placed.