The big idea: You think you just 'know' what you find beautiful. But how much of your taste is really yours — and how much was handed to you by your culture and your education?
A different place and time: Someone raised in a different place and time might find your favourites strange, and love things you'd walk past.
This micro pulls the topic together with one 'to what extent' question: are aesthetic judgements culturally conditioned? The honest answer is rarely 'all' or 'nothing' — it argues for a degree.
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The clearest evidence that taste is trainable is what happens when you learn.
Taste can be taught: The first time you hear a complex piece of jazz or see abstract art, it can feel like noise or a mess. Learn a little — what to listen for, what the artist is doing — and the same work can open up and become gripping.
What this shows
- Your pleasure didn't come from nowhere; education reshaped your taste
- This fits Hume's better judges (2.3.2): experience and training genuinely improve what you can appreciate
The worry it raises
- If taste can be taught, then a lot of it is conditioned into you, not simply discovered
Checkpoint — education: In one line: learning genuinely improves taste — which is strong evidence that taste is shaped by culture and training, not simply inborn. Hold that — a thinker from India names exactly what the trained spectator becomes.
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A classical Indian thinker turned 'the trained viewer' into a rich idea of who can truly receive art.
Abhinavagupta: the sahṛdaya: Abhinavagupta argued that art works fully only for a prepared viewer. He called this ideal spectator the sahṛdaya — literally 'one with heart'.
The sahṛdaya
- Has experience, sensitivity and a trained imagination
- Can be carried into the emotional flavour of a work
The unprepared viewer
- Stays on the outside
Cultivated, not automatic: So the deepest aesthetic experience isn't automatic — it belongs to a cultivated spectator, someone shaped by learning and refinement.
Go further — higher-level insight: See how the sahṛdaya links three micros. All three make the SPECTATOR central — and all three suggest taste is shaped by training. Weaving a non-Western thinker (Abhinavagupta) with the Western pair is exactly the range examiners reward at the top band.
| Thinker | Claim |
|---|---|
| Gombrich | The viewer completes the work |
| Hume | Some viewers judge better |
| Abhinavagupta | The fullest experience needs a cultivated spectator |
Checkpoint — sahṛdaya: In one line: the sahṛdaya is the cultivated, sensitive spectator who can truly receive art — so the deepest taste is grown, not simply given.
How Section B works: Aesthetics is an OPTIONAL theme, so it's assessed in Paper 1 SECTION B: an ESSAY on a set question, no stimulus [25]. The command is usually 'Evaluate' or 'Discuss'.
Same method as Section A: Same 5-step method as Section A — just built from the question itself instead of a stimulus.
Evaluate the claim that our aesthetic judgements are entirely determined by the culture we grow up in.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: 1. Describing views instead of arguing them. 2. Answering a different question — 'entirely' is the word being tested, so attack that. 3. Only one view — top bands need tension. 4. No conclusion — decide, with a reason. 5. Name-dropping — a name earns nothing without its argument.