British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 47, No. 4, October 2007 © British Society of Aesthetics; all rights reserved.

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doi:10.1093/aesthj/aym025

THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN

HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY: A
RESPONSE TO JAMES SHELLEY
Peter Kivy

James Shelley argues that the perception of beauty, as Hutcheson characterizes it,
in the first of the two treatises that comprise the Inquiry into the Original of our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, that is, the Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony,
Design, is not what I called in The Seventh Sense, ‘non-epistemic’ perception but,
rather, ‘epistemic’ perception through and through. Having studied Shelley’s
arguments with care, and consulted the relevant primary sources yet again, I am
still convinced that the best reading of Hutcheson’s second Inquiry, in the first
edition of 1725, has Hutcheson espousing a non-epistemic account of our per-
ception of what he calls ‘absolute beauty’. And so I argue in the present paper.

i. introduction
in his penetrating and well-thought-out article in this Journal, ‘Aesthetics and
the World at Large’, James Shelley argues, with some persuasiveness, that the
perception of beauty, as Hutcheson characterizes it in the first of the two trea-
tises that comprise the Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue,
the Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design, is not what I called, in
The Seventh Sense, ‘non-epistemic’ perception but, rather, ‘epistemic’ percep-
tion through and through. I say that he argued his point with some persuasive-
ness because, as might be guessed, I am not persuaded. Having studied Shelley’s
arguments with care, and consulted the relevant sources yet again, I am still
convinced that the best reading of the Inquiry, in the first edition of 1725, has
Hutcheson espousing a non-epistemic account of our perception of what he
calls ‘absolute beauty’, and, strange as it may seem, a non-epistemic account of
what he calls ‘relative beauty’ as well, which is to say, the beauty of represen-
tation (although I will not argue for the latter claim here).


James Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 47 (2007),
pp. 169–183.

© British Society of Aesthetics 2007 416

 PETER KIVY 417

Two preliminary points are in order before I get down to the real business
of answering Shelley’s arguments.
First, the claim I am defending is that what Hutcheson calls absolute beauty
in the first Inquiry is perceived, according to him, what I call non-epistemically.
What Hutcheson calls relative beauty, which is to say, beauty of ‘imitation’ (in
his terminology), or ‘representation’ (in ours) is not at issue. It may or may not
be perceived non-epistemically. I will have nothing to say about that right
now, although the reader may wish to consult Chapter XV of The Seventh
Sense to see where my thinking about relative beauty was tending when I
wrote it. All I do wish to to say about the matter is that the reason I am pri-
marily concerned with Hutcheson’s account of absolute beauty is that this was
the aspect of his aesthetics that was most influential in the eighteenth century,
and fuelled most of the dispute that followed in its wake.
Second, my claim in The Seventh Sense was, and continues to be, only about
the first edition of the Inquiry Concerning Beauty, of 1725. I became convinced
very early on in my study of Hutcheson that the rationalist criticism of his po-
sition may well have been altering his views, even in later editions of the first
Inquiry, as well as in his other subsequent works, pushing him, perhaps, to-
wards a more epistemic account of absolute beauty. My impression is that the
general trend in eighteenth-century British aesthetics was from Hutcheson’s
basically non-epistemic account of 1725 to a gradually more epistemic ac-
count, in Hume, and later in Thomas Reid. And this tendency may well be
seen in Hutcheson’s own later work, even though he was the fons et origo of
the non-epistemic view. Be that as it may, it is Hutcheson’s original view, as
expressed in the first Inquiry of 1725, that is the one I characterized, and con-
tinue to characterize as non-epistemic. The later history of his views on this
matter has yet to be written, and perhaps Shelley is the one to write it.
With these preliminary remarks out of the way, I want now, in the next sec-
tion of my paper, to present as clearly as I can what I mean by Hutcheson’s
non-epistemic account of the perception of the beautiful. I will do that by pre-
senting some ‘perceptual scenarios’ which, I hope, will make it clear not only
what I am saying about Hutcheson’s account by calling it non-epistemic, but
why, therefore, Shelley’s arguments to the contrary are wide of the mark.


Peter Kivy, The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-century British Aesthetics, 2nd
edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), ch. XV, ‘The “Sense” of Beauty and the Sense of
“Art”’.

For the progress from Hutcheson to Hume, see ch. XVI of The Seventh Sense, ‘Hume’s
Neighbor’s Wife’.
418 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

ii. perceptual scenarios

Scenario 1
A person completely ignorant of aesthetics, and, a fortiori certainly ignorant of
the fact that uniformity amidst variety is the property in objects that causes the
idea of beauty to arise in the perceiver, or even that such a property exists, is
shown, through a peephole, a pattern of dots and lines that possesses uniformity
amidst variety. The causal interaction of the uniformity amidst variety in the pat-
tern with her inner sense of beauty produces the idea of beauty in her, in her
complete ignorance of what the object is that possesses the pattern, in com-
plete ignorance of the fact that the pattern possesses uniformity amidst variety,
and completely unaware of the relationships and proportions between the dots
and lines. She looks, and instantly the idea of beauty is produced. This is a case
of non-epistemic perception of the beautiful. The beauty is perceived by her
non-epistemically.

Scenario 2
A person is shown a wall of the Alhambra, in Granada, with all the intricacy
of its decorative pattern. He perceives the complicated relations of the parts to
the whole quite consciously. Everything else is with him as with the person in
Scenario 1. The causal interaction of the uniformity amidst variety in the pattern,
as he perceives it, with his inner sense of beauty, produces the idea of beauty
in him, in his full knowledge of what the object is that he is looking at, and
knowledge of how the parts of the pattern relate to one another, but in com-
plete ignorance of the fact that the pattern possesses uniformity amidst variety, or
that that property has anything to do with the perception of beauty. (He has
never even heard of it.) This is a case of non-epistemic perception of the
beautiful. The beauty is perceived by him non-epistemically.

Scenario 3
A person is shown a wall of the Alhambra, in Granada, with all the intricacy of
its decorative pattern. She perceives quite consciously the relation of the parts of
the pattern to the whole, and in so doing comes to perceive that the pattern pos-
sesses uniformity amidst variety. She knows full well that the causal interaction of
that property with her inner sense of beauty is what produces the idea of beauty
in people. The causal interaction of the uniformity amidst variety with her inner
sense of beauty produces the idea of beauty in her. This is a case of non-epistemic
perception of the beautiful. The beauty is perceived by her non-epistemically.
 PETER KIVY 419

Scenario 4
A person is shown a wall of the Alhambra, in Granada, with all the intricacy
of its decorative pattern. He perceives the complicated relation of the parts to
the whole quite consciously. And the seeing that the pattern possesses uniformity
amidst variety, coming to know that, excites the idea of beauty in him through
the causal interaction of that coming to know with his inner sense of beauty.
The beauty is perceived by him epistemically. It is the coming to know that the
parts of the pattern possess uniformity amidst variety, it is that realization, that
knowledge-event that raises the idea of beauty in him. This is a case of epistemic
perception of the beautiful. The beauty is perceived by him epistemically.
It is, I believe, Shelley’s failure to distinguish between Scenario 4 and
Scenarios 2 and 3 that leads him to argue against me that Hutcheson is main-
taining an epistemic theory of the perception of absolute beauty. No one in
his right senses would deny that, in Hutcheson’s scheme, knowing things,
and, in particular, knowing the relations of parts to whole, is essential for the
perception of beauty. But to know these things is not to know (necessarily)
that the object possesses uniformity amidst variety. Nor, even when one does
know that the object possesses uniformity amidst variety, is it that knowledge
that causes the idea of beauty to arise.
I take uniformity amidst variety to be an emergent property that supervenes on
the various relations of parts to wholes that one must, indeed, perceive and
know. It must be remembered that the ‘object’ of the sense of beauty is, for
Hutcheson, a complex Lockean idea that is ‘constructed’ by the external
senses, by the mental activities of compounding, abstracting, and so forth—
and, yes, by the understanding. And in that ‘construction’ process, certainly,
epistemic perception is deeply involved. It is that constructed object that may
or may not, in the relations of its parts, possess uniformity amidst variety; and it
is that property that causally, non-epistemically interacts with the internal
sense of beauty, whether one knows it is there or not, producing the idea of
beauty in the perceiver.
But one need not perceive that or know that the object possesses uniformity
amidst variety to have the idea of beauty raised; and, to repeat, even when one
does know that the object possesses uniformity amidst variety it is not the knowl-
edge that raises the idea: it is the causal interaction of the emergent property
of uniformity amidst variety with the internal sense of beauty, just as it is not the
knowledge of how a martini makes you high that makes you high.
It is the above sense of ‘non-epistemic perception’ that I had in mind when
I claimed in my past writings on Hutcheson, that, for him, the perception of
absolute beauty is non-epistemic. And it is that sense of ‘non-epistemic percep-
tion’ that I will always have in mind here in my attempt to answer Shelley’s
arguments. Of course it might be claimed that by epistemic perception of the
420 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

beautiful is meant just that kind of perception embodied in Scenarios 2 and 3.

But if that is the claim, then the disagreement would be merely one about no-
tation, since the kind of perception of the beautiful embodied in Scenarios 2
and 3 I freely admit are allowed for by Hutcheson.
Shelley, however, does not seem to be making this claim, as it is specifically
knowledge of uniformity amidst variety that he insists on in his epistemic inter-
pretation of Hutcheson. So our disagreement is one of substance, not termi-
nology. And to that disagreement I now turn my attention, although I cannot
possibly answer all of Shelley’s arguments here and now.

Some of shelley’s arguments

(1) Shelley begins his criticism of my non-epistemic take on Hutcheson’s ac-
count of absolute beauty by alluding to two crucial passages in the first Inquiry
that I adduced as evidence for my interpretation, and then making the claim
that they are passages which I read as a ‘blanket rejection of knowledge as pos-
sibly contributing to our pleasure in beauty’. That, on Hutcheson’s view,
knowledge cannot contribute to our pleasure in beauty appears an outrageous
thing to say, and, into the bargain, clearly inconsistent with what I have been
saying above. And I certainly acknowledge that that is what I appear to be say-
ing. But it is certainly not what I intended to say, although what I did intend
to say was, I see now, very badly expressed. It was not, however, as badly ex-
pressed as it appears to be in Shelley’s presentation. For he does not present
my complete sentence, nor the sentence following, which together express
(although not as well as I would have liked) my complete thought, decidedly
not the thought that knowledge, on Hutcheson’s view, does not contribute to
pleasure in the beautiful.
Here, then, is the complete thought as expressed in the place alluded to:

I find it very difficult to square this blanket rejection of knowledge as possibly

contributing to our pleasure in beauty with an epistemic account of the role of
uniformity amidst variety in our experience and appreciation of the beautiful. If
knowledge sans phrase, cannot increase our aesthetic pleasure, then how could my
coming to perceive that the opening movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
possesses uniformity amidst variety possibly play a role in my appreciation of it?

That is what I wrote; and here is what I meant. Hutcheson denied that
knowledge could ever increase or contribute to our pleasure in the beautiful


Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, p. 172. Actually, Shelley misquotes me (in a
very minor way). The quotation should read ‘the beautiful’, not ‘beauty’.

Kivy, The Seventh Sense, pp. 277–278.
 PETER KIVY 421

as a proximate, efficient cause, operating on the sense of beauty. So, a fortiori,

Hutcheson denied that knowledge of uniformity amidst variety could ever in-
crease or contribute to our pleasure in the beautiful as a proximate, efficient
cause, operating on the sense of beauty.
Of course I said it badly. But what I appeared to be saying, and what I cer-
tainly never intended to say, was that Hutcheson was denying any role at all
for knowledge in the perception of the beautiful. Coming to know lots of
stuff, as well as the operation of the external senses, are the way the internal
objects, the complex Lockean ideas, which are the objects of the sense of
beauty, and which may or may not possess uniformity amidst variety, are con-
structed (as in Scenario 3). It is in this way that knowledge does indeed play
a major role in increasing our pleasure in the beautiful: not as proximate,
efficient cause of the idea of beauty—only uniformity amidst variety is that—but
as, in many, perhaps most instances, a necessary condition.
(2) Shelley is worried that my interpretation of Hutcheson as maintaining
the perception of absolute beauty to be non-epistemic will have nasty conse-
quences for the interpretation of Hutcheson’s moral theory. Here is how he
puts the point. If my non-epistemic characterization of the sense of beauty is
to be credited,

Then Hutcheson is arguing that the subjective origin of the idea of beauty
is justly called a sense ‘because of its affinity to the other Senses’ in being non-
epistemic. But then Hutcheson is also committing himself to the view that the
subjective origin of the idea of virtue is justly called a sense because it too is non-
epistemic. But surely Hutcheson does not think the moral sense non-epistemic.
Surely he does not think that we no more need to know or believe that an
action results from a basic intention to promote the happiness of others to have
the idea of virtue aroused by it than we need to know or believe that an object
has microstructure xyz to have the sensation of redness aroused by it.

To begin with, let me make perfectly clear here, as I think I did in The
Seventh Sense, that, of course, Hutcheson’s internal or reflexive senses are not,
point for point, identical with the sense of colour or taste or any other sense
that produces the sensations of the Lockean secondary qualities. Hutcheson is
perfectly clear that he is drawing an analogy, not an identity. And of course one
disanalogy is that you do not have to know anything about the object of per-
ception to have the sensation of redness or bitterness stimulated in you,
whereas you do have to know lots of things about the object of perception
when any very complex object is involved, to have the idea of absolute beauty
stimulated.


Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, pp. 173–174.
422 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

Furthermore, Shelley apparently attributes to me the view, or claims it to be

an implication of my interpretation of Hutcheson, that Hutcheson would
have to argue as follows: the subjective origin of the idea of beauty is justly
called a sense ‘“because of its affinity to the other Senses” in being non-
epistemic’ and that, therefore, he is also committing himself to the view that
the subjective origin of the idea of virtue is justly called a sense because it too
is non-epistemic. But I never attributed any such thing to Hutcheson, nor is
it my view that Hutcheson is committed to the moral sense being non-epistemic
because he is committed to the sense of beauty’s being non-epistemic. The
only argument I ever attributed to Hutcheson in this regard (so far as I can
recall)—and it is one, so far as I know, he never made entirely explicit—is that
there must be a ‘sense’ of beauty because the idea of beauty is a simple idea,
and, therefore, must have a sense appropriate to it. Whether the sense is epis-
temic or non-epistemic is another matter.
So now let’s get down to cases. Given that, on my view, the perception of
beauty is non-epistemic in the sense defined above, what are we to say about
the moral sense? I have, in the past, scrupulously avoided saying anything for
the simple reason that I am not an ethicist and believe in leaving to others
what they are qualified to do, and I am not. But what I can do is suggest
(though not decide between) two possible positions on Hutcheson’s moral
sense that someone might take who, like me, is committed to the view that
Hutcheson thinks the perception of beauty is non-epistemic.
One might, quite plausibly, take the position that Hutcheson construed the
perception of beauty by the seventh sense as non-epistemic and the percep-
tion of virtue by the moral sense as epistemic. I say it is a quite plausible way
to go because, for one thing, the ‘subjective experience’ of perceiving beauty
‘in’ objects seems much more like the ‘subjective experience’ of perceiving
things like colors (say) ‘in’ objects than perceiving that some act of some agent
is virtuous. The beauty is perceived ‘in’ the object, as a perceptual property of
it, whereas it seems odd to say that the virtue of the act is perceived ‘in’ the
act or the agent as a perceptual property of it or him. So, prima facie, at least,
the perception of beauty seems a better candidate for non-epistemic percep-
tion than does the perception of virtue.
On the other hand, those appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, one
might claim that both the perception of absolute beauty and the perception of
moral qualities are, for Hutcheson, non-epistemic, as in Scenario 3. And noth-
ing that Shelley has adduced about the beliefs necessary for the perception of
virtue or any other moral quality is inconsistent with that claim. As in the case
of the perception of absolute beauty, the ‘object’ that the moral sense reacts to
is a complex object, ‘constructed’ by the external senses and by the understand-
ing. That is where all the epistemic baggage is stored. The moral sense, how-
ever, reacts to this complex epistemic object non-epistemically. And, of course,
 PETER KIVY 423

it is this non-epistemic reaction of the moral sense that transforms this matter
of fact into moral value by adding to it the felt sentiment that the moral sense
gives rise to.
As I say, moral philosophy is not my department; so I will refrain from giv-
ing an indication here as to which alternative I incline towards. But I will add
that both alternatives are consistent with the general design of the Inquiry into
the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, of which the Inquiry Concerning
Beauty is the first. For making a treatise on beauty an introduction, as it were,
to a treatise on virtue was not, according to the non-epistemic account of ab-
solute beauty, to prepare the reader for a non-epistemic account of virtue.
Rather, it was to prepare him or her for a ‘subjective’ account of virtue, which
is to say, the view that our moral judgements are founded on a moral ‘senti-
ment’ (as Hume was later to call it) and not on reason. And the judgement of
the beautiful was chosen, by Hutcheson, on my view, as an introduction to
this harder sell because it was already a common notion that ‘Beauty is in the
eye of the beholder’. That ‘Virtue is in the eye of the beholder’ was the next,
and more difficult step, perhaps made easier after the familiar ‘aesthetic’ step
had been taken. It then became a step, and not a leap.
(3) The beauty of scientific and mathematical theorems is of great concern
to Shelley, as it was to Hutcheson; and he remarks, which is quite true, that
I had ‘little to say’, in The Seventh Sense, ‘on the beauty of theorems, though
Hutcheson devotes an entire section (one of eight constituting the treatise on
beauty) to that topic, placing it in the front of the section devoted to the
beauty of artworks’. I make no excuses for that. I had little to say about
the beauty of theorems because it had little to add to the general argument
I was running, either in the first or second editions of the book. But because
Shelley makes so much of it, I must now try to show that nothing Hutcheson
(or Shelley) says about the beauty of theorems is inconsistent with my non-
epistemic interpretation.
I must begin by pointing out the importance of just where in the first
Inquiry Hutcheson places the section on the beauty of theorems: which is to
say, between Section II, ‘Of Original or Absolute Beauty’, and Section IV, ‘Of
Relative or Comparative Beauty’, that is, the beauty of representation, in
which Hutcheson gives us his major discussion of the fine arts. Thus the dis-
cussion of theorem-beauty occurs before the concept of relative beauty is intro-
duced, and is, clearly, being discussed as a species of absolute beauty. In other
words, Hutcheson is not interested, here, in the relative beauty of scientific
theories and theorems, as representations of nature, but merely as beautiful


Ibid., p. 175.

For my remarks on the beauty of theorems, see The Seventh Sense, pp. 99–101.
424 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

structures which exhibit absolute beauty. And, of course, as ‘objects’ of abso-

lute beauty, they possess uniformity amidst variety.
Here is how Hutcheson begins his discussion:

The Beauty of Theorems, or universal Truths demonstrated, deserves a distinct

Consideration, being of a Nature pretty different from the former kinds of
Beauty; and yet there is none in which we shall see such an amazing Variety with
Uniformity; and hence arises a very great Pleasure distinct from Prospects of any
farther Advantage.

Now I take it that by ‘Variety with Uniformity’ Hutcheson means nothing

other than our old friend uniformity amidst variety. And when he says ‘there is
none in which we shall see such an amazing Variety with Uniformity’ the ‘none’
refers to the ‘former kinds of Beauty’ from which the beauty of theorems and
universal truths differs so radically. So what Hutcheson means to convey is
that there is even more uniformity amidst variety in theorems and universal
truths than there is in ‘the former kinds of beauty’, differ though they may in
many other respects. In none of the former kinds of beauty do we find ‘such
an amazing [quantity of] Variety and Uniformity [which is to say uniformity
amidst variety]’ as in theorems and universal truths.
But who, then, are the ‘we’ referred to who see such an amazing quantity
of uniformity amidst variety in theorems and universal truths. They are, I think,
the royal ‘we’, which is to say, Hutcheson the philosopher, who sees, from the
outside, as it were, that the theorems and universal truths that so pleasure
those capable of understanding them all possess uniformity amidst variety; ‘and
[from] hence’, from, that is, the unity amidst variety, Hutcheson the philoso-
pher tells us, ‘a very great Pleasure distinct from Prospects of any farther ad-
vantage’, in other words, the idea of beauty arises in the perceiver from the
interaction of the uniformity amidst variety with the sense of beauty.
Does the pleasure of beauty that perceiving theorems and universal truths
arouses in us derive from the non-epistemic interaction of uniformity amidst va-
riety with the sense of beauty or from our epistemically seeing that, coming to
know that the theorems and universal truths possess uniformity amidst variety?
In the opening paragraph of Section III, as I understand it, Hutcheson is not
saying that the aesthetic appreciator of theorems and universal truths perceives
that the objects of her appreciation possess uniformity amidst variety, and that her
idea of beauty derives epistemically from that perceiving. He is saying, rather,
that the outside observer, the philosophical analyst, perceives that the objects


Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 4th edn
(London, 1738), p. 30 (section III, subsection I).
 PETER KIVY 425

of her appreciation possess uniformity amidst variety, and that the idea of beauty
aroused in her is caused non-epistemically by the uniformity amidst variety.
And throughout the entire discussion of the beauty of theorems and univer-
sal truths there is nothing to the effect that uniformity amidst variety is perceived
epistemically in our appreciation of their beauty. It is no accident that during
this entire discussion the property of uniformity amidst variety is not mentioned
once. And the reason is that what Hutcheson is talking about is how the ob-
viously epistemic perception of the way theorems and universal truths are re-
lated to the particulars they gather in ‘constructs’ the intentional objects that
do possess uniformity amidst variety. Hutcheson, to be sure, does not say that
uniformity amidst variety is perceived non-epistemically. As I have said, the
property is not mentioned at all in the discussion, until, that is, the very last
sentence of the Section, in a context irrelevant to the question of theorems
and universal truths. Why should he say it? He has already established in
Sections I and II, on my reading, that uniformity amidst variety operates non-
epistemically in our perception of absolute beauty. And since it is absolute
beauty that he is attributing to theorems and universal truths, what he has es-
tablished concerning it in these previous Sections need not be repeated. It is
implicitly understood.

(4) Shelley writes:

If you do not know that a theorem unifies various particulars under a single prin-
ciple, you do now know that it is a theorem, let alone that it is beautiful as a the-
orem. If you do not know that an imitation imitates an original, you do not
know that it is an imitation, let alone that it is beautiful as an imitation.

This of course is true. But, to begin with, beautiful imitations are examples
of relative beauty, not absolute beauty. And since my claim, in The Seventh
Sense, was that the perception of absolute beauty is non-epistimec, on
Hutcheson’s view, if the perception of relative beauty were to turn out to be
epistemic, that would be irrelevant to my claim.
As for what Shelley says about the perception of beauty in theorems and
universal truths, that is absolute beauty, it has already been dealt with in (3)
above. But let me just add that in Chapter XV of The Seventh Sense, added to
the second edition, what I have to say about relative beauty may very well im-
ply that it too, on Hutcheson’s view, is perceived non-epistemically, strange as


Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, p. 174.
426 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

it may seem. I will not, however, be able to pursue that intriguing possibility
here, but hope to do so at a future time.
(5) For reasons that I cannot clearly make out, Shelley thinks there is an is-
sue between us about what the ‘object’ of the sense of beauty is. And he takes
for his text Hutcheson’s Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747), which
Hutcheson apparently translated himself from his original Latin of the second
edition if 1745, Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria. (The work first ap-
peared, in Latin, in 1742.)
Now I have made it perfectly clear that my non-epistemic interpretation of
Hutcheson’s sense of beauty was an interpretation of what Hutcheson’s posi-
tion was in the 1725 edition—the first edition—of the Inquiry Concerning
Beauty. And I made it perfectly clear as well that I believed Hutcheson’s views
may have evolved, in later years, towards the epistemic (perhaps in response
to the rationalist critique). So a work of Hutcheson’s published in 1742 is
hardly going to count as evidence against my interpretation (although it might
well be pointed out that Hutcheson published the fourth edition of the Inquiry
into Beauty and Virtue in 1748 with no substantial changes in the first Inquiry).
All of that being said, I see nothing in the Short Introduction that is in any way
inconsistent with my non-epistemic interpretation. But a quick look at it is
necessary, as I am not sure Shelley has done it justice.
There is a tangle of terminology to straighten out in our reading of the Short
Introduction, vis-à-vis the first Inquiry; but once it is straightened out I think it
will be seen that the failure to untangle it by me heretofore has no significance
at all for my interpretation of Hutcheson’s sense of beauty. I will begin with
Hutcheson’s definition of an ‘internal sense’. Hutcheson writes:

Internal senses are those powers or determinations of the mind, by which it per-
ceives or is conscious of all that is within itself, its actions, passions, judgments,
wills, desires, joys, sorrows, purposes of action. This power celebrated writers
call consciousness or reflection, which has as its object the qualities, actions or states
of mind itself, as the external senses have things external.

Of course the most celebrated of the ‘celebrated writers’ alluded to is Locke,

who writes of ‘the Perception of the Operations of our own Minds within us’, that
it ‘might properly be call’d internal Sense’.
Whereas in the first Inquiry Hutcheson termed the sense of beauty an ‘inter-
nal sense’, in the Short Intruduction he apparently wants to reserve that descrip-
tion for Locke’s ‘sense’ of reflection or introspection. This change of


Francis Hutcheson, A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Glasgow, 1747), p. 6.

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 105 (book II, ch. I, section 3).
 PETER KIVY 427

terminology matters not a jot nor a tittle to the question of whether the per-
ception of beauty is non-epistemic, or, as far as I can see, to any other ques-
tion of substance in my interpretation of Hutcheson.
We now come to a matter of more philosophical importance. Shelley writes
that I think ‘a sense is called reflexive or subsequent only insofar as it takes an
internal object. But’, he continues, ‘Hutcheson makes it clear that a reflex or
subsequent sense can take objects of external sense.’ And he backs up this
claim with a quotation that is just made to order by Hutcheson for misunder-
standing. Perceptions of the external senses, he says, ‘may be called direct and
antecedent, because they presuppose no previous ideas. But there’s another class
of perceptions employed about the objects of even the external senses, which
for distinction we call reflex or subsequent, because they naturally ensue upon
other ideas previously received…’.
Now when Hutcheson says that the reflex or subsequent senses can be ‘em-
ployed about the objects of the external senses’, he can easily be misunder-
stood to mean that the reflex or subsequent senses can sometimes have as their
objects the objects and qualities of the external, physical world, as do the five
external senses. I am not sure Shelley has misunderstood Hutcheson this way
or not. But Hutcheson could not possibly mean that. For if the reflex or sub-
sequent senses could take the things of the physical world as their objects, they
would not be reflex or subsequent senses at all; rather, they would themselves
be external senses.
What Hutcheson meant to say, and very badly expressed, is that the reflex or
subsequent senses not only take as their objects the ideas derived by the
Lockean inner sense of reflection; they, as well, take as their objects the ideas
delivered by the external senses. Their perceptions ‘we call reflex or subsequent
because they naturally ensue upon other ideas previously received’. Their ob-
jects, then, are always conscious states, never the objects and qualities of the
external, physical world. And that was what I meant, in The Seventh Sense,
when I said that, as Shelley puts it, ‘a sense is reflex or subsequent only insofar
as it takes an internal object’. Thus there is no inconsistency, so far, between
what I said about Hutcheson in The Seventh Sense, and what Hutcheson said
in the Short Introduction. And the claim that there is an inconsistency seems the
result of combining an equivocation on the term ‘internal’, used differently by
me, in The Seventh Sense, Hutcheson in the first Inquiry, from the way it came
to be used by Hutcheson in the Short Introduction, with a misunderstanding of
the phrase ‘objects of… the external senses’, which Hutcheson used, in the
Short Introduction, in a way that, to be sure, invited just the misunderstanding
Shelley may have put on it.


Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, p. 177.

Hutcheson, Short Introduction, p. 6.
428 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

Finally, again in his quest for an epistemic sense of beauty in Hutcheson,

Shelley quotes the following passage from the Short Introduction:

We next consider these senses we called reflex or subsequent, by which certain

new forms or perceptions are received, in consequence of others previously ob-
served by our external or internal senses; and some of them upon observing the
fortunes of others, or the events discovered by our reason, or the testimony of
others.

This passage, according to Shelley, clearly states ‘that a reflex or subsequent

sense may depend for its objects on the antecedent operation of reason’. This
is quite true. But let it be observed that Hutcheson is saying this of only some
of the ‘new forms or perceptions’; and the sense he clearly has in mind here is
the moral sense, which reacts to ‘events’ or ‘the fortunes of others’, these being
the things ‘discovered by our reason’. He is not making this claim about the
sense of beauty. Even if he were, however, talking about the sense of beauty,
that would hardly matter, since, as I have repeated over and again, the ‘ob-
jects’ of the sense of beauty are ‘constructed’, in part, by reason; and this is en-
tirely consistent with the non-epistemic operation of that sense, which has, as
its object, the emergent property of unity amidst variety, which property caus-
ally interacts with the seventh sense, non-epistemically, to produce the idea of
beauty. Thus there is no way whatever, so far as I can see, in which what
Hutcheson has to say in the Short Introduction conflicts with what he says in the
first Inquiry, or what I say he says. So I will say no more about it.
(6) Still pressing his epistemic spin on the perception of absolute beauty,
Shelley writes that

Just what you must know depends on which internal sense is in question. If it is
the moral sense you must know whether an action issues from a basic intention
to promote the happiness of others. If it is the sense of beauty, you must know
whether an object possesses uniformity amidst variety.

But there is something wrong here. I take it that the strength of ‘must’ both
in regard to the sense of beauty as well as the moral sense is to convey the no-
tion of a necessary condition. It is a necessary condition for the perception of
virtue, Shelley is saying, that you know the action you are observing issues
from an intention to promote the happiness of others; and it is a necessary


Ibid., pp. 12–13.

Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, p. 178.

Ibid., p. 176 (my italics).
 PETER KIVY 429

condition for the perception of the beautiful that you know the object you are
observing possesses uniformity amidst variety.
This cannot be right, on my interpretation of Hutcheson. For on my inter-
pretation, knowing the object before us possesses uniformity amidst variety is not
a necessary condition for perceiving its beauty. And I base this contention on
a crucial passage, the interpretation of which Shelley and I strongly disagree
about (as we shall see in a moment). Here is what Hutcheson says:

the pleasant Sensation [of beauty] arises only from Objects, in which there is
Uniformity amidst Variety: We may have the Sensation of it without knowing
what is the Occasion of it; as a Man’s Taste may suggest Ideas of Sweets, Acids,
Bitters, tho’ he be ignorant of the Forms of the small Bodys, or their Motions,
which excite these Perceptions in him.

As for the moral sense, I will, as I said before, leave the judgment to others
more qualified than I to make it. However, before I sign off on this argument,
I must point out that Shelley has a ready answer to it, which becomes appar-
ent at the very end of his discussion of me. And I want to conclude my dis-
cussion of him with my answer to it.
As I have said, Shelley and I disagree radically as to the interpretation of the
crucial passage just quoted above. Here is the way Shelley understands it. To
begin with, ‘Hutcheson’s point, according to this proposal, is that the idea of
beauty is not a conclusion following from antecedent knowledge but a sensa-
tion that strikes us at first’. And

That is why Hutcheson is at pains, as I interpret this passage, to insist that you do
not need to know his principle to have the idea of beauty: you can have the sen-
sation of beauty without knowing that uniformity amidst variety is the occasion
of it, just as you can have the sensation of sweetness without knowing that xyz
is the occasion of it. But to insist that you can have the sensation of beauty with-
out knowing that uniformity amidst variety is the occasion is not to insist that
you can have the sensation of beauty without knowing that the object has uni-
formity amidst variety.

If Shelley’s interpretation of the passage is the correct one, then it is not in-
consistent, as I have been arguing it is, with the insistence that as we must
know an action issues from a basic intention to promote the happiness of oth-
ers to have the idea of virtue stimulated in us, we must, likewise, pari passu,


Hutcheson, Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue, p. 29 (section II, subsection XIV).

Shelley, ‘Aesthetics and the World at Large’, p. 178.

Ibid., p. 181.
430 THE PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY IN HUTCHESON’S FIRST INQUIRY

know that an object possesses uniformity amidst variety to have the idea of beauty
stimulated in us. Now I guess Shelley’s interpretation of the passage in ques-
tion is a possible one. But I think it is a very unlikely one. And here is why.
Hutcheson certainly means to counter, in this passage, the rationalist notion
that we come to have the idea of beauty in contemplating an object, by a ra-
tional argument from first principles. About that Shelley is right on the money.
But when Hutcheson says ‘We may have the Sensation [of beauty] without
knowing the Occasion of it’, he cannot be merely saying that we do not have
to know uniformity amidst variety is the cause of the idea of beauty, and not that
it operates non-epistemically. To interpret him that way is simply to ignore the
force of the analogy Hutcheson is drawing between the perception of beauty
and the perception of ‘Sweets, Acids, Bitters’, which is to say, the secondary
qualities. Why in the world would Hutcheson choose to draw an analogy be-
tween the perception of beauty and a paradigm case of non-epistemic percep-
tion, the perception of the secondary qualities, if he did not mean to analogize
our ignorance of what occasions the idea of beauty with our ignorance of what
occasions the ideas of the secondary qualities? The point of the analogy is that
knowing the cause of the sensation, in either case, is irrelevant. Even if one
knows the cause of his sensations of ‘Acids, Sweets, Bitters’, the knowledge is
not the cause of his having the sensations. It is ‘the Forms of the small Bodys,
or their Motions, which excite these Perceptions in him’ by causally interact-
ing with his palate, as does uniformity amidst variety with the sense of beauty.
That, it appears to me, is the only way to make full sense of Hutcheson’s anal-
ogy. And what it clearly points to is a non-epistemic sense of beauty.

iii. conclusion
There is a very strong motivation—a quite commendable one, I think—im-
plicitly behind Shelley’s attempt to show that my interpretation of Hutcheson’s
account as non-epistemic must be mistaken. It is simply the principle of inter-
pretational ‘charity’ which states that, ceteris paribus, you should interpret the
philosophical text before you in such a way as to make it express the truth; in
such a way as to be plausible, by contemporary lights. But, alas, in the present
case, ceteris are not paribus. Hutcheson said what I have said that he said; and
what he said was wrong. Non-epistemically is not how we perceive beauty, or
any other ‘aesthetic’ quality.
I am certainly not here to convince you that what Hutcheson said was right.
What I am here to try to convince you of is that what Hutcheson said was ab-
solutely, stunningly brilliant!
In 1725 Hutcheson was in the process of inventing our discipline in its mod-
ern form. And he did it in the best way possible: by making it a part of what
was, at that time and that place, cutting-edge philosophy; which is to say, the
 PETER KIVY 431

empiricist’s scientific world view, as expressed by John Locke in the Essay

Concerning Human Understanding. It was Locke’s account of perception, with
its scientifically sanctioned corpuscularism, and the distinction therein, be-
tween primary and secondary qualities, that Hutcheson quite ingeniously ap-
propriated as the firm philosophical foundation on which to build a
philosophical aesthetics. It was a brilliant insight. It was the right way to go. It
put aesthetics boldly on the philosophical map. It was wrong—which is the
least important thing about it.

Peter Kivy, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ,

USA. Email: Peterkivy@aol.com