Gerard, Alexander (1728–95)

(Gerard’s prize essay for The Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Sciences, Manufactures and Agriculture. The Essay on Taste shifts internal sense toward a theory of imagination and association. Includes a useful introduction by W.J. Hipple, Jr.)

(Less widely read because it fails to break new ground. Continues Gerard’s emphasis on imagination and association as the leading concepts of an aesthetic psychology.)

(A defence of Hume against the forms of association advocated by Alison and Gerard.)

(Traces the concept of internal sense through eighteenth-century aesthetics.)

(Brief biographical sketch and commentary.)

(Locates Gerard as the mediator between the internal sense theory of Hutcheson and the associationism of A. Alison.)

(Traces the development of the empiricist tradition, including Gerard. Argues that activity of the mind is more important than association or sense to Gerard.)