Archibald Alison was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford. He was ordained in the Church of England and held positions in both England and Scotland. He married a daughter of John Gregory (1724–1773), who was a professor of philosophy and medicine at Aberdeen and an associate of Thomas Reid in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society. Alison preached at the Cowgate Chapel in Edinburgh from 1800 until his death. He published a volume of sermons, but is known primarily for his "Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste," published in 1790 and reissued in 1810.

Alison's theory of taste breaks with earlier eighteenth-century theories in several respects while retaining other characteristic features. Like his predecessors, Alison regards beauty and sublimity as essentially emotional, hedonic experiences. Beauty is a form of pleasure, and as such it is found not in objects but in the...