Alexander Gerard was professor of moral philosophy and divinity at the University of Aberdeen and a leading member of the Aberdeen Philosophical Club along with James Beattie and, most importantly, Thomas Reid. He is known primarily for his Essay on Taste (1759/1963), which was awarded a prize by the Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufacture, and Agriculture. Gerard returned to the subject with An Essay on Genius (1774/1966). In addition to the primary influence of Reid, the work of David Hume is a principal influence, though, like Reid, Gerard disagrees fundamentally with what he takes to be Hume's skepticism.

Although Gerard writes in the tradition of eighteenth-century theories of taste, it is questionable whether he should be regarded as a taste theorist in a strict sense. Gerard is responding to the theories of criticism of Francis Hutcheson and Hume who set the context...