Human purity and innate truth

Hume would seem to agree with Plato that birth is the only time at which we as humans are really pure and fully know truth. Hume states that “the general principles of taste are uniform in human nature,” or, in other words, the objective general tastes are accessible only at birth. Does it stand then that as we grow up, have experiences, and are influenced by others we become more subjective and lose our ability to truly judge art?  In Hume’s idea, would it ever be possible to truly be free from influence and experience and preserve that innate state of pure untainted judgement? And, if so, how have these enlightened individuals attained this state? Are the people in this state of enlightenment because they hold the ability to free themselves from feeling and empirically or objectively judge something?

In my opinion, it is near impossible for anyone to be free from influence and experience, and thus (in Hume’s opinion) real truth would be unattainable. The idea of “general principles of taste [being] uniform” seems a great concept, but to me it would seem that that’s all it is, just a concept. Yes, it stands true that many people find a fully blossomed rose beautiful; but it is also true that just as many people find beauty in a dead rose—many people even hang roses up to dry out and die, and then display them in their homes as beautiful decoration.  This is where the problem of antinomy seems to lie—how can something be beautiful dead, then just as beautiful alive? How can a single person find beauty in death just as much as they find it in the height of liveliness?

To return to my initial question, does beauty in life win as the true form of beauty or does the beauty in death?  How are we to know which beauty we see, and feel as beautiful is truly the most beautiful state, which "general principle of taste" is the correct taste to deem as correct?  When it comes to art, how are we to know if a picture of  death and decay is just as 'good' as a picture of life being lived if both are true aspects of different people's lives? Both show various realities, yet how do we decipher which we should prefer according to these "general principles of taste" when no two people in the world have the exact same realities to base their tastes upon? As I said, this idea of an agreed upon set of "general principles of taste" is a great concept but is it truly really by any means?

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