Abstract

The essay suggests that there is such a thing as a characteristically ‘aesthetic attitude’, and that this idea can indeed shed light on the production and reception of works of art, as well as on the appreciation of nature. It argues, further, that the response to individual ‘particularity’ implicit in the aesthetic attitude renders this attitude continuous with that of ethical attention to – and appreciation of – individual persons: we are concerned here with distinct, but related, aspects of the valuable ‘in itself’ or ‘for its own sake’.