Abstract

Deals with the question of the genesis of the concept of the aesthetic: where does it originate? In partial response to this question, Sibley attempts to show just how widespread the aesthetic interests of ordinary people are, especially if juxtaposed to the fairly restricted, minority interest in the highly developed arts, and emphasises the natural basis of our primitive aesthetic responses. Sibley concludes that, while the project of determining the logical priority of either the artistic or the aesthetic may be confused, investigations in aesthetics should focus at least as much on the nature and origins of primitive aesthetic satisfactions as on the more recherché questions about arts.