ABSTRACT
The selection of clothes has been chosen as a first example of “aesthetic” choice in an everyday context precisely because it appears to offer so marginal a role for judgements once the dictates of custom have been satisfied, what may loosely be called aesthetic considerations are nevertheless operative. Descriptions of popular culture correctly give prominence to what is probably the most widespread of all “aesthetic” experiences, namely those which arise in connection with narrative. The beautiful denotes a much wider territory than that which aestheticians, rightly or wrongly but as a matter of record, have cultivated. In connection with art, the concept of beauty is both too inclusive and not inclusive enough. The contention is that the aesthetic pleasure afforded by art can in principle be analysed, and that the route to doing so is through a consideration of certain underlying biological, psychological and social processes.
