ABSTRACT
The concept of the aesthetic is central to the Falmer Press Library on Aesthetic Education, nor is this centrality innocent. It is intended to encourage thinking about the arts in terms of aesthetic categories beauty, judgment, and taste, imagination in contrast to thinking about the arts in terms of the categories of history, sociology or psychology. This is made clear in the entries for 'Aesthetic Field', 'Aesthetic Intelligence' and 'Arts in Education'. The philosophical discipline of aesthetics has existed in recognizable form since the eighteenth century, but this is not in itself a guarantee that there exists a subject matter which corresponds to the subject. There is certainly a long tradition of treating certain kinds of natural objects as exemplary for understanding aesthetic properties and aesthetic experience. Scenery, natural forms of flowers, shells and animals, cloud formations have all been used in this way. Life is more complex than the categories 'aesthetic' and 'art' allow.
