ABSTRACT
There are some pleasurable or displeasurable responses to the world which
focus on its sensible, or imaginatively-intended character.1 Such responses
presuppose one to have had direct perceptual acquaintance with the sensible
item in question, or an imaginative engagement with it (rather than an
exclusively linguistic and descriptive one). If we did not have a name for this
kind of response, we would have to invent one. But the fact is that we do have
a name-the aesthetic. It is based on our interactions with singular sensible or imaginatively-intended items.
