Aesthetics is the aspect of axiology that deals with the intrinsic value found in people's immediate sense experiences or their responses to sense experiences: judging them ugly, beautiful, or sublime. Aesthetics, which focuses on the uniquely particular, contrasts with science, which focuses on the general laws those particulars illustrate. Aesthetic theories can be about experiences of natural objects and events, but are usually concerned with art works and artistic creations. Aesthetic judgments are usually said to be disinterested, an enjoyment of the unique content of an immediate experience for its own sake. Marxists, postmodernists, and feminist theorists disagree, however, claiming that all such judgments are expressions of an interest.

See also AXIOLOGY; BEAUTY; VALUE; VALUE, SCIENTIFIC

GEORGE ALLAN