The issue

Aesthetic actvities are present in all known societies, and it seems obvious that they play an important role as an essential ingredient in people's lives. On the one hand, aesthetic considerations seem to be present in almost all spheres and all parts of life. It is as universally human as they are uniquely human. On the other hand, almost no aesthetic considerations seem to be purely or exclusively aesthetic – they carry a very varied repertoire of other considerations and messages too. For example, to a large extent, group identities are enacted by aesthetic means, such as flags, outfits and so on. Rather often such means are even utilised to inflate essentially petty differences between groups – Sigmund Freud once denoted this the narcissism of small differences. But they are also used as individual means to make a mark, to establish personal distinction, to be famous.

By aesthetic activity I here mean the fine arts and fiction, as well as music and dance and the like, or any combination thereof, but also the aesthetic intentions in any other type of human activity – be they fully conscious and deliberate or not, extraordinary or not. Whatever the genre, the consumption or acquisition of what others have created is as much an aesthetic activity as the creation of such expressions themselves. They are closely linked, and all humans do both, albeit on different scales. Yet, whereas professional art and everyday aesthetics are interlinked, and the aesthetic component is inherent in both, they are not the same. As put by Jessica Lee: ‘Art, in the institutional sense, is generally created with the category of art in mind, while domesticity occurs as a matter of course in daily life.’ One could add that the primary function of objects meant to be artistic is to evoke aesthetic appreciation among the public, whether evoking pleasant or unpleasant feelings or no special feelings at all – as distinct from Immanuel Kant's notion that the aesthetic experience is equal to what is pleasurable or delightful. The term public is inserted to distinguish art from other objects also meant to primarily evoke aesthetic appreciation, for example, children's paintings at the moment when they are shown to their parents. While still not fulfilling all formal requirements for a definition, it works reasonably well.