Abstract
AESTHETICS IS a muddy subject compared with other areas of philosophy. For in other areas we are at least fairly sure what the central problems are and what it is we want to understand. In aesthetics we are not so lucky. My aim here is to contribute to clearing the waters, or at least to seeing how they might be cleared. This is in three parts. In the first, I discuss the foundations of aesthetics and address the problem of what the very subject-matter of aesthetics is. In the second part I assume the answer I argued for in part one and consider whether or not it is necessary to have a theory about works of art. The third part advances a recommendation about what the philosophy of art should be concerned with and what its central issue is—but I shall not launch into that debate; I shall merely suggest that it is the debate in which we should be interested.
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