aesthete

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aesthete

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• esthete
• æsthete (archaic)

From Ancient Greek αἰσθητής (aisthētḗs, “one who perceives”).

• (UK) enPR: ēsʹthēt, IPA^(key): /ˈiːs.θiːt/
• (US) enPR: ĕsʹthēt, IPA^(key): /ˈɛs.θiːt/

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aesthete (plural aesthetes)

1. (often derogatory) Someone who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature, often in a manner perceived to prioritize beauty over other qualities such as virtue and utility.
   • a. 1994, Cleanth Brooks, “English Literature: A Subject Matter? A Discipline? A Special Amalgam?”, in Community, Religion, Literature, published 1995, →ISBN, page 184:

     I prefer to think of [literature] as providing a discipline of the sensibility—a special way of apprehending reality. But though I prefer such a conception, it gives rise to all sorts of misunderstandings […] To define literature in this fashion is to risk being called a mere aesthete and even an ecapist who refuses to face the harsh facts of life.

   • 2000, Tom Huhn, “The Anatomy of Beauty”, in Michael Tobias, J. Patrick Fitzgerald, David Rothenberg, editors, A Parliament of Minds: Philosophy for a New Millennium, page 237:

     Because what the aesthete does is to say, “oh, I can transform any unpleasant experience into a moment of beauty.”

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 159:

     Although Stanley was the political operator while Pick was the aesthete, it was Stanley who made the early running in Underground design.

   • 2015, Dorthe Jørgensen, “Sensoriness and Transcendence: On the Aesthetic Possibility of Experiencing Divinity”, in Svein Aage Christoffersen et al., editors, Transcendence and Sensoriness: Perceptions, Revelation, and the Arts, →ISBN, page 68:

     Since the days of Søren Kierkegaard, aesthetics – by him termed the aesthetic that is worshipped by the aesthete – has been accused of subjectivism and relativism. An aesthete is allegedly characterized by finding sensuous pleasure in particular phenomena, and by being different from the ethicist or the religious person in being unable to recognize or commit himself to anything universal.

• anaesthete
• synaesthete

• aesthetic