Aesthetics beyond Aesthetics

What is aesthetics? The answer given by the encyclopedias is clear. The Italian Enciclopedia Filosofica defines aesthetics as "disciplina filosofica che ha per oggetto la bellezza e l'arte".(1) Correspondingly, the French Vocabulaire d'Esthétique determines aesthetics as "étude réflexive du beau" and "philosophie et science de l'art".(2) The Academic American Encyclopedia says: "Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that aims to establish the general principles of art and beauty."(3) And the German Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie explains (a bit more complicatedly, because it is German): "Das Wort `Ästhetik' hat sich als Titel des Zweiges der Philosophie eingebürgert, in dem sie sich den Künsten und dem Schönen [...] zuwendet".(4) In short, aesthetics is considered as artistics, as an explication of art with particular attention to beauty. The discipline's traditional name as `aesthetics' seems to be wrong, because in fact it doesn't have - as the name suggests - aesthetics as its point of reference, but art - so the name `artistics' would be much more appropriate. I however, as the title of my paper indicates, intend to advocate an understanding of aesthetics which goes beyond this traditional understanding, beyond the scope of an artistics. But can such an attempt be legitimate? Does the term `aesthetics' lend itself to a transartistic meaning