A Terrible Beauty

ABSTRACT

Despite their well-known etymological disparity the aesthetic remains synonymous with the beautiful. The basis of this relationship is the notion that the sensory, represented by the aesthetic, needs to be seen in terms of beauty before it can be elevated to the plane of ideas and social ethics. In truth the association undermines the potential for aesthetics to demonstrate the sensory nature of consciousness and justice. Outlining an earlier conception of aesthetics as sensual consciousness and contrasting this with the impoverishment of the beautiful as either a sensory or ethico-political concept, this article argues the case for aesthetics to be given both a distinct and superior status to the beautiful.