Monroe C. Beardsley published in several areas of philosophy but is best known as an aesthetician. He is arguably the most important figure of twentieth-century analytic aesthetics. His Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (1958) was a watershed book, furnishing an organization aesthetics had lacked. Beardsley's careful discussions of almost all of the field's questions provided an aesthetic education for his and succeeding generations.

Two ideas shaped all Beardsley's work: his view of the philosophy of art criticism (called "metacriticism") and his aestheticism. Metacriticism's task is the analysis of art criticism's central concepts. Aestheticism is the view that aesthetic characteristics (e.g., unity, delicacy) alone are the proper objects of art criticism; thus, aesthetic features become the sole focus of criticism and the basis for artistic value. Beardsley acknowledged that artwork can have nonaesthetic, referential characteristics, and he does not deny that these features...