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This dissertation intends to prove that aestheticism is, at least in some of its most radical formulations, false because unintelligible. It consists in a description of our relation with art derived from Cartesian and empiricist theory of knowledge, which reduces the knowledge of an art object to a subjective and incommunicable experience of sensations. Based on what is seen as an alternative philosophy of mind, running from Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars to Donald Davidson, the thesis will prove that aestheticism cannot be sustained because subjectivism and solipsism are generally false, and sensations cannot be privately defined. It will then try to replace aestheticism with a more adequate description of the creation and interpretation of art objects. Art will be described as an activity, or a life form where particular people create or interpret unique objects, within a community of others with whom they share interests and abilities and from whom they can learn. Authority, as essential to apprenticeship, shall be described as an inevitable part of art, which not only allows for the transmission of knowledge, but also contributes to, instead of impairing, the originality that characterizes creativity.