Talk of aesthetics – including among other things talk of aesthetic reasons and value, aesthetic practices, and aesthetic agency – is on the rise recently. These discussions aim to acknowledge the ways aesthetics can inform such debates and be informed by them. But it often remains unclear what, exactly, makes a reason or a practice aesthetic, especially once we distinguish the aesthetic from the artistic. To sidestep this difficulty, a recent trend in aesthetics is to explicitly set aside the talk’s titular question, claiming that such a question needn’t be answered before proceeding. This talk challenges that tendency, arguing that we need a more precise conception of the subject matter at hand if we are to make real progress in giving such accounts. I propose a view on which the aesthetic has to do with sensation, not narrowly restricted to sense perception, but construed more broadly to include mental imagery as well as feeling and emotion, ideation, comprehension, and understanding, both conceptual and nonconceptual. I then examine which conclusions this framework licenses us to draw about aesthetic reasons and value, practices, and agency.