The wondrous array of body ornaments pictured here itself adorns a wide-ranging, learned, accessible, and fascinating discussion of aesthetics by distinguished philosopher Stephen Davies. Adornment is not only a feast for the eyes but for the mind. * Ellen Dissanayake, author of What Is Art For? and Homo Aestheticus * Decoration is often dismissed as trivial, but Davies shows how deep-seated and functional the human impulse to decorate is. He argues that it is nothing less than one of our most fundamental modes of communication. This fascinating tour of adornment is bound to transform readers' outlook, drawing attention to the aesthetic embellishments that we add to everything we touch. * Kathleen M. Higgins, Professor of Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin, USA * This work sets itself as the pinnacle of the philosophical debate on adornment and self-decoration. Holding the key-concept of "making special through aesthetic enhancement", Davies enlightens the merging of pleasure, symbolic value and communicative tasks at place in the practice of adorning. The result comforts with sharp analyses and arguments the priority of the aesthetic attitude on any other such as the religious and moral ones. * Fabrizio Desideri, Professor of Aesthetics, Florence University, Italy * Biografía del autor Stephen Davies is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is an inaugural Fellow of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is a former President of the American Society for Aesthetics and Vice-President of the International Association for Aesthetics. He is on the editorial boards of Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy Compass, and Rivista di Estetica, he is a consulting editor for Res Musica and Philosophy of Music Education Review, and he is co-editor for aesthetics in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.