There are four central concepts in Nemoianu's writings. The first is the autonomy and importance of the aesthetic in human existence. The beautiful is a key faculty of the human mind, no less than a basic attribute of reality; its perception is present from the beginning of humanization in all societies and civilizations, large and small, known to us. Nemoianu has argued constantly, though in different contexts and using different examples, that without a sense and grasp of the beautiful, human life would be radically impoverished and perhaps its very survival might be endangered. (This can be seen most prominently in books published in 1989, 2006 and 2009.)