Art as Occupations Two Neglected Roots of John Dewey's Aesthetics

Education and Culture, 2016

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of art in Deweyan thought, making a case for the relationship among art, experience, and education. I will do so by drawing on both Deweyan works-primarily Art as Experience and chapter nine of Experience and Nature-and scholarly literature devoted to the issue. Based on those precedents, I wish to argue that art plays a central function in Deweyan thought. Dewey conceived of art as (a) the very basis on which to deepen, enlarge, and make sense of experience; (b) the place where humans search for meaning and unity find its fulfillment; and (c) the means by which we may enact the primary task of education, namely, bringing newness to the fore by emancipating and enlarging experience.

Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 2017

The present manuscript aims to examine the impact of art on the cultivation of personality and sensitivity. The author suggests that education in art contributes to evolving sensibility towards the surrounding world. The artistic knowledge or attitude helps us perceive and feel the quotidian with affection, imagination, and creativity. It functions as a complement to a rational understanding of reality. This paper retakes Aristotelian category of poiesis, considering it a creative act and delves into John Dewey's view of relations between education and art. Dewey finds in the aesthetic-artistic experience of the quotidian a way to engage with the other and to treat life as something with deep aesthetic sense. The discussion shown in this article follows four main threads under the scope of the Deweynian notion of art as experience. They are the education for art, education by art, education in art, and the creative act of the quotidian.

2016

The overriding question Stroud confronts in John Dewey and the Artful Life is how to render more of life's experiences, including the ensuing benefits, as aesthetic or artful as possible. The answer to this question is challenging and complex. The claim most aesthetic theories make is that an object, activity, or experience is artful if and only if it has intrinsic value. Although what constitutes intrinsic value is widely contested, having value in and of itself is a necessary and sufficient condition for an object to be art or an experience aesthetic. This value gives art and aesthetic experience their unique quality and separates them from everyday objects, activities and experiences with only instrumental value; that is, value for the sake of something else. Such a view of art and aesthetic experience has long dominated not only our cultural narrative and practices, but our individual thoughts and behaviors as well. As Dewey has shown repeatedly (e.g., in Experience and Nature, The Quest for Certainty, Art as Experience), this view of art and aesthetic experience is grounded in a distorted understanding of experience. This view is pervaded with intellectually fallacious dualisms, especially the belief that items of reflection are the constituents of primary experience. In contrast, for Dewey, the constituents of primary experience are noncognitive or pre-reflective, consisting of deep-seated habits (as acquired predispositions to manners or modes of response) of which we are minimally aware, at best. The fallacy of dualism and its consequent separation in experience fractures the unity of individual and collective experience and, in turn, the unity of self and community. John Dewey and the Artful Life consists of eight chapters. In the first chapter, Stroud establishes the overall context for his project and introduces the reader to its basic structure in broad outline. The second chapter introduces the problem of the value of aesthetic experience using contemporary scholarship in art theory, and sets the stage for Stroud's subsequent Deweyan analysis of experience. In the third chapter, Stroud presents a Deweyan account of aesthetic experience he refers to as "experiential" as an alternative to traditional "causal" theories. The fourth chapter

Southwest Philosophy Review, 2015

Aesthetic Energy of the City, eds. A. Gralinska-Toborek, Wioletta Kazimierska-Jerzyk, Łódź 2016., 2016

According to American pragmatist John Dewey (1859–1952), art is an experience (not necessarily an object) and as such it might potentially cover all human interactions. To put it otherwise, an aesthetic experience is needed to create a meaningful piece of art. For human beings, the most stimulating environment for having aesthetic experiences is social life. Two main spheres of the aesthetic axperience are distinguished: private and public. At first it seems that Dewey followed the modernist distinction, because he coined the terms of private consummatory experiences adn public aesthetic experiences. However, in many respects, the distinction seems artificial and does not explain the phenomenon of Dewey's aesthetics. The paper addresses the issue and tries to capture the spirit of Deweyan aesthetics by analysing various aesthetic experiences.

ACT–Action, criticism, and theory for music …, 2007

I From Dewey's naturalistic standpoint, 1 culture develops from nature, and critical communication is one of its possible operational modes. It is this fact of the contingency of cultural cultivation that makes pedagogical critique indispensable: in order to make a home in the hazardous world, human beings have to learn to reflect in advance on the possible outcomes of their choices and to deliberate their co-operative actions accordingly. Hence, there arises a commitment to develop critical consciousness, for without the will to deliberate, we are at the mercy of our impulses. Here the pragmatic humanism of Dewey's naturalism becomes explicit: in order to flourish, human culture has to be able to use critical reflection in communication. Cultural formation is realized in the shared creative drive towards the unforeseen.

The year 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of John Dewey's birth and also the 75th anniversary of the publication of his aesthetic masterpiece "Art as Experience"--a book that has been extremely influential within the field of aesthetics, not only in philosophical aesthetics and aesthetic education but also in the arts themselves. In this essay, the author reexamines "Art as Experience" by briefly tracing some of its major themes and clarifying its generative context of production and philosophical roots, while also suggesting, in passing, how some of these themes and roots contribute to its continuing philosophical relevance. The author first offers two preliminary cautions: (1) Dewey's aesthetic magnum opus is obviously too rich and masterful in ideas and influence for any brief commemorative essay to hope to do it sufficient justice; and (2) as Dewey defined philosophy as "a criticism of criticisms," so the author's remarks will include a critical dimension. Then, the author illustrates how the essential unifying qualitative element in Dewey's philosophy of mind is transformed into the core of his aesthetic theory in "Art as Experience." The author comments on passages in the book that echo Dewey's formulations in "Qualitative Thought." Finally, the author shows how Dewey's views on the pervasive underlying unifying quality of immediate experience strongly echo William James's account of the immediate experience of thought as formulated in "The Principles of Psychology."

Creativity (ISSN: 2354-0036), 2022

An original way to make sense of the aesthetic experience concept-in a Deweyan perspective-is from the Art-Education binomial. After studying the pragmatist philosophical category of Experience in John Dewey, a product of Doctoral theoretical research in education, it was possible to characterize a new art movement: School Art. Hence, this conceptual-theoretical finding will expand a wide range of art movements that emerged between the nineteenth century and contemporaneity: Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Abstract Art, Futurism, Action Painting, and Children's Art, among many others. However, because of lexical reasons and hoping to achieve greater acceptance among theorists, the so-called School Art will patent from this paper as a neologism named from now on as Artscholarism. Thus, its philosophical-historical foundations, characteristics, and description will be the article's primary purpose. In that sense, psychological and historical discussions will emerge throughout the paper. In conclusion, the new art movement-Artscholarism-comes from Deweyan thinking and is framed by creativity and a social context.

Creativity. Theories – Research - Applications

An original way to make sense of the aesthetic experience concept – in a Deweyan perspective – is from the Art-Education binomial. After studying the pragmatist philosophical category of Experience in John Dewey, a product of Doctoral theoretical research in education, it was possible to characterize a new art movement: School Art. Hence, this conceptual-theoretical finding will expand a wide range of art movements that emerged between the nineteenth century and contemporaneity: Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Abstract Art, Futurism, Action Painting, and Children’s Art, among many others. However, because of lexical reasons and hoping to achieve greater acceptance among theorists, the so-called School Art will patent from this paper as a neologism named from now on as Artscholarism. Thus, its philosophical-historical foundations, characteristics, and description will be the article’s primary purpose. In that sense, psychological and historical discussions will emerge throughout the pape...

Canadian Review of Art Education: Research and Issues / Revue canadienne de recherches et enjeux en éducation artistique, 2017

In this paper, a case is made for a critical re-examination of current trends in art education which support the adoption of inherently politically motivated curricula. The author examines the historical influence of Postmodernism upon both the fields of art and education, and argues that the potential for art to serve as a vehicle for ideology has caused many art educators to mistakenly conflate their moral role as teachers with their drive to disseminate their personallyheld political beliefs.