Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

After noting some conditions of historical and contemporary context that favor a dialogue between pragmatism and East‐Asian thought, which could help generate a new international philosophical perspective, this essay focuses on several themes that pragmatism shares with classical Chinese philosophy. Among the interrelated themes explored are the primacy of practice, the emphasis on pluralism, context, and flux, a recognition of fallibilism, an appreciation of the powers of art for individual, social, and political reconstruction, the pursuit of perfectionist self‐cultivation in the (...) art of living, and the crucial role of embodiment in this melioristic pursuit. The last section defends this somaesthetic emphasis against some likely criticisms and closes with an example of how occidental and East‐Asian somatic thinking can be productively integrated. (shrink)

This paper is an argument for drawing creative practice to the center of philosophical aesthetics. Such an approach would engage philosophical problems that originate from artistic practices. It would also give aesthetics a role in the cultivation of creative practices, both inside and outside of traditional artistic fields. As such aesthetics would begin to engage questions that are pertinent to creativity and the enhancement of artful living.

Michel Foucault's early works criticize the development of modern democratic institutions as creating a surveillance society, which functions to control bodies by making them feel watched and monitored full time. His later works attempt to recover private space by exploring subversive techniques of the body and language. Following Foucault, pragmatists like Richard Shusterman and Richard Rorty have also developed very rich approaches to this project, extending it deeper into the literary and somatic dimensions of self-stylizing. Yet, for a debate centered (...) on the re-creation of the vision of the self, these discussions have yet to fully engage—even while they set the conditions for this engagement with—issues of posthuman technologies, such as AI, robotics, and genetic engineering. These certainly will constitute the primary engine of public institutional surveillance in the years to come. With this surveillance, the two spheres of private self-fashioning and public institutions will continue to evolve in relation to one another. As they do so, democratic society will change considerably. Perhaps Rorty's own normative and linguistic ideal of conversational maintenance may provide something of a democratic limit case on any future posthuman self-fashioning. (shrink)

Artists have been one of the occupational categories that has suffered the most from the economic crisis due to COVID-19. Artists’ “portfolio careers”, generally based on freelancing and self-employment not protected by regulations and welfare, are one of the main reasons of this financial emergency. Their odd forms of employment are rooted – among other things – in a peculiar understanding of artistic work, which I call artistic work exceptionalism (AWE). AWE sees artistic work as essentially different from regular jobs. (...) It finds its conceptual source in Western philosophical aesthetics, which presents the making of art in contrast with regular jobs. In this paper, I take issue with AWE and show its limits and negative implications. By placing emphasis on the heretofore neglected relationship between art and work, I argue that, in principle, creating art is (or should be regarded as) in continuity with other forms of employment, and therefore there is much to be learned from other professions at the level of artistic labor reforms. I call this view artistic work normalism (AWN). In defending AWN, my goal is not to desecrate artists’ occupation. Quite the contrary, my theoretical framework stems from a desire to recognize the social value of the arts. I propose two different approaches to the economics of art promoting artists’ well-being and the exercise of creativity: strengthened public art funding and the financialization of art. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the recognition of Jane Addams' aesthetic reflections. Her reflections extended pragmatism by anticipating some themes of Dewey’s aesthetics and some of its current aesthetic derivations. Addams broke down the barriers that separated art and life with the practices at Hull House in which immigrants of different ethnicities and women had an active and leading part. She thus expanded the social meaning of some of the avant-garde art movements that influenced her, such as the Art (...) and Crafts Movement, by trying to make aesthetic sensibility a part of the everyday life of Hull House’s neighbors. In this way, she anticipated current everyday aesthetics, but without diluting the artistic specificity. Art transfigures events through poetics, allowing us to transform our lives through the values that are the common heritage of humanity. In Addams, we find a social aesthetic that sheds light on some of the problems of contemporary theories, expands the considerations of the artistic movements of her time, and contributes to reflections on the vital importance of aesthetics. (shrink)

I offer the first sustained defence of the claim that ugliness is constituted by the disposition to disgust. I advance three main lines of argument in support of this thesis. First, ugliness and disgustingness tend to lie in the same kinds of things and properties (the argument from ostensions). Second, the thesis is better placed than all existing accounts to accommodate the following facts: ugliness is narrowly and systematically distributed in a heterogenous set of things, ugliness is sometimes enjoyed, and (...) ugliness sits opposed to beauty across a neutral midpoint (the argument from proposed intensions). And third, ugliness and disgustingness function in the same way in both giving rise to representations of contamination (the argument from the law of contagion). In making these arguments, I show why prominent objections to the thesis do not succeed, cast light on some of the artistic functions of ugliness, and, in addition, demonstrate why a dispositional account of disgustingness is correct, and present a novel problem for warrant-based accounts of disgustingness (the ‘too many reasons’ problem). (shrink)

An overview of a philosophical movement originating in the United States of America in the 19th century.

This paper formulates a Deweyan theory of performing arts practice that relies for its support on two main things: The unity Dewey ascribed to all intelligent practices (including artistic practice) and The observation that many aspects of the work of performing artists of Dewey’s time include features (“dramatic rehearsal,” action, interaction and habit development) that are part of Dewey’s characterization of the moral life. This does not deny the deep import that Dewey ascribed to aesthetic experience (both in art and (...) in life), but it does suggest that we might use his theory of ethical practice in conjunction with his theory of art as experience in order to create a more robust and unified Deweyan theory of what the performing artist does. (shrink)

As conceived by founders Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp, Philosophy for Children is a humanistic practice with roots in the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy as a way of life given to the search for meaning, in American pragmatism with its emphasis on qualitative experience, collaborative inquiry and democratic society, and in American and Soviet social learning theory. The programme has attracted overlapping and conflicting criticism from religious and social conservatives who don’t want children to question traditional values, from educational (...) psychologists who believe certain kinds of thinking are beyond children of certain ages, from philosophers who define their discipline as theoretical and exegetical, from critical theorists who see the programme as politically compliant, and from postmodernists who see it as scientistic and imperialist. The paper is written as a dialogue in order to illustrate the complex interactions among these normative positions. Rather than respond to particular criticisms in depth, I indicate the general nature of my position regarding them and provide references to published material where they have been made and responded to over the past 40 years. (shrink)

Proprioception has been considered, within neuroscience, in the context of the control of movement. Here we discuss a possible second role for this 'sixth sense', pleasure in and of movement,homologous with the recently described affective touch. We speculate on its evolution and place in human society and suggest that pleasure in movement may depend not on feedback but also on harmony between intention and action. Examples come from expert movers, dancers and sportsmen, and from those without proprioception due to neurological (...) impairment. Finally we suggest that affective proprioception may help bind our sense of agency with our embodied selves at an emotional level. (shrink)

Abstract: This article explains the pragmatist project of somaesthetics in five different ways. First, it clarifies the notion of soma as encompassing both subjective intentionality and material objectivity in the world. Second, it highlights the social dimensions of somaesthetics, building on the basic insight that the soma is always shaped by the social and physical environments in which it is nested. Third, it examines the similarities and differences between somaesthetics and the Merleau-Ponty tradition of somatic phenomenology, while answering some of (...) the critical questions phenomenologists raise about the pragmatic value of reflective body consciousness. Fourth, in exploring the uses of reflective body consciousness, the article examines the continuity of learning over different levels and the different forms of evidence that can be used for empirical testing of the value of somatic reflection. It concludes with an overview of some of the main directions of future somaesthetic research. (shrink)

Chinese philosophy views experience as intrinsically aesthetic. This world view could be elucidated through a consideration of John Dewey's aesthetics and features of Chinese art. Dewey's philosophy of art starts with an understanding of experience as 'live processes' of living creatures interacting with their environment. Such processes are autopoietic in being self-sustaining, ever-changing, capable of increasing complexity, capable of generating novelty, direction and progress on its own. Its autopoietic character is a precondition of the aesthetic in the process of experience. (...) An aesthetic experience is rhythmic, focused, consummatory, and reaches beyond the transitory boundaries of concrete existence. The aesthetic is not confined to what is conventionally identified as art. Most important, the ethical-political, the natural and the cosmic all have an aesthetic aspect, as the paper attempts to show by examining classical Confucianism. (shrink)

: This paper explains the discipline of somaesthetics, which emerges from pragmatism's concern with enhancing embodied experience and reconstructing the aesthetic in ways that make it more central to key philosophical concerns of knowledge, ethics, and politics. I then examine Beauvoir's complex treatment of the body in The Second Sex, assessing both her arguments that could support the pragmatic approach of somaesthetics but also those that challenge its bodily focus as a danger for feminism.

This article reviews and corrects frequent misunderstandings of somaesthetics, the multidisciplinary field of study of the lived body conceived by Richard Shusterman. After responding to an article published in Contemporary Pragmatism, I extend the discussion to cover larger topics of discussion related to somaesthetics and misapprehensions by its critics, including the nature of somatic experience, the role of pleasure, and the relevance of culture. In rectifying mistakes of understanding, it is hoped the effort will foster better understanding and better critique.

This paper explains the discipline of somaesthetics, which emerges from pragmatism's concern with enhancing embodied experience and reconstructing the aesthetic in ways that make it more central to key philosophical concerns of knowledge, ethics, and politics. I then examine Beauvoir's complex treatment of the body in The Second Sex, assessing both her arguments that could support the pragmatic approach of somaes-thetics but also those that challenge its bodily focus as a danger for feminism.

Defining “criticism” is a simple—but bedeviling—task. No less a critic and theorist than Edwin Black begins with the simple statement that “criticism is what critics do.” While he admits that this seems like an empty definition, Black does note that it has one redeeming feature—“It compels us to focus on the critic” (1978, 4). Criticism and those who engage in it are integrally connected, and any account of critical activity must deal with both the activity and its actor. In this (...) way, it is much like art—one could easily utter that “art is what artists do.” Criticism is often tied to art and its products, so this appears to be a fair way to proceed in an investigation of criticism. Yet I would argue .. (shrink)

John Dewey puts aesthetic experience at the center of his reflection on art and beauty, reconsidering it dynamically. Nowadays, this view opened the path to somaesthetics, a term coined by Richard Shusterman, and aesthetic anthropology. Here, it is argued that the contribution of pragmatist aesthetics could be further developed by exploring its analogies with techno-aesthetics, a paradigm proposed by French philosopher Gilbert Simondon in the early 1980s. Art occupies accordingly a special place within the different forms of aesthetic experience, being (...) considered as a way of experimenting the impact of new technologies in the human experience. It is a process by which technologies create ‘devices’ for experimenting perception and reflection: namely, ways of reconstructing the nature of the human mind in-between body and technology, and by means of their interaction. Cinema reconsidered after Dewey’s fellow George H. Mead, offers an exemplary case as both artistic and technological devices. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno is a gigantic figure in musical aesthetics, and many still consider his views relevant, not only for analyzing the modernist music he was inspired by and that he inspired himself, but also for more contemporary developments in classical music. John Adams is arguably the foremost contemporary composer who has tried to break away from the modernist musical language that was still very much dominant when he began his career as a composer, and he has been very outspoken (...) about his antipathy toward the Schoenbergian-inspired compositional techniques that are at the background of Adorno’s musical aesthetics, particularly his Philosophy of New Music. By presenting an interpretation of Adams’ music that draws on some key aspects of John Dewey’s aesthetics—aesthetic experience, rhythm, and his appreciation of common culture—I raise the question of how relevant Adorno’s seminal book still is for understanding the aesthetics of the new music of today. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the origins of banality and the reasons why some phenomena appear banal to us. I discuss the issue by analysing three interrelated areas of aesthetic investigation: artworks, everyday objects, and banal things. By identifying the source of banality, my goal is to understand what makes banal things different from other kinds of things. I consider the following questions: 1) when, why, and how does an object become banal?; 2) what happens when something becomes banal?; 3) (...) are banal things aesthetically appealing? Drawing on Wolfgang Welsch’s notion of anesthetization and Walter Benjamin’s account of aura, I argue that banality consists in the absence of both an ontological and an axiological character in objects, which makes them appear trivial or insignificant to us. I conclude by showing that although art, everydayness, and banality represent different aesthetic dimensions, objects constantly move from one of these dimensions to the other. (shrink)

Resumen: En nuestros días el término arte ha ampliado su horizonte hasta incluir prácticas y objetos que tradicionalmente habían sido negados. Este cambio de perspectiva se introduce a partir del siglo XX cuando la noción de arte comienza a ser cuestionada desde diferentes vertientes teóricas y prácticas. En este artículo se analiza la definición que el filósofo estadounidense John Dewey propuso en los años treinta, la cual trataba de devolver el arte al contexto cultural en el que se originó. Para (...) ello, en primer lugar se examinará la dimensión cultural del arte: tanto el contexto sociocultural de la obra, como el propio papel del arte para transmitir los significados de una cultura. En segundo lugar, serán consideradas las posibilidades que ofrece esta noción de arte como vía para establecer un diálogo intercultural entre iguales. A través de un estudio sobre su fundamentación teórica, así como su alcance y limitaciones, el objetivo de este artículo es mostrar, pese a sus dificultades, que la definición deweyana de arte alberga un gran potencial para la estética contemporánea.: In present days, the term art has broadened its horizon to include practices and objects that traditionally had been rejected. This change of view was introduced in the twentieth century when this notion begins to be questioned from different theoretical and practical approaches. This article analyzes the definition proposed in the thirties by the American philosopher John Dewey, which tried to return art to the cultural context in which it was created. For this purpose, first, the text examines the cultural dimension of art: the sociocultural context of the work of art; and the role of art in transmitting the meanings of a culture. Second, the text considers the possibilities offered by this notion of art to establish an intercultural dialogue between equals. Through a study of its theoretical fundamentals, its scope and limitations, the aim of this article is to show that, despite its difficulties, the Deweyan definition of art harbors great potential for contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

The discourse on kitsch has changed tone. The concept, which in the early 20th century referred more to pretentious pseudo-art than to cute everyday objects, was attacked between the World Wars by theorists of modernity (e.g. Greenberg on Repin). The late 20th century scholars gazed at it with critical curiosity (Eco, Kulka, Calinescu). What we now have is a profound interest in and acceptance of cute mass-produced objects. It has become marginal to use the concept to criticize pseudo-art. Scholars who (...) write about kitsch are no longer against it (Anderson, Olalquiaga). And since the 2000s, art students have been telling us that they “love kitsch”. The contemporary concept is strongly attached to certain colors (pink) and materials (porcelain). In this article I aspire to find some keys on how to view the history and contemporary state of the concept. My hypothesis is that the change in the use of the concept has at least partly to do with changes in the concept of art, which has lately, this is my hypothesis, become sufficiently decentralized from its original roots and boundaries (upper class, male, ethnically Central European). (shrink)

In the present paper an interpretation of the political dimension of pragmatic aesthetic reflection is proposed. The interconnection between politics and aesthetics in three classic American pragmatists: William James (1842–1910), John Dewey (1859–1952), and George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) is evoked. The author claims that by emphasizing the role of democratic values in philosophy and life, the classic American pragmatists encroach upon the field of the arts and aesthetics. Their emphasis put upon individual activity, free expression of thoughts, plurality of the (...) forms of expression, and acceptance of criticism as a tool helping create better solutions in human cooperation can easily be converted into the postulates about the character of the artistic principles and of the nature of the aesthetic norms and values. (shrink)

This essay aims at clarifying our understanding of human participation in sustainability transitions from the pragmatist aesthetics perspective. By sustainability transitions, I refer to processual changes that move towards enhanced environmental and/or social sustainability. At the risk of inappropriateness, I argue that the cultivation of aesthetic sensibility manifests in experiencing sustainability. To understand those ordinary experiences that convey vistas for sustainability transition management, I return to John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934). I first show that Dewey’s conception of sensibility is (...) two-sided, marking both adaptation and expression. Second, by building on the two sides of sensibility together with the contemporary pragmatist aesthetics discussion, I propose that aesthetic sensibility means a shared practice of attuning to transformation. My analysis suggests that acknowledging aesthetic sensibility in experiencing sustainability stands for a transition towards an enhanced conception of the human being as one whose ameliorative practices evolve in collaboration with other beings, living and non-living. For the fruition of sustainability transitions and subsequent expected transformations, aesthetic sensibility should then be acknowledged as a significant dimension of the sensory approach. (shrink)

The term ‘naturalism’ is problematic in the current context since it comprises a set of very different philosophical traditions and thinkers. Some contemporary authors, such as David Papineau, have proposed grouping them according to two different components: the ontological component, which is concerned with the contents of reality; and the methodological one, which is concerned with the way of investigating reality. In general terms, John Dewey’s naturalism, the same as Perice’s and Rorty’s ones, has been defined as methodological. However, through (...) the analysis of the notion of living creature, this article attempts to show how Deweyan naturalism also needs to be understood from its ontological dimension. First, it deals with the different philosophical currents and authors which contribute to the evolution from the Deweyan term of organism to the living creature. Then, it outlines the continuity between the creature and its surroundings that affirms Dewey’s emergent ontology and the potential of this interaction. (shrink)

This paper investigates what it may mean to re-imagine learning through aesthetic experience with reference to John Dewey’s Art as Experience. The discussion asks what learning might look like when aesthetic experience takes centre stage in the learning process. It investigates what Dewey meant by art as experience and aesthetic experience. Working with Dewey as a philosopher of reconstruction of experience, the discussion examines responses to poetic writings and communication in learning situations. In seeking to discover what poetic writing does (...) within the experience of a reader and writer it considers three specific learning situations. Firstly there is an examination of a five-year old child’s experience of shared communication through the story of Horton the Elephant. Secondly there is an account of the responses of an 11-year-old child to poetry in a 1950s classroom setting, and later reconstructions of those experiences by the child as adult. Thirdly, the paper extends to intensive writing with 12 to 13-year-old children. The focus is on the process of learning via acts of expression as aesthetic experiences. Through art as experience the child develops perceptions that recover a coherence and continuity of aesthetic experience in art as in everyday life. (shrink)

This symposium provides five case studies of the ways that John Dewey's philosophy and practice were influenced by women or "weirdoes" (our choices include F. M. Alexander, Albert Barnes, Helen Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp, and Jane Addams) and presents some conclusions about the value of dialoging across difference for philosophers and other scholars.

This paper aims to map and highlight the diverse heritage of Pragmatism in aesthetics. It argues that pragmatist aesthetics represents an interesting third way of doing aesthetics beyond the analytic philosophy of art and continental aesthetics. It offers a first, provisional sketch of existing research trends in pragmatist aesthetics, such as somaesthetics, environmental aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, and social aesthetics. Furthermore, it identifies some “family resemblances” connecting most pragmatist “relatives” in the field of aesthetics: the idea that (1) aesthetics is broader (...) than the traditional philosophy of art, (2) the criticism of the view of art as constituting an independent realm or an autonomous system, (3) the thesis of a basic continuity between artistic practices and experience “in the raw,” (4) the adoption of a naturalistic yet non-reductive stance, and (5) a broadly socio-political inspiration. (shrink)

This study delves into the philosophy, aesthetics, and educational components of somaesthetics to highlight the art of living by practicing body awareness. Specifically, this study focuses on ‘educ...

The American pragmatist John Dewey was no stranger to the problems of economics and their effects on the quality of work experience. Indeed, in his Democracy and Education (1916/1985), he remarks that “the greatest evil of the present regime is not found in poverty and in the suffering which it entails, but in the fact that so many persons have callings which make no appeal to them, which are pursued simply for the money reward that accrues” (MW 9:326–27). This was (...) not a uniquely American problem, as he continued to discuss the “problem of labor” in his lectures in China from 1919 to 1921. There his analysis of education and what it has to contribute to capitalistic economies takes on a more comparative shade .. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with establishing a bridge between matters of aesthetics and epistemology, by investigating the mechanisms through which artworks allow agents to derive knowledge through the former’s manipulation. It is proposed that, in order to understand the epistemic potential of artworks, we need to approach them as diagrams, in the sense developed by Charles Peirce. The background upon which the arguments are developed are mainly those of American Pragmatism – with a special emphasis on primary literature from Charles (...) Sanders Peirce about semiotics and inquiry, and John Dewey about aesthetics. It is introduced that the manipulation upon artworks can be an example of an inquiry process, due to artworks’ diagrammatic symbol-type-token structure, which embody the logical relations of abduction, deduction and induction. Through Peirce’s definition of inquiry, and Dewey’s definition of an aesthetic experience, it is possible to defend that artworks deliberate create states of doubt and chance as to stimulate and guide inquiry as a way to achieve an aesthetic experience, corroborating to the claim that inquiry processes and aesthetic experience share the same ontological basis: it is in the nature of aesthetic experience to confront agents and contexts with state of chance and doubt, to be further guided through inference into a state of regularity and belief. In order to develop and test the argument, I present the development of Arthur Danto’s influential theory of aesthetics based on Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, by focusing on a review of Danto’s main writings about it. The central point that Danto developed in this theory is that what gives something the status of an artwork are not the immediately perceivable sensorial features of an artifact, but something else. I claim it to be a “diagrammatic structure” that can be potentially manipulated through an inquiry process. I conclude by establishing a possible development of my argument in relation to modelling processes: as diagrams, artworks can be understood as models, opening room for the emergence of new hypothesis and conjectures about the relationship between aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

Izhajajoč iz hermenevtične fenomenologije Martina Heideggerja, ki pretresa ontološki status umetniških del in se osredotoča na njihov značaj »stvari«, da bi destruirala tradicionalni pomen umetnosti, trdim, da za estetiko vsakdanjosti lahko rečemo, da pripada postheidegerjevski nalogi ponovnega premisleka umetnosti in temeljev estetike. Privzemanje hermenevtičnega pristopa k umetnosti ima za estetiko dvojno posledico: na eni strani širi njen doseg, s tem ko jo razširi onstran območja lepe/visoke umetnosti k vsakdanjim predmetom in izkustvom, in, na drugi strani, meče novo luč na pomen (...) umetniških pojavov za življenje. Menim, da se in navezujeta na dejstvo, da je sama hermenevtika, razumljena kot proces interpretacije, temelj vseh človeških dejavnosti, kar pomeni, da človeška bitja eksistirajo toliko, kolikor pomen svojih življenj izvajajo iz predmetov in izkustev, s katerimi se srečujejo. (shrink)

The artist Sandra McMorris Johnson once told me that, as much as she had always loved Gauguin, she had nevertheless become increasingly uncomfortable looking at his paintings because so many of them depict thirteen-year-old girls in an extremely sexualized way. I think about her discomfort with Gauguin whenever I consider my reaction to Balthus, an artist whose best paintings I find to be utterly beautiful.1 These paintings are, however, highly, if not obsessively, eroticized portraits of prepubescent girls. It should be (...) noted that Balthus—known to some as the "Lolita painter"—dismissed criticism of his subject matter by declaring an allegiance to formalism.2 But, as a pragmatist, I cannot hide behind a strict .. (shrink)

This article offers an alternative to classical hermeneutics, which focuses on discursive products and grasps meaning as the play of difference between linguistic signs. Pragmatist hermeneutics reconstructs meaning through an indefinite triangulation, which brings symbols, icons, and indices to bear on each other and considers a meaningful occasion as an embodied semiotic process. To illuminate the word-body-action nexus, the discussion identifies three basic types of signifying media: (1) the symbolic-discursive, (2) the somatic-affective, and (3) the behavioral-performative, each one marked by (...) a special relationship between signs and their objects. An argument is made that the tension between various type-signifying media is unavoidable, that the pragmatic-discursive misalignment is an ontological condition, and that bridging the gap between our discursive, affective, and behavioral outputs is at the heart of ethical life. (shrink)

Corporate governance sits at the intersection of many disciplines, among them law, business, management, finance, and accounting. The point of departure for large portions of this literature concerns the ugliness of greed, ambition, misdemeanors, and malfeasance of corporations, their directors, and those actors who hold shares in them. This essay takes a rather different starting point. Drawing upon insights from a distant field, it uses the discussion of aesthetics in Dewey’s treatise on art to ask what motivates directors to act (...) in ways that constitute the attention and engagement that we associate with the effectiveness of boards. Using Dewey’s thinking about aesthetic experience, this paper examines the experience of organization boards, both in the literature and in the personal experience of the author. These observations point to need to reflect on motivation when considering both the practice of corporate governance and the policy frameworks in which it operates. (shrink)

Roberta Dreon - Richard Shusterman is one of the leading figures in the current field of pragmatist aesthetics and he has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in recovering a pragmatist approach to aesthetics. His book Pragmatist Aesthetics was simultaneously published in France under the title L’Art à l’état vif. La pensée pragmatiste et l’esthétique populaire in 1992, paving the way for a long awaited French translation of Dewey’s Art as Experience (Dewey 1989) in 2010 (Dewey 2005/2010), beaut...

This study is an inquiry into design-theoretical aspects of architectural design in Finland based mainly on the pragmatist philosophy of John Dewey. The study comprises two case studies. The. rst case deals with a young family designing their future home – a detached house built from prefabricated components – in cooperation with an architect. The second case deals with the design process of a leading Finnish architect, Professor Ilmari Lahdelma, as he prepares his proposal for an architectural competition for a (...) new city library in Lohja, a competition he eventually wins. The case describes and interprets Lahdelma’s design process, the processes of other competition entries made by the of. ce staff, as well as the process of the jury’s evaluation of the competition entries. The two cases are analysed and interwoven with aspects from three different theoretical perspectives: existing design theories, Pierre Bourdieu’s. eld theory and John Dewey’s thinking regarding art and research. In the study I argue that Dewey’s philosophy can provide a framework for a design-theoretical epistemology. I also arrive at conclusions regarding the interpretation of some key design-theoretical concepts and the position of design theory and its structures. I further argue that the Finnish architectural competition system is a strong tool for generating developments in the production of the architectural avant-garde, which acts as the leading light for the rest of the. eld of architecture. The present study also highlights the gap between ‘high-’ and ‘low culture’ in the. eld of architecture, yet points out that the design of a simple family house – assumedly a case of ‘low culture’ – is by no means trivial to the family itself, and is indeed. lled with moments of aesthetic experiences, which is a central issue in Dewey’s description of creative processes. (shrink)

In debates about nature conservation, aesthetic appreciation is typically understood in terms of valuing nature as an amenity, something that we value for the pleasure it provides. In this paper I argue that this position, what I call the hedonistic model, rests on a misunderstanding of aesthetic appreciation. To support this claim I put forward an alternative model based on disinterestedness, and I defend disinterestedness against mistaken interpretations of it. Properly understood, disinterestedness defines a standpoint which precludes self-interest and utility, (...) and it does not entail a passive subject abstracted from who they are. This standpoint is compatible with a ‘situated aesthetic’ in which appreciation of aesthetic qualities is grounded in an embedded subject who is sensitive to the context and narrative of the object. The alternative model provides a conception of aesthetic value which distinguishes it from amenity value, and it also defines a non-instrumental approach that offers the opportunity for enhanced appreciation and attention to nature's value. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teaching Aesthetics and Aesthetic Teaching:Toward a Deweyan PerspectiveDavid A. Granger (bio)The educational writings of John Dewey continue to be invoked by scholars in education on a regular basis and in relation to a wide variety of issues, from social learning theory and situated cognition to constructivism and whole-language literacy instruction. More recently, this scholarship has begun to expand to include books and essays that look to tie Dewey's aesthetics (...) to his work in education in a substantive way. Notably, this is not something that Dewey attempted himself, since his major work in aesthetics, Art as Experience, was not published until he was seventy-five, and he seemingly had neither the time nor means at that point in his life to develop this link to his satisfaction. In addition, many educators are only familiar with Dewey's more explicitly educational writings, most of which came earlier in his career and tend to speak more of the merits of science than of art. As a result, scholars in education have only recently begun to examine the possible significance of Dewey's aesthetics for the practices of teaching and learning.1It is still the case, however, that writers on Dewey have traditionally focused their critical energies on his expansive claims for "the method of science" as a vehicle for solving numerous educational and social problems, and as the only authentic means of learning about our everyday world. Such critical attention is not, I believe, without warrant; though Dewey's use of "science" was a very loose and liberal one, he was a staunch critic of the positivistic model of science often presumed by these writers. Nonetheless, this critical focus has unfortunately led many writers to dismiss or marginalize the Dewey who, for instance, proclaims in "Art in Education—and Education in Art" that theModern preoccupation with science and with industry based on science has been disastrous; our education has followed the model that [End Page 45] they have set. It has been concerned with intellectual analysis and formularized information.... It is disastrous because it has fixed attention upon competition for control and possession of a fixed environment rather than upon what art can do to create an environment.... It is disastrous because civilization built upon these principles cannot supply the demand of the soul for joy, or freshness of experience; only attention through art to the vivid but transient values of things can effect such refreshment.2As Dewey sees it, science and other forms of knowledge are properly "handmaidens" to art, intellectual tools for enhancing the overall quality and value of human life and activity.3 This means that they are largely subordinate to the direct qualitative meaning of experience. They are, Dewey says, transformed in aesthetic experience in that they are "merged with non-intellectual elements to form an experience worth while as an experience."4 Art objects may well be the most potent and ready source of such enhanced, aesthetic experience, being intentionally created to refine and intensify in certain ways the experience of the perceiver. But they are not, to Dewey's way of thinking, the sole or even principal medium of the aesthetic. Art, he tells us, is best seen more liberally as "a quality that permeates an experience," whereby, in any number of life contexts, the meanings of objects and events become "the matter of a clarified, coherent, and intensified or 'impassioned' experience" (AE, 329, 295). If all of this can be taken to mean that art or the aesthetic, and not science, is paradigmatic of optimal human experience, then current efforts to integrate Dewey's aesthetics with his thinking about education are an important endeavor and one that should bear considerable fruit. Then, too, much of the popular literature in art and aesthetic education, which situates art and the aesthetic squarely within the cognitive domain of experience, is significantly at odds with Dewey's radically holistic and vigorously anti-elitist aesthetics.5Accordingly, this article will explore the idea of aesthetic education—conceived in its broadest sense—using a mainly Deweyan lens. Moreover, it will do so by examining everyday classroom practices as they are informed by the general... (shrink)