Experience as Medium: John Dewey and a Traditional Japanese Aesthetic

Abstract

In Art as Experience (1987; 1934), John Dewey seeks to undermine the idea that art has a place above and distinct from ordinary human experience.1 Instead, he argues that an adequate aesthetic theory must take into account that all art originates in ordinary experience. Artists who create classic works of art do so by finding, manipulating, and developing the aesthetics they experience in everyday life. In other words, Dewey writes, "Mountain peaks do not float unsupported; they do not even just rest upon the earth. They are the earth in one if its manifest operations" (9). Unfortunately, he notes that most aesthetic theorists attempt to consider art "in itself?a tendency that can be traced back through Plato. Art is thought to be beautiful not because of how it is experienced, but because of its correspondence to an other-worldly ideal. For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to this view as the Western view of aesthetics, realizing that it is a broad overgeneralization. One of Dewey's foundational concepts is that experience involves more than our intellectual account of it. Consequently, he argues that the Western at tempt to capture art entirely in theoretical knowledge is inherently problematic. Having defined art and aesthetics as "the sort of thing that is in museums," we dichotomize our experience into things aesthetic and things useful, cheapening our understanding and experience of both. We cut off one from the other not only in thought, but in the way we organize our environment. We fail to observe or appreciate other kinds of aesthetic experiences that, if developed, could be far more relevant to our lives than the art in museums. Furthermore, by focusing on ideals instead of experience, we diminish those experiences that we already consider aesthetic.