Towards an expansive object and a restrictive experience in Everyday Aesthetics: A Chestertonian metaxological approach

Abstract

This article proposes to resolve an internal ambiguity in the subdiscipline called Everyday Aesthetics (EA), systematized by the researcher Horacio Pérez-Henao, according to whom the extension of aesthetics to the everyday has been done, on the one hand, by means of a consideration of an expansive object and subject according to aesthesis itself, as mainly proposed by Katya Mandoki, and, on the other hand, by means of a restrictive object and subject according to the parameters of an authentic aesthetic experience, a theory headed by John Dewey. Methodology: To resolve this tension, a hermeneutic methodology known as the fourfold sense of being, related to Hegelian dialectic, albeit with important modifications supplied by William Desmond was used. This methodology allows a suitable way to explore and discuss different approaches in everyday aesthetics epitomized by Mandoki and Dewey, and makes possible the proposal of a third way, epitomized by G. K. Chesterton. Results: Bearing in mind the original intention of EA—according to which the everyday must be revitalized from an aesthetic perspective, as explained by Joseph Kupfer, it is argued that the two alternate positions of Mandoki and Dewey are unsatisfactory; an attempt is therefore made to respond to this through the analysis of the aesthetic approach of G. K. Chesterton. From his aesthetic reflections, it can be ascertained that to revitalize daily life, the object must be expansive and the subject, restrictive, from a certain méthodos and according to patterns that qualify an everyday aesthetic experience. All of this seeks to pave the way for subsequent investigations of EA being both expansive and restrictive. Finally, it is argued that this Chestertonian EA converges with and extends the aesthetics of design of Jane Forsey, and thus shows that design itself can be revitalized in keeping with a restrictiveexpansive approach to everyday aesthetics. Conclusion: aesthetics should be expansive every day, in that it should concern itself with any aspect of daily life, and restrictive, in that it should set certain limits on the self and its intentions with regard to the possibilities of aesthetic experience.