Pragmatist Aesthetics Research Articles

Critical Aesthetics Between American Pragmatism and the Frankfurt School

Abstract The publication of Art as Experience in 1934 marked a theoretical turning point away from the disinterested spectatorship of Kant towards an aesthetics of everyday life. Dewey’s major claim therein is that “aesthetic experience” is privileged and ought to be taken as paradigmatic for all experience because it is controlled by an affective unity that he calls “pervasive quality” which harmonizes thought and action with its social and environmental context. In 1935 Walter Benjamin argued that pre-industrial works of art have an “aura” that exerts an affective lure on consciousness, and that the remnants of this aura in the post-industrial age may lead to the abandonment of critical thought and seduce the masses into the sway of fascism. This paper considers John Dewey’s aesthetic theory in light of the critical perspective developed by his contemporaries in Frankfurt School. I will consider whether Dewey’s reliance on the qualitative dimension of experience undermines the critical reflection that, theoretically, prevents the “aestheticization of politics” that leads to the spread of fascism, and propose that pragmatist aesthetics would benefit from greater tolerance for the “negativity” exemplified by the critical theorists.

The Teacher as Listener: A Theory of Pedagogical Listening in the Literature Classroom

ABSTRACT Getting students talking about a work of literature — sharing and interrogating their own and each other’s textual interpretations and responses — is vital for the teaching and learning of literature. If a classroom community of readers is constituted by such talking, then responsive teaching involves a lot of listening. What, precisely, might be the role(s) of the teacher as listener? Beginning with three classroom vignettes, and then drawing from psychoanalytic theory, pragmatist aesthetics, and philosophy of dialogue, this article theorises a distinctly pedagogical listening. One role of the teacher as a listener in the literature classroom can be interpreting and intervening in ‘textual problems’ that typically arise in moments of confusion or surprise — students’ and/or their teacher’s — throughout interpretive discussion. Such pedagogical listening can instantiate, among other qualities discussed in this article, a double consciousness or divided attention. This article concludes by suggesting specific classroom practices and conditions for pedagogical listening.

Aesthetics and Politics of Participation in Benoît Maubrey’s Speaker Sculptures

Abstract The article discusses the aesthetic and political aspects of Speaker Sculptures – an ongoing series of participatory site-specific sound artworks by the artist Benoît Maubrey. Informed by pragmatist aesthetics and combining artwork analyses with ethnographic observations, the text focuses on the expressive affordances of the sculptures and the way the participants act upon them. Utilizing a variety of communication technologies, Speaker Sculptures bridge the gaps between the public, private and virtual spaces and allow the participants to perform in the public space without being physically present in them. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s theory of the public as the political, Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics and Chantal Mouffe’s antagonism theory, the article discusses the political implications of such performances.

Asian Diaspora: Understanding Toronto Public Spaces Through Art and Performances

In this article, I explore how art can help Asian immigrants in Ontario understand the public spaces and the community of Toronto. Using Shusterman’s Pragmatist Aesthetics as a theoretical framework, this study asks: How does navigating and responding to issues of equity, inclusion, and environmental resiliency foster residents’ understanding? The study is based on field research that involved a series of improvised art and performance activities in Toronto’s outdoor public spaces from February 2022 to May 2022. I argue that art can enable individuals to recognize and challenge the inequity in public places and develop relational understandings and practices that can inform public policy and inspire further research and action. The findings reveal that participants’ social interactions through artmaking in public spaces enhanced their personal growth, learning, and creativity, connecting their everyday lives with formal education. This article highlights the impact of diasporic experiences in shaping the process of placemaking within these spaces.

Dewey, Adorno, and Pragmatist Aesthetics

Dewey, Adorno, and Pragmatist Aesthetics

Art, Eros, and Liberation: Aesthetic Education between Pragmatism and Critical Theory

Abstract After showing how pragmatist aesthetics and Marcuse's critical theory affirm aesthetic education as key to transforming society toward greater freedom, equality, pleasure, and fulfillment, I compare the ways these two approaches differently perceive the scope and role of aesthetics in such transformation. Whereas Marcuse identifies the aesthetic dimension with the realm of high art, pragmatism understands this dimension far more broadly to include the popular arts and somaesthetic arts of living. Because Marcuse identifies art's critical function through its oppositional transcendence and autonomy from ordinary reality and practical life, he insists that aesthetics cannot directly contribute to transformative praxis in the real world but can operate only indirectly by transforming our sensibilities. Pragmatist aesthetics, particularly though somaesthetics, resolves the dilemma in Marcuse's aesthetics of liberation by bridging the alleged gap between aesthetics and praxis by reeducating our sensibilities in a more direct, practical, embodied way. The article further exemplifies the overlaps and differences between Marcuse's critical theory and pragmatist somaesthetics by focusing on erotic experience, which is essential to Marcuse's liberational program and increasingly present in somaesthetics’ concern with aesthetic reeducation of our senses and sensibilities.

Thinking Gestures. On How the Philosophical Conceptualization of Ordinary Life Can Be Shaped by Art Practices

Abstract As a speculative and abstract discipline, philosophy is traditionally considered to be in dialectical tension with physical experience and daily practice. In contrast to this conventional and idealistic perspective, and in line with aesthetics as embodied knowledge, this article attempts to show that not only do we constantly think via gestures, movements, and physical experiences but also that there is no need to disconnect a concept from practice. Passing from Wittgenstein’s idea of “form of life” to the pragmatist aesthetics initiated by Dewey’s idea of “art as experience,” I propose an analysis of the philosophical framework of postmodern dance (Yvonne Rainer) and of Happenings (Allan Kaprow), in order to underline the theoretical and conceptual research that is already at work in the field of contemporary art practice, the latter being understood as a sensorial dimension intrinsically linked to ordinary life. My general argument is that gestures, which are an inescapable and vital part of everyday life, can be foregrounded by certain artistic practices without corrupting or theatricalizing their ordinariness.

Nature-based solutions as more-than-human art: Co-evolutionary and co-creative design approaches

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are mostly seen as engineering approaches to meeting challenges of human societies under ecological stress, while also nurturing biodiversity. We argue that given the accelerating speed of environmental change, NbS design for biodiversity recovery cannot be informed by past or current conditions but must create evolutionary potential for yet unknown future biodiversity. The objective of our paper is to reconceptualizing this creative role of NbS design as artwork, building on John Dewey's pragmatist aesthetics. We suggest that in emphasizing the aesthetic dimension of NbS, triggers, mechanisms and affordances can be harnessed that activate the co-creative potential of both humans and non-humans for cooperation, resilience, and future biodiversity. We build on recent developments, both practical and experimental, in interspecies art and design and locate these in the two dimensions of co-creation and co-evolution. As a result, we distinguish three categories of NbS as artwork, transformative art, interspecies art and exaptive art, present their main features and give some illustrations of how they may regenerate the current ways to approach and design NbS.

자기스타일화 관점에서 본 K-Pop 안무와 커버 댄스에 대한 고찰

In this paper, based on the style theory of Schusterman, a researcher of pragmatic aesthetics, the style of K-POP choreography and the self-styling of cover dance performed by fans were examined. Among the factors that have contributed to K-POP's global popularity and lasting influence, the choreography style of the detailed emotions and inherent impulses expressed by K-POP choreography is the most important, and global K-POP fans are fascinated by this choreography style and feel the desire to express it with my own body. This desire is triggered by kinesthetic empathy and mirrors K-pop choreography directly through community dance to make it self-styled. The K-pop choreography style embodied through the cover dance of K-POP choreography can be experienced and understood by the public, and can become a communication channel that can trigger re-creation.

Pragmatist Aesthetics and Nietzsche

Abstract: It is difficult to approach a phenomenon as complex as the renaissance of pragmatism without considering the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics. At the same time, however, one ought to note that pragmatist aesthetics has not yet reached its full potential. This is primarily due to the legacy of John Dewey's aesthetics. In pragmatist studies, the problematic consequences of Dewey's idealism in aesthetics have been insufficiently criticized. In order to confront this desideratum, pragmatist aesthetics ought to establish a dialogue with continental aesthetics. This essay advances the argument that pragmatist aesthetics will profit from considering Nietzsche's radical insights and far-reaching suggestions. Concentrating on a comparison between Dewey and Nietzsche, the essay discusses three aspects: the relation between art and life; the question of art's noncognitivism; and the question of aesthetic form and its significance for modern art.

Pragmatist Aesthetics and Nietzsche

Abstract: It is difficult to approach a phenomenon as complex as the renaissance of pragmatism without considering the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics. At the same time, however, one ought to note that pragmatist aesthetics has not yet reached its full potential. This is primarily due to the legacy of John Dewey's aesthetics. In pragmatist studies, the problematic consequences of Dewey's idealism in aesthetics have been insufficiently criticized. In order to confront this desideratum, pragmatist aesthetics ought to establish a dialogue with continental aesthetics. This essay advances the argument that pragmatist aesthetics will profit from considering Nietzsche's radical insights and far-reaching suggestions. Concentrating on a comparison between Dewey and Nietzsche, the essay discusses three aspects: the relation between art and life; the question of art's noncognitivism; and the question of aesthetic form and its significance for modern art.

From Biography to a Net of Interpretations: The Plurality of Approaches to Vladimír Karfík’s work

The aim of this study is to justify a partial shift from the biographical approach in the author’s ongoing research into the work of architect Vladimír Karfík’s, especially if that research is directed towards raising present-day appreciation of his output. The inspiration comes from pragmatic aesthetics, as understood by philosopher Richard Shusterman, which considers the possibility of appreciating a work of art and architecture without the premise of one universal truth. The “net of interpretations” metaphor suggests that different interpretative lines can be perceived as equivalent in all their diversity, and there is no single “true” image of the work that lies underneath. The proposition of the study is argued both on a theoretical level and through the analysis of existing publications devoted to Karfík’s work and personality.

On Experiencing Sustainability

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.

A New Interpretation of the Essence of Aesthetic Experience: From the Perspective of Cognitive Neuroaesthetics and Aesthetic Anthropology

Abstract In the transformation from classical to modern aesthetics, the proposition and exploration of aesthetic experience constitutes one of the major dimensions of various aesthetic problems. Pragmatic aesthetics, phenomenological aesthetics, hermeneutic aesthetics, analytical aesthetics, and new pragmatic aesthetics have comprehensively analyzed and discussed aesthetic experience. Through the construction and deconstruction of aesthetic experience in aesthetic history, the study of the key concept seems to have come to a certain predicament. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the subjective and objective attribute of experience remains unclear, and the material base of aesthetics is not solid enough. In this regard, cognitive neuroscience and anthropology provide new ways to understand aesthetic experience. From the perspective of aesthetic anthropology, the study on aesthetic experience is rooted in a broad field and serves as a solid material basis for its objectification. Cognitive neuroaesthetics explains the psychological mechanism of aesthetic experience. Together, they provide an opportunity for the study on aesthetic experience to enter a new realm. Moreover, the new interpretation of the essence of aesthetic experience will help to improve the theory and practice of aesthetic education.

Towards a Pragmatist Aesthetics

Abstract In this paper, I make the case that the tradition of pragmatism may usefully inform aesthetic criticism. To that end, I contrast the anti-essentialist outlook and the ethico-political concerns of neo-pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty with the epistemological underpinnings of analytic aesthetics. The aim is to outline an alternative meta-theoretical perspective that ‘overwrites’ long-standing concerns with exactitude and objectivity. Drawing on examples from my own area of expertise, film, and television studies, I seek to explicitly set up aesthetic criticism, especially evaluation, as a means of social progress and human flourishing within the framework of liberal democracy.

Games in the Finnish art teachers’ curriculum

This article takes part in the discussion that revolves around games and gaming and presents an example on how they have been implemented to the curriculum of Finnish art teacher training. The article explores the results of a nationwide survey for art teachers concerning games and gaming and how it supported the curriculum design for pre-serving art education students. The most significant addition to the curriculum was a master’s-level course ‘Games, Gaming and Game Design’. The article presents the course in detail and how it has evolved during four semesters between 2017 and 2020. The theoretical framework for the curriculum design was built on Deweyan pragmatist aesthetics and constructionist ludology. The article suggests that games and gaming are an integral part of art education and best addressed in a holistic manner, not only as visual representations or tools for learning.

Pragmatism and Interpretation: Radical, Relativistic, but not Unruly

Abstract Interpretation has been a key theme in pragmatist aesthetics, but its centrality in neopragmatist thinking goes far beyond the field of art. Its influence extends into epistemology, ontology, and the philosophies of language, history, selfhood, and culture. Joseph Margolis devoted many articles and even an entire book to this topic, which he titled Interpretation Radical but Not Unruly. My critical examination of Margolis’s theory of interpretation shows how it is radical not only in terms of its robust relativism. It is also radical in the etymological sense of “radical” as “forming the root” of his philosophical thought in general. The logic of interpretation that Margolis developed for aesthetics is the original, generative source of his relativism, but its influence and relativist logic then extended ever more widely and deeply into his themes of anti-essentialism, historicism, and flux that pervade his metaphysics of culture and philosophical anthropology.

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

Populárna kultúra v znamení Prometea (vstupné poznámky a vyhliadky)

Methodologically connecting the experience and interpretation-based aesthetic approach to popular culture (Juraj Malíček) and pragmatist aesthetics (Richard Shusterman) on one hand and the views of what is called arch-textual thematology (Mariana Čechová) on the other, the paper seeks to observe the ties between an arch-text, in this particular case the Promethean myth, and “pop.-texts”, i.e. such pop cultural works of art (films, TV series, literary texts, comics etc.), within the framework of which the Promethean myth appears in one way or another and which can be labelled with the agnomen “pop”. The consideration is core-like based on the exceedingly saturated and complex work of the German comparatist Gűnter Peters entitled Prometheus: Modelle eines Mythos in der europäischen Literatur (2016) in which the author thematises models of the Promethean myth in the context of European verbal art. Various models or appearances of a reanimation of the Promethean myth in various (pop cultural) works of art become in the paper referentially an object of interest — from Kafkaʼs parable about Prometheus through “Promethean” episodes of TV series like The X-Files (1997), Bones (2013), a Supernatural (2013) and films like Prometheus (2012) to the Promethean and iconic novel by Mary Shelley Frankenstein (1818) and its adaptations. The basic leitmotif of the paper is in a sense the problem of the iconisation of suffering as a principal thematic segment of the Promethean myth.

Prison Theatre and an Embodied Aesthetics of Liberation: Exploring the Potentials and Limits

Prison theatre practitioners and scholars often describe the sense of imaginative freedom or “escape” that theatre and drama can facilitate for incarcerated actors, in contrast to the strict regimes of the institution. Despite this, the concept of freedom or liberation is rarely interrogated, being presented instead as a given—a natural by-product of creative practice. Drawing from John Dewey’s (1934) pragmatist aesthetics and the liberatory pedagogies of Bell Hooks (2000) and Paulo Freire (1996), I propose an embodied aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre that adds depth and complexity to claims for freedom through creativity. Reflecting on over twenty years of prison theatre practice and research, I propose that the initial “acts of escape” performed through engaging the imagination are merely the first threshold toward more meaningful forms of freedom. I frame these as the following three intersecting domains: “Acts of unbinding”, which represents the personal liberation afforded by experiences with theatre in prison; “acts of love”, which expresses how the theatre ensemble might represent a “beloved community” (hooks); and “acts of liberation”, which articulates how these experiences of self-and-world creation may ripple out to impact audiences and communities. An aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre can, therefore, be conceived as an embodied movement towards personal and social renewal; an approach that deepens our understanding of its oft-cited humanising potential, and its limits.