Dewey on Art and Experience

Dr. Ellie Anderson, philosophy professor and co-host of Overthink podcast, discusses Dewey's theory of experience and explains how he brings together art and everyday life through his theory and definition of aesthetic experience. Textbook is Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology reader, ed. Cahn and Meskin (Blackwell, 2008).

This video is part of a series introducing philosophers' views of art and aesthetics.

For more from Dr. Anderson, check out Overthink on YouTube, or listen to our conversational podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We've got numerous audio podcast episodes on the philosophy of art!

[RadicalShiba]

Absolutely adore Dewey, nice to see him getting talked about! While not forgotten, per se, I feel like he helped originate many ideas that have a lot of cache on the modern left without him being properly acknowledged as a source. Would love to see more videos about him!

[questcertainty]

America’s greatest philosopher. Thanks for covering Art As Experience.

[artlessons]

Thank you. Being an artist ( retired art teacher ), I find this. Interesting. I relate this to how I perceive many everyday uses of Critical Thinking. ( that Dewey is a forefather of) . I find many misuse critical thinking as attacking the other ( like a critic perceiving an art piece ) rather than the artist producing the work going through many complexes he solves through subjective critical thinking. So to carefully meet his goal. He is balancing production with viewing all along the creative journey. I as a youth, I was a competitive athlete that transformed into art. I always felt athletics is as aesthetics, meaning a unified form that produces the desired end through a creative process.

[InRelativeObscurity]

Thanks for posting! Really appreciate that you have been continuing such good content at such a consistent pace!

[vp]

Yes I remember reading about Dewey's "consummatory experience" for both art and nature.

[lovewinsall]

These lectures are outstanding. It's a great gift to sidewalk philosophy for people who don't exercise, or educate, their imaginations enough. I appreciate it.

[brb]

I see Dewey not as left and right but as a populist. When I was living in Tashkent, I traveled from metro station to metro station just to experience them. Each station has a design and aesthetic that says something about the place in which it is located. (After a devastating earthquake in the 1960s, the metro was rebuilt in imitation of the Moscow metro system.) Each station for travelers is a peak aesthetic experience within the continuity of experience as a whole.

[pyb.]

Great presentation these ideas. Peirce should absolutely be covered in one of your future videos.

[artlessons]

I have already made a comment, though after another listen, I reflected upon hearing a former Art auctioneer for Christie's. He said after the final bid ( very high with masterpieces), the audience applauded the bidder, not the artist, as it raised the bar ( capitalist) or with their collections. It was an ego step on the society ladder. The artist who produced the work took the second stage. A divide caused by capitalism. Dewey would certainly see the divide.

[libinandrews]

Interesting take on the issue. But i find our art theoreticians and aestheticians focuss more on the creation of the art by the artist or the generative qualities that make a work of art aesthetics in its unique sense rather than art as an aesthetic/perceptive experience that which arises from the unity of the spectator and art, contrary to the view you have raised in the video. I like Dewey's opinion as Artistic/Aesthetic experience as an intensification of our ordinary every day experience. Do you think Dewey envisions a difference between the Artistic experience of the artist and Aesthetic experience of the seer or Do you think he was content with creation and reception paradigm as the criteria for conceiving aesthetic experience like his aesthetic predecessors?

[carolinemiles]

Hi! Love your videos! Can you please do a video on paul ricoeur’s the rule of metaphor? I’m using it for my thesis and it would be so helpful.

[laurenrigby]

I'm trying to read this book for class and I'm so lost!

[robertalenrichter]

I've always liked this one. "The word "snob" belongs to the sour-grapes variety." -- Logan Pearsall Smith

[a.e.jabbour]

I was moved to tears when I saw Michelangelo's David for the first time, in real space. OTOH, I was moved to tears when I first saw "Titanic." Honestly. So, I'm not sure what that says about me. Believe me, I'm not equating Michelangelo and James Cameron. But the effect that both their artworks had on me was indeed similar. I wish I knew what make of that. I don't. Art is supposed to be emotionally intense. It's very confusing.

[tiramisuvodka]

hii, do you plan on doing a video on anti-œdipus?

[brunocoltrane]

new subscriber here. any chance you be doing a video about french philosopher Françoise Vergès's un feminism decoloniel? Thank you so much for your work here,

[cagdasozgun]

What do you people think about 'the unity of life death' by Otto Freundlich?

[robertalenrichter]

The label "snob" readily gets pinned on people passionate about arts and culture, but status-seeking, rampant in all walks of life, in all social milieus, rarely gets named or even noticed. Every single selfie taken in front of a celebrity is blatant snobbism, defined as the attempt to burnish one's social status by way of association. The noun "snob" is simply society's way of letting you know which forms of thought and behaviour are acceptable, and which aren't.

[Richard.HistoryLit]

One has to wonder exactly what effect art had on its recipients.

[doylesaylor]

As usual a very great sense of clarity to discussing various persons philosophical pronouncements. That said, Dewey seems far less meaningful talking about art. What sort of unity does a movie have as an example? In my view the culture would say a movie is a gold standard of realism. So Dewey’s comments about making art with a movie would be too vague to amount to any sort of help picking up a movie camera and pointing it.