Aesthetics

John Dewey’s interpretation of aesthetic theory stands apart for its emphasis on aesthetics as a pathway to achieving qualitative understanding. Central to Dewey’s approach are qualitative structures that prioritise sensitivity to the immediacy of experience. He famously writes in Art as Experience (1934):

“An experience has a unity that gives it its name, that meal, that storm, that rupture of friendship. The existence of this unity is constituted by a single quality that pervades the entire experience despite the variation of its parts.”

This notion of unity highlights the richness of lived moments when they are experienced as they truly are. Dewey believed that an experience becomes fully aesthetic when we attend closely to the particularity of the moment, rescuing it from the generalities, stereotypes, and habits of perception that so often cloud our understanding. Aesthetic experience therefore allows us to “rescue things from generalities, stereotypes, preconceptions, and habits” to fully appreciate what it reveals of itself in our everyday lives.

The Artist as Thinker

For Dewey, the artist embodies qualitative thinking. Unlike the scientist, who relies on symbols and abstractions, the artist’s thought process is embedded directly in the medium. Dewey (1934, p. 16) elaborates:

“The artist does his thinking in the very qualitative media he works in, and the terms lie so close to the object that he is producing that they merge directly into it.”

This alignment of thought and medium distinguishes the artist’s process as a unique form of inquiry, one rooted in relationships between qualities. Artists therefore demonstrate a heightened capacity for critical judgment, often bypassing the constraints of formal logic.

The Stages of Qualitative Thinking

Dewey rejected the dichotomy between art and science, asserting that “science is an art, that art is practice, and that the only distinction worth drawing is not between practice and theory, but between those modes of practice that are not intelligent, not inherently and immediately enjoyable, and those which are full of enjoyed meanings” (Experience and Nature, 1926, p. 358). This idea underscores the universality of inquiry, whether in art or science, as a process rooted in engagement, experimentation, and discovery.

Inquiry as an Artistic Process

Dewey’s analysis of inquiry, outlined in How We Think (1910), mirrors the creative process:

1. A felt difficulty
2. Its location and definition
3. Suggestion of possible solutions
4. Development of suggestions through reasoning
5. Further observation and experimentation
6. Conclusion: belief or disbelief

This alignment between artistic creation and intellectual inquiry has inspired academic studies that place artists at the center of qualitative exploration. As Dewey (1934) notes, the historical separation of the artisan from rational, contemplative thought has limited the appreciation of art as an intellectual endeavor. By recognising the artist’s role as a thinker, we elevate the significance of creative work as a mode of understanding the world.

Until next time,

Mon x