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JOHN DEWEY'S AESTHETICS OF EVERY DAY LIFE
Abstract
John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American pragmatist under the influence of Charles Darwin's evolutionism. In 1934 he published his aesthetic summa Art as Experience. In the book he promoted a new approach to art and introduced understanding of it as an indispensable part of human life in the contrast to regarding art as an exclusive activity reserved for the chosen. Art for Art's Sake slogan was something he found harmful and openly criticized. For Dewey art is born out of daily experiences of a human being interacting with and within his/her environment. Art in germ is present even in natural environment and animals can also have fulfilling interactions with their surroundings in the pursuit of life. Hence rudiments of art might be found on the biological level. As interactions and experiences change, art evolves with them as well because art as such is experience itself. It has been developing from primitive interactions to more complex aesthetic experiences in human life. Two kinds of aesthetic experience might be distinguished in Dewey's aesthetic. The first one – aesthetic experience sensu stricto, the second – aesthetic experience sensu largo. The former one happens when a human being is interacting with a piece of art or is making a piece of art regardless of any outer purpose. The pure intrinsic involvement during the process of interacting with something or making something artistic/aesthetic (Dewey didn't distinguish between aesthetic and artistic) is a reason for creating aesthetic experience sensu stricto. However, this notion is much less interesting and fruitful than the aesthetic experience sensu largo which is central to Art as Experience and is called an experience by Dewey. It is born out of daily routine and forms the core of Dewey's aesthetics of every day life.
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