A Reflection on the Relationship between Art and Life in Dewey's Thought (based on the concept of experience)

Abstract

Dewey's book "Art as Experience", can be considered as a manifesto of pragmatist aesthetics, in which Dewey uses the insights of Darwinian theory of evolution and his pragmatist principles through focusing on the concept of "experience" and aesthetic experience, to bring art back to the everyday life of human beings in today's world. Although, Dewey's view of experience in its general sense, as an interaction between human and his/her environment, has a Darwinian basis, but as Dewey's analysis shows, especially in his describing about the aesthetic experience, the concept of experience goes beyond the Darwinian conception and takes cultural and social dimensions. In this article, meanwhile reviewing the meaning of experience in Dewey's thinking and the relationship between aesthetic experience and the experience in its general sense, we try to show the connection between art and life by relying on Dewey's views in "Art as Experience". In addition, we attempt to demonstrate, most of the examples that Dewey cites as the basis of aesthetic experiences are positive life experiences, and by doing so, he unintentionality ignores negative experiences and reduces the circle of aesthetic experience to pleasant experiences.

Keywords

• experience in the general sense
• aesthetic experience
• art and life
• art as experience
• john dewey