The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey: Reflections on Aesthetics, Morality, Science, and Society ed. by Larry Hickman et al. (review)
- The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey: Reflections on Aesthetics, Morality, Science, and Society ed. by Larry Hickman et al.
It seems philosophers often feel compelled to assess the continuing relevance of their chosen fields of specialization and/or their favorite philosophers. While this volume does not set out to prove that the philosophy of John Dewey is of continuing relevance (and it is difficult to imagine how one would prove such a thing), several of the included essays explicitly argue that Dewey's work provides resources to advance contemporary philosophical debates. The collection was assembled from essays presented at a June 2009 conference at the University of Opole in southern Poland, held in honor of the 150th anniversary of Dewey's birth. The very fact that sesquicentennial conferences like this one were held all over the world to memorialize Dewey's birth does bear witness to his global relevance to many academic philosophers. I cannot discuss each essay in detail but will strive to give prospective readers a general impression of the value of this compilation.
The book includes seventeen essays organized into four sections: "Aesthetics," "Ethics," "Science and Logic," and "Society." Some of [End Page 391] the authors are probably little known to Western scholars, but the quality of the essays in this volume demonstrates that their work should receive more global attention in the future. Perhaps due to my own biases, I was particularly interested in the "Aesthetics" and "Society" sections.
The book opens with John Ryder's "Experience, Knowledge and Art," in which he discusses the "intellectual dimension to the experience of art" (p. 11). Ryder is quite clear that he does not claim aesthetic experience must have an intellectual dimension, but that "a cognitive dimension is at least a contingent feature of art" (p. 11). He puts off the question of whether the cognitive dimension is a feature of art or our experience of art but asserts that art can give meaning to chaotic experience by bringing a particular focus to it. Ryder lists many functions of art to illustrate Dewey's point about its cognitive potentialities: art can "express ideals," teach moral or ideological lessons, "suggest a critical analysis," "describe social status," "be highly politically charged," and "puncture political pretensions" (p. 13). Ryder does not restrict his attention to visual arts, also listing lessons we can learn from literature. Rather than merely convey information, great literature "exposes one to the range of experience and the possibilities inherent in it" (p. 13). Expressionist and abstract art can also have an intellectual dimension. Nonetheless, Ryder agrees with Dewey's criticism of Romanticism and mysticism for insisting too strongly on higher truth conveyed through art. Ultimately, Ryder avers that he agrees with John McDermott's emphasis on the aesthetic nature of all experience. Knowledge gained from art is "more of something other than 'knowledge that' " (15).
Although the essay is essentially programmatic, Ryder draws on the work of Dewey, Susanne Langer, and Justus Buchler for suggestions on how to continue research into a naturalistic epistemological theory that can "encompass knowledge in and through art" (p. 16). Dewey contributes the idea that both the conduct of scientific research and the creation of art are creative processes. For Langer, both art and science are symbolic forms; the former expresses human feeling and the latter enables "thought and discursive communication" (p. 22). Nonetheless, for Langer, the artistic expression of feeling can have a cognitive dimension; it enables us to know the "subjective aspect of experience" (pp. 22-23) and is not reducible to discursive knowledge. Buchler was critical of Dewey's "tendency to think of knowledge in terms of inquiry" (p. 23). Ryder believes Buchler's expansive theory of judgment (i.e., assertive, exhibitive, and active judgment) and his concept of query can help Deweyans develop a richer conception of knowledge that accounts more thoroughly for knowledge gained from art.
The other five essays in the "Aesthetics" section also emphasize that, for Dewey, we need a...
