Aesthetic Experience and the Revelation of Value

Author(s): Jeffrey Petts

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter, 2000), pp. 61-71
Published by: Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 JEFFREY PETTS
Aesthetic Experienceand the Revelationof Value
A cursory reading of the literatureon aesthetic
experience might discourage further inquiry,
seemingly leaving one to conclude with Christo-
pherJanawaythat "thenotion of an aesthetic at-
titude deserves to be treated with some scepti-
cism,"' a skepticism most famously associated
with George Dickie's article "The Myth of the
Aesthetic Attitude."2Even after forty years of
writing on the subject Monroe Beardsley addi-
tionally wonders whetherit is worthwhile,even
assuming that it is possible, distinguishing aes-
thetic experience from other kinds of experi-
ence.3 His doubt is that any proper account of
aesthetic experiencewill not amountto muchby
way of impact on other theoretical work. John
McDowell should reassure Beardsley and any
inquirerinto aestheticexperience:when he asks,
"how can a mere feeling constitute an experience
in which the world reveals itself to us?,"4 he
captures the single most important theme of
such an inquiry and its tenor. How is a particu-
lar kind of humanfelt response to the world, an
aestheticexperience,helpfulto us in ourattempts
to know something of that world? We ask this
questionbecause,as McDowellputsit, "aesthetic
experience presents itself as a confrontation
with value: an awarenessof value as something
residingin an object and availableto be encoun-
tered."'5With this in mind, the notion of aes-
thetic experience is thus itself confronted as
something other than simply a "disinterested"
encounter with artworks, as it is most com-
monly conceived; and an account of aesthetic
experience becomes significant to value theory
at least. So McDowell's preliminaryobservation
about aesthetic experience challenges the skep-
tical position that there is no such thing to in-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism58:1 Winter2000
quire into, and suggests the possibility of as-
suagingthe doubtthateven a positive accountof
aesthetic experience will not generate much
philosophical interest, in both cases by linking
aesthetic experienceto questions aboutvalue.
But the nature of the doubt is changed and
takes on a new significance, no longer simply a
doubt about the possibility and fruitfulness of
an inquiry into aesthetic experience, but now
that the inquiry has the initial go-ahead, so to
speak, a doubtaboutthe very natureof such per-
sonal human experiences and their real relation
to value. This doubt centers on the thoughtthat
each of these felt experiences, the aesthetic ex-
periences of individual human beings, is trivial
and insignificant in isolation and hardly repre-
sents groundsfor any claims to knowledgeof the
world. Such feelings do not count at all in the
sciences, do they? And the moral landscape is
not revealed by taking into account everyone's
feelings about what is right and wrong, is it?
And in the arts, is not beauty simply "in the eye
of the beholder"?In philosophy,such doubtand
then denial of the epistemologicalcredibilityof
aesthetic experiencehas amountedto the claim
that there is no such confrontationwith value
dwelling in things in the world or "in the fabric
of the world"when we experiencethe worldaes-
thetically,but rather,value is something that re-
sides in us and that we project onto the world.
Value,then, is taken to be subjective.McDowell
argues convincingly (as others have) that this
equationof objective and "fabricof the world,"
that is, where objective refers us to the proper-
ties of things thatdo not requirea descriptionin-
volving any reference to how we feel when we
come acrossthem, is false. Furthermore,it is sug-
62
gested, it is possible to give an accountof objec-
tive propertiesthatdoes involve, ratherthan ab-
stractout, referencesto individuals'felt responses
to things in the environment.McDowell' s ques-
tion abouthow a "merefeeling"can revealvalue,
which, rephrased,is a question aboutthe nature
and status of aesthetic experience, is therefore
credible and not one to be quickly dismissed.
Already, in rejecting a crude duality of subject
and object, something is being said about aes-
thetic experience: namely, that it is an experi-
ence of something in the world. McDowell's de-
scription of aesthetic experience as a "mere
feeling" is not a denial, then, of the intentional-
ity of aesthetic experience,but an expression of
the existential doubt that human beings can re-
ally get access to the world of things, can everbe
said truly to know and to value them. McDow-
ell's questionis a promptto a positive accountof
aesthetic experience and an overcoming of this
doubt. So first: whatcharacterizesthis "feeling"
called aesthetic experience? In answering this
question I intend to reconstructthe account of
aesthetic experiencegiven by JohnDewey in the
opening chaptersof Art as Experience.6
II
Dewey gives an account of aesthetic experience
that, I believe, capturestwo ideas central to it:
thatit involves a process or "movement"basic to
humanlife, and thatthis has a distinctive end or
"consummation."7The fundamental "move-
ment"of aesthetic experienceis said to be set by
the biological demands of being a "live crea-
ture":so "while man is other than bird or beast,
he shares basic vital functions with them and
has to make the same basal adjustmentsif he is
to continue the process of living."8I take this to
mean that living in a physical environmentwith
a definite neurophysiologyable to function in
certainways, yet vulnerableto thatenvironment,
sets up life challenges for each human creature;
and the life of so adjusting to one's environ-
ment, of facing and responding to challenges,
establishes a basic rhythmto existence, of inte-
gration, new challenge, and reintegration.For
Dewey,integrationwith one's environment(what
could be called "outerharmony")is the biologi-
cal source, the necessary condition, of every
propersense of "innerharmony"("innerharmony
is attainedonly when, by some means, termsare
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
made with the environment").9Thus "havingan
experience," for Dewey, is basic to being a
humanbeing.
A man does something ... in consequence he under-
goes, suffers, something. ... The properties thus un-
dergonedeterminefurtherdoing.... The process con-
tinues until a mutual adaptationof the self and the
object emerges and that experience comes to a
close.... The close ... is a felt harmony.'0
Dewey additionallyestablishes a putativere-
lationship between "an experience"and art by
saying that "art celebrates with peculiar inten-
sity" the consummatorymoments of aesthetic
experiences.1'
So-called "ordinary"experiences,by contrast
with aesthetic ones, markfailuresto adaptprop-
erly to one's environment,and are thus "incom-
plete and inchoate."12 I would suggest the sense
we have of them is of at least two kinds: we find
ourselves muddling along with no particular
goal in mind, or we are so concernedwith achiev-
ing goals that events along the way are merely
means to ends. In both cases, Dewey would say
there is a failure to properly unite "movement"
and "consummation"in an aesthetic experienc-
ing of life.
One element at least of Dewey's account is
relatively uncontroversial. Many accounts of
aestheticexperience,whethersympatheticor not
to its significance, will say much the same as his
about the phenomenology of such experience.
Dewey says experiencescome to a close, which
becomes defining of them, so that we can talk
about that meal and that encounter."An experi-
ence," an aesthetic experience, has a special
kind of ending that Dewey calls a "consumma-
tion": so a job is felt to be satisfactorily com-
pleted, a problem is felt to be solved, a game is
played through"fair and square."For Dewey a
"consummation"of an experiencedoes not sim-
ply representthe fact that a job is well done, a
problemsolved, a game properlyover:just to do
this could involve no more than checking that
certain rules or instructions have been carried
out. The aesthetic experience is not a response
to having checked that things have worked ac-
cording to plan; rather there is a feeling that
things are "justso." This feeling of "harmony"
or "rightness"that can come about in our expe-
rience of things is a featurebasic to our aesthet-
Petts AestheticExperienceand the Revelationof Value
ically experiencing them. In accounts of aes-
thetic experienceit is often just the terminology,
ratherthan the phenomenology,that differs; so,
for example, Anthony Savile may argue that a
full understandingof a work of art involves see-
ing it in terms of artistic intention and stylistic
constraints, but still the understanding must
"click"into place as a felt response to the work,
as a feeling thateverythingis "justright."'13 But
here too is the point at which genuine dispute
about the natureof aesthetic experiencebegins,
for accounts like Savile's insist the aesthetic
experience is more than just a raw feeling of
"rightness"and must involve additionallysome
specifiable intellectual content. Correctly,Sav-
ile contends that a felt response to a work of art
is deficient if it can be reportedas no more than
the feeling of "rightness."If this was all aes-
thetic experience amounted to, then we might
make intensity of feeling a gauge of value, with
the greatest counting for the most; but plainly
we do not. Still, theories like Savile's are liable
to recast"aestheticexperience"as a critical aes-
thetic attitude (so in Savile's view, for example,
it is a properunderstandingof artistic intention
and style "clicking" into place); alternatively,
"aestheticexperience"might be left in the triv-
ial and uncontroversialrole of "the moment
things click into place." What I take Dewey to
be saying is thataestheticexperienceis neithera
trivial(andpossibly expendable)"feltresponse"
nor a "criticalapproach"to art (or to anything
else for thatmatter),but is an experiencethatac-
companies and marks a job that has been well
done, a problemthat has been solved, a work of
art that is beautiful, where animal life (that is,
life characterizedby a biological constitution
and by the need to adaptto a changingenviron-
ment, achievedthroughthe sensory detection of
one's environmentand the capabilityof motion)
is a preconditionof such experience.
To maintain this position, it is not necessary,
nor is it desirable, to support some version of
aesthetic experiencethataccountsfor it in terms
of human beings properly responding instinc-
tivelyto theirenvironment.Unintentionally,per-
haps, Dewey is misleading about the natureof
human aesthetic experience when he gives ex-
amples of the "aesthetic"natureof the interac-
tion of foxes, dogs, and thrushes, and "the sav-
age" with their environments.'4 Their "keen
observation"and "quickaction"in theirenviron-
63
ment, thoughestablishinga "unityof experience,"
a unity of "movement"and "consummation,"
which Dewey rightlysees in aestheticexperience,
nevertheless do not properly indicate the real
nature of strictly human and therefore strictly
aesthetic experience. I will argue that what is
fundamentalin understandingthe "movement"
and "consummation"of aesthetic experience is
the distinctly human practice of criticism. By
this I mean to indicate the essentially critical
natureof aesthetic experience:not that it takes
particularforms in the arts, such as literarycrit-
icism, but that an aesthetic experience is one
that is essentially communicable through lan-
guage and is always open to critical appraisal.
The practice of criticism, I will argue, estab-
lishes that aesthetic experience is not simply a
phenomenologicallydistinct experience,but one
that is axiologically distinct, also, since it is the
basic humanneed to evaluate surroundingsin a
public discourse that establishes the "move-
ment"and "consummation"that distinguishthe
aesthetic from the ordinary.Might it not be ar-
gued, then, that the need to evaluateestablishes
just the kind of "critical attitude"that is sup-
posed not to be constitutiveof aesthetic experi-
ence in a Deweyan sense? I think not, so long as
the following sense of "criticalattitude"is kept
in mind: this sense understands"attitude"in
terms of the physical and mental alertnessnor-
mally associated with human flourishing, so
that"criticalattitude"can conceivablybe under-
stood in terms of a readinessto evaluatethrough
statements publicizing private felt responses,
ratherthan, as is commonly held, in terms of
"disinterest," a kind of disengagement from
practical and personal concerns and focus on
certain preordainedfeatures of artworks, such
as their "problemand style." An understanding
of "critical attitude"in a Deweyan account of
aesthetic experience as an evaluative alertness
might at least help deal with Dewey's other-
wise problematic comments on the aesthetic
characterof nonhumananimal life, by offering
an interpretationof the analogybetween human
and other animal experiencing in terms of the
keen awarenessand sensitivityto one's environ-
ment that would typically be expected of any
thriving memberof any species. Still, the issue
remains, given there is a significant alternative
view of "criticalattitude"built around the no-
tion of "disinterest,"of what is wrong with re-
64
casting aesthetic experience as a critical aes-
thetic attitude.
In answeringthis question I intend in the next
section to examine Dickie's criticism of aes-
thetic attitudetheory as it works against its in-
tended targets, namely EdwardBullough's and
JeromeStolnitz's versions of the "aestheticatti-
tude,"as well as against my ongoing accountof
aesthetic experience.There will be some repeti-
tion of my line as I try to argue it, sometimes
against, sometimes alongside, Dickie's account
of aesthetic experience.
III
Theories about aesthetic attitude acknowledge
that the recognition of the aesthetic value or
beautyof naturaland manmadeobjects involves
a felt responseon the partof the spectator.Their
special contentionis that this response is the re-
sult of cutting out so-called "practical"con-
cerns in encounterswith one's environment.In
the twentiethcentury,the two most notablepro-
ponentsof this contentionhave been Bullough'5
and Stolnitz.'6 Bullough gives the illustrationof
experiencinga fog while on a sea-crossing, and
how by distancing oneself from the practical
dangers this poses to the ship's successfully
completing its crossing, what could be "an ex-
perience of acute unpleasantness"marked by
"anxietyand nervousness"is transformedinto a
moment of "intense relish and enjoyment" as
one's attentionis directed toward, for example,
"thecreamysmoothnessof the water"produced
by the effects of the fog.'7 He takes this exam-
ple as indicative of the appropriateattitude,that
is one of "distancing,"for a spectator of art-
works. One should obviously not, for example,
take a threatutteredby one actor to anotherin a
play as posing a real threat and intervene ac-
cordingly:to do so, in Bullough'sschema,would
be to take an inappropriatepractical attitude,
ratherthan an appropriate"distanced"aesthetic
one. Similarly,Stolnitz defines an aesthetic atti-
tude in terms of its contrastwith "practicalper-
ception":it is a "disinterestedand sympathetic
attentionto and contemplationof any object of
awareness whatever,for its own sake alone."'I8
An example, contends Stolnitz, would be the at-
tention someone gave to the surroundingcoun-
tryside while driving through it, her or his at-
tention, at least momentarily,divertedfrom the
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
practical demands of driving the vehicle. On
such an occasion the driver is attending to the
countryside"simplyfor the sake of enjoyingthe
way it looks."'9 Dickie has famously criticized
aesthetic attitudetheory in its various forms.20
If his criticisms hold against aesthetic attitude
theories,then thereis no justification for recast-
ing aesthetic experience as a kind of aesthetic
attitude.More pertinently,the questionI wish to
addresshere is whetherhis criticismof aesthetic
attitudetheory still leaves intact the possibility
of a Deweyan approachto aesthetic experience,
or whetherthe criticismtakes thatwith it as well.
Aesthetic attitudetheories,then, characterize
the attitudeas a special kind of attention,or mo-
tive for attending, to works of art or naturein
whichthe spectatoradopts,or finds herselfadopt-
ing, a mindset that temporarily puts aside or
"distances"certain practical concerns and pri-
vate interests; such concerns and interests are
deemed inappropriatefor the proper aesthetic
appreciationof art and nature.In other words,
one shouldbe "distancedfrom"or "disinterested"
in one's privateand practicalaffairs when prop-
erly attending aesthetically to something, and
herein is the core of what is meant by "aes-
thetic."But, asks Dickie, whatwould a "distanc-
ing" action be, and what state of consciousness
would be denoted by "being distanced"?He ar-
gues thatwhatis called "distance"is really "pay-
ing attention."Not being "distanced,"like the
man who takes a play for real, or is interested
only in the stagecraft, is just plain and simple
inattention. It follows that "distance"is not a
special kind of attention.Similarly,Dickie criti-
cizes Stolnitz's accountof "disinterest."Since it
means, for one instance of aestheticattitude,lis-
tening with no ulteriorpurpose, so listening to
music disinterestedly means listening with no
ulterior purpose, and interest and disinterest
must representdifferentintentions. But, argues
Dickie, there is no difference in listening. Smith
listening in preparationfor an exam and Jones
listening otherwise can both be moved or bored
by a piece of music. There are, argues Dickie,
different motives and distractionsat work, but
one still just listens.21 Accordingly, the driver
who pays attention for a moment to the sur-
rounding countryside is simply looking atten-
tively at the countryside,and likewise will look
attentively at the road, come the proper time.
Dickie gives an example of possible interested
Petts AestheticExperienceand the Revelationof Value
viewing-"a painting reminds Jones of his
grandfatherand Jones proceeds to muse about
his grandfather's pioneer exploits." He says
Jones is not looking at the painting interestedly;
he is just not attendingto the painting at all. The
storytelling is a distractionfrom attentionto the
painting, and says Dickie, distraction is not a
special case of attention. Furtherexamples of
"interest"can be given that are indeed cases of
inattention or distraction: an impresariois de-
lighted with a play simply because of the full
house it has attractedand the profits he will re-
ceive; a playwrightwatches a rehearsalor stage-
play solely with the intention of reworkingthe
script.
Any positive account of aesthetic experience
mustdemonstratethatDickie's argumentsagainst
therebeing any kind of special aesthetic attitude
do not equally well apply to any theory suggest-
ing there is a special kind of experience called
aesthetic. Dickie would say that ordinary non-
aesthetic experiences, as described by Dewey,
are like the cases of inattention or distraction,
and "an experience"is not a special way of ex-
periencingbutjust what happensif we go about
life with a normaldegree of attentionto our en-
vironment. Superficially there is some truth in
this, since Dewey wishes to argue that aesthetic
experiencingis "proper,"and in that sense, "or-
dinary"experiencing;but I take it that Dickie's
critiqueof "disinterest"does not hold againstthe
moreprofoundaccountof "aesthetic"offeredby
Dewey. Dewey's characterizationof aesthetic
experience does not involve any specific in-
structions (like that to exclude deliberatelypri-
vate and practicalconcerns) on how one should
go about aesthetically experiencing the world,
nor descriptionsof how it is possible to be di-
verted from practicalconcerns into an aesthetic
awareness of one's surroundings.More impor-
tantly, Dewey is right, I believe, to direct atten-
tion in discussion about the "aesthetic" away
from cases of distraction from practical con-
cerns and away from attention to artworks,to-
ward the conditions of human life that give rise
to experiences. There is, first, what he calls a
special "movement" of aesthetic experience.
Dewey's notion of "movement"is one worked
up from Darwinian theory to encompass what
for Dewey is the essentially evolutionaryand in-
teractive natureof human life. He uses "move-
ment" both as a generic term standing for the
65
naturalrhythmof animal life set by the need to
adapt to environments (see section II above);
and more specifically, the term is used to cap-
turethe dynamicof humanlife in which particu-
lar identifiable experiences emerge as succes-
sive and progressive adaptationsto situations.
Dewey notes thathumanbeings are conscious of
this rhythmto their lives, and are thus able in-
tentionallyto manipulateobjects in the environ-
ment as creativemeans to ends, generatingtheir
own adaptations;artistsare exemplaryin caring
particularlyfor this kind of experience.22He ac-
knowledges his use of "biological common-
places,"23but sees them as essential to estab-
lishing a "ground-planof human experience"
from which the aesthetic in experience can be
properly explained.24 The notion of "move-
ment"then, as it stands,is vague insofar as it of-
fers no account of specifically human adaptive
practice,except thatit is a conscious activity ul-
timatelyexpressedin art. But it is my contention
that the notion is instructivein that it sets expe-
riencing in the context of successful environ-
mental adaptation,rooted in human conscious-
ness and biology; additionally,it can be filled
out to provide an importantpart of a more thor-
ough account of human aesthetic experiencing
by inclusion of an accountof criticism, and that
will follow. Second, Dewey states that aesthetic
experiences have special endings called "con-
summations":these need not signal the defini-
tive end of a critical debate, the epistemic com-
pleteness of an experience, nor an end to one's
encounterwith an object; ratherthey are indica-
tive of the fact thatpeople do encountertheiren-
vironmentin such a way that powerful experi-
ences emerge that are marked out and valued,
positively or negatively.
I offer the following as a preliminaryaccount
of the relationbetween the critical "movement"
and the "consummatory"felt response of an
aesthetic experience,and I will begin it with an
accountof strictly aesthetic value, since in both
Bullough and Stolnitz, and thus in Dickie's cri-
tique, only this value is seen to emerge from an
aesthetic attitude to things.25 The aesthetic
value of an object or eventis establishedthrough
a critical discourse that is both prompted and
validated by a felt response or feeling of appro-
bation toward that thing; I must like a work of
art, but for the expression of that liking to be-
come part of the characterizationof the work,
66
and thus help establish the aesthetic value of the
work, I must establish reasons for liking that it
is justified for others to use as a means to af-
fecting a felt response for themselves. My rea-
sons for liking a work of art can, thus, always
potentially enter into the critical discourse that
establishes value. In Deweyan terms, my liking
a work and giving reasons for liking create the
possibility of establishing a fresh "movement"
and "consummation" for others.This view of crit-
icism in the artssees it, not as an end-in-itself,but
ratheras a prompt,an attemptto adjustthe val-
ues and informationtaken to a work, and as re-
quiringsome validationby a consummatingaes-
thetic experience. Criticism in the arts, then, is
understoodas a contributionto the work of art
being evaluated.It is a misunderstandingto see a
piece of criticismas in some way self-contained,
as something to understandindependently of
anotherlook at the work being criticized, if one
is interested in aesthetically experiencing art.
Criticism aimed at establishing aesthetic value
in the arts is an attempt to affect the felt re-
sponse to works. The reasons that are given for
liking a work of art are promptsto "look again"
to see a work that way. As Jeanette Winterson
notes, for the individual this is a continuing
process of reading(or involving oneself in) criti-
cism and looking at works,readingand looking,
(or the other way round), until there is nothing
left to feel but thata work is, maybe, beautiful.26
A consensus of individual feelings, following a
process of "readingand looking,"establishesthe
aesthetic value of works of art. There is no di-
rect sense here, then, in which aesthetic experi-
ences arelike Wittgenstein'sladder:27usedonce,
then thrown away, in this case so the "proper"
business of criticism can commence and com-
plete the task of aesthetic evaluation. Aesthetic
experiences both promptand validate aesthetic
evaluations, so that it can be said that aes-
thetic evaluation subsists entirely in the realm
of aesthetic experience.
Such an account gives a role for the motives
and special interests of individuals in the aes-
thetic appreciationof works of art, so that the
differences in motive that Dickie recognizes do
have significance when it comes to aesthetic
evaluation.An aesthetic evaluationthatis of the
kind "this is beautifulbecause..." involves a felt
response to, for example, a work of art and giv-
ing reasonsfor being moved. These reasonsmay
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
include "interests."Taking Dickie's example of
Jones being reminded of his grandfatherby a
painting, what if Jones expresses a liking for the
painting in terms of "grandfatherliness"?Then
Jones is not inattentive; his story about his
grandfatheris, of course, a sign of inattention,
except insofar as it might be generalized, and
possibly affect others' viewing and apprecia-
tion. The importantdistinctionto make, then, is
between interests that can and cannot become
"partof the painting" for the purposes of aes-
thetic appreciation:if Jonesjust sees his grand-
father in the painting, then this interest is criti-
cally irrelevant (cannot become "part of the
painting");but if Jones builds on this personal
experience to account for his appreciation in
terms of "grandfatherliness,"then he opens his
liking to public, criticalappraisal,and the possi-
bility that the painting will be valued in those
terms.Dickie is rightaboutthe psychology of at-
tention, and rightthereforeto criticize the "dis-
interest"theory: one either attends or does not
attendto works of art. But this does not rule out
the possibility of all kinds of motives and inter-
ests being involved in aesthetic evaluation.The
problem with the interest shown by the play-
wright who wants to rewrite the play he is
watching is not that it is an interest per se, but
that it cannot be part of a play, and therefore
cannot be part of any aesthetic evaluation.The
same can be said of an impresario'soverriding
interest in the numberof people coming to see
the play. Another way of putting this is to say
that the impresario'sdelight at a full house (or
any other similar kind of interest) is not part of
the superveniencebase of the work for the pur-
poses of aestheticevaluation:the aestheticvalue
of a play superveneson other properties it can
be reasonably argued to possess, never on the
qualityof "fullhouseness"a play has. This, then,
is not supportfor a "determinationview" of aes-
thetic value, which says something is beautiful
because it has various substantive properties.
The view here is that criticism establishes aes-
thetic value. The superveniencebase of a work
of artbecomes as fluid or as rigid as the practice
of criticism itself. The fact that evaluations of
works have changed over time with changing
criticalpracticeis a fact independentof the logic
of value words expressed by the supervenience
relation.
The general conclusion is that it does make
Petts Aesthetic Experienceand the Revelationof Value
sense to see "interests"as always potentially
part of the process of establishing aesthetic
value. "Disinterest"can only be said to have a
role in aesthetic evaluationso long as Stolnitz's
technical sense of the word is dispensed with.
The Shorter OxfordEnglish Dictionary defini-
tion of "disinterest"as "unbiasedby personalin-
terest" suggests, albeit partially,that one's rea-
sons for liking a work of art must be capable of
a public avowal and a place in a discussion that
is moving its participantsto an aesthetic appre-
ciation of a work of art.28But the philosophical
problem about "interests"is not that some are
biased and self-serving, like the impresario's
delight in financial profit, but that some are in-
escapably personal. Personal motives for liking
a work of art can mobilize an aesthetic evalua-
tion, so long as they can motivate me to inform
and ultimatelymove others to aesthetic appreci-
ation. Biased and self-servinginterests,no doubt,
find it impossible to make the transformation
from personal to public. It is only in reflecting
some sense of this that the concept of "disinter-
est" adds to understandingin aesthetics.
I believe this initial adaptation of Dewey's
accountof "movement"and "consummation"to
include a preliminaryaccountof the role of criti-
cism in aesthetic experience is sufficient to es-
tablish, contra Dickie, a separateclassification
of experiences called "aesthetic."An aesthetic
experienceis privatelyfelt but intrinsicallypub-
lic in that it is markedby a consummatingmo-
ment that is faced as a confrontationwith value,
and as such demands an explanation, which in
turn opens the story of the experience to criti-
cism. Aesthetic experiences are therefore phe-
nomenologicallyand axiologically distinct. The
aesthetic experience of art and nonart contains
and demands a structured,critical experience,
markingthe site and demandingan explanation
of value, thus distinguishingit from the nonaes-
thetic, demonstrably unstructured, uncritical,
and inarticulate.Acknowledging and accepting
Dickie's criticism of the "aesthetic attitude,"
cast as "disinterest"or "distance,"does not there-
fore preclude the possibility of a Deweyan ac-
count of a distinct experiencecalled aesthetic.
IV
The suggestion that there is a class of experi-
ences called aesthetic that are revelatoryof the
67
real value of things is challenged on at least two
fronts. The first challenge is to the sense in
which aesthetic experiences can be said to be
"revelatory"in any sense; my defense has been
an exposition of aesthetic value in terms of the
critical movement and felt consummation of
aesthetic experience,and in this I have drawnon
the work of Dewey on the patterns of experi-
ence, and on David Wiggins's sophisticatedsub-
jectivism. The second challenge now faced is to
argue that a "merefeeling," as McDowell calls
it, thatrevealsvalue, albeita feeling thatemerges
from and is tested by publicly accountablelived
experience, is not merely revelatoryof a cultur-
ally bound set of traditional values. Marcia
Muelder Eaton poses this challenge when she
argues that aesthetic experience is a socially
constructed emotional response to objects and
situations.29My contention is that while aes-
thetic experience shares the intentionality of
emotions, i.e., thataesthetic experienceis an ex-
perienceof something, it is not an emotion in the
sense that Eaton understands emotional re-
sponses. My argument,in short, is thataesthetic
experience is not simply a socially constructed
responseto environment,an emotionalresponse
fixed by culturaltraditions,but is defining of a
moreprofoundnatural(to be explained)response
of human beings to their environment,without
which it would be inexplicablehow any cultural
preferencescould emerge from that experience.
Eatonlists three featuresof emotions, namely
that they are learned, culture bound, and so-
cially prescribed and proscribed, all of which
are said to be characteristicof aesthetic experi-
ence. So first, "how one feels depends to a great
extent on how one learns one is expected to
feel."30 But surely this is misleading at best,
even allowing that the phrase "to a greatextent"
leaves room for feelings that are not simply de-
pendenton learning. My humancapacity to feel
a range of emotional responses to my environ-
ment first indicates my capacity to feel as a
human, not simply my capacity to "do" fear,
hate, love, and so on. Of course this kind of
"teaching"of emotions goes on all the time, but
we call it indoctrination or manipulation or
some such term, and we associate it in the twen-
tieth centurywith totalitarianpolitics and prod-
uct advertising.The idea here is that althoughit
is possible to interferewith the interactionof an
individual with his or her environment(so, for
68
example, a politician lies aboutthe threatposed
by "others,"a corporationlies aboutthe benefits
of its product), still as individuals we must to
some extent"undergo"ourenvironment(we deal
with others,we use products),and in this process
an independentevaluationof ourenvironmentis
made possible. Eaton's argument amounts to
saying that we can hate (or whatever emotion
one wantsto choose) anything.Butfor how long?
In what circumstances? Her answer, presum-
ably,is for as long as a "culture"decides that"x"
should be an object of hate: "emotionsdevelop
in and are shapedby a community's beliefs and
values."'31But I think this misses the point about
whatis at stake in actuallyexperiencingfor one-
self an object or situationin the world. It is right,
of course, to note that a community will share
values, and also that it acts in such a way that
emotional responses are reinforcedby appealto
shared values. But this is just a snapshot of a
community,any community,while it is working
as such. It cannot be concluded from this that
the community,throughthe evaluatingof some
members,is generatinglive emotionalresponses
that allow individuals to flourish in the world,
and that is what is at stake in our experiencing
the world:a community'svalues will not sustain
it for many generationsif they are not informing
emotionalresponsesthatdo just that. In criticiz-
ing "social constructivism" about emotions, I
acknowledgethere is some truthin the idea that
"hate,"for example, is sometimes taught.I have
heard it said that the British people were taught
to hate Germans during the last World War;
surely the point is, however, that such "hate"
could not be sustained in a post-Nazi era where
the real threatof Nazism had gone, without the
feeling being properly characterizedas simple
prejudice,and one clearly detrimentalto the real
need to live in a peaceful relationshipwith Ger-
many.Only in this context, of successful human
developmentin the world, can it be agreed, as
Eaton would have it that "emotionsare socially
prescribedand proscribed."32
Eaton's account suffers further because it is
based on an assumption that an aesthetic re-
sponse is a response to art, something revealed
in her examples (for example, "one is not born
able to distinguisha fugue from a gigue")33and
explicitly with the comment that "we teach art
appreciation(i.e., aesthetic response)."34This
model of aesthetic experienceautomaticallysets
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
it within culturalconstraints since it identifies
aesthetic response with an intellectualized art
appreciationdependenton knowledge of a body
of existing works of art, so that it follows, of
course, that so-called aesthetic response must
be taught.
Dewey provides a sharply contrastingmodel
of aesthetic experience, one that can, at least,
support a transculturalview of its nature,built
up from an identification of "commonpatterns
in variousexperiences,no matterhow unlikethey
are in details of subject."35This could be taken
as simply an acknowledgementof the intention-
ality of experience. But Dewey continues with,
as I take it, an account of the intentionalityof
experience that provides us with something
more thanjust the barefact thatan experienceis
an experience of. So he says that an experience
is a process of "doing" and "undergoing"be-
tween an individual and an object or situation,
the process inauguratedin either way and cul-
minating in some adaptationof self and object.
Calling this the "naturalhistory of intentional-
ity," it is possible to account for "aestheticre-
sponses"in terms otherthanthose set by the so-
cial constructivist, who sees nothing but an
emotion and an object of emotion with no expe-
rientialnexus other than that set by the logic of
intentionality. For Eaton, aesthetic responses
are specific kinds, like sentimentality,and are
aboutart; and each responsehas its own history
that can be researchedby examining how, for
example, the use of the term "sentimentality"
has changed over the centuries.Of course, it is
possible and legitimate to write a history of the
use of a term of aesthetic evaluation;the posi-
tive and negative connotationsof "sentimental"
when applied to works of art over the last two
hundred years could be traced and simply
recorded, but this work of culturalhistory and
social psychology would not amount to an ac-
count of aesthetic experienceas such.
I suggest,then,thata preliminaryandplausible
defense of the thesis thataestheticexperienceis,
to put it summarily,revelatoryof real value has
been made againstthe social constructivist.Aes-
thetic experienceis not learned, culture-bound,
or socially controlled:if it were, it is problem-
atic to properlycharacterizeit as a genuinely af-
fective response to objects and situations,since
the possibility is then entertainedthatany object
can be respondedto in any way: and if this were
Petts Aesthetic Experienceand the Revelationof Value
the case, humanbeings would, absurdlyand un-
naturally,no longer be ultimately interested in
their own well-being. That aesthetic experience
is revelatory of real value in the world can be
further adduced by recognizing that the inten-
tionality of experienceis not simply a logical re-
lation capableof any content, but has its charac-
ter set by the natureof human interactionwith
the environment.
The view that an experience can be, in some
way,"revelatory" is normallyassociatedwithreli-
gious or quasi-religiousrevelation,where "reve-
lation" stands for an experiential process by
which God's "truth"or some supernatural "truth"
is made known to people. Indeed, the first three
of four definitions in The Shorter OxfordEn-
glish Dictionary are references to this kind of
"revelation,"and only the fourth allows revela-
tion to be entirelyworldly,whereit means simply
"disclosure"or "exposure."36Although my un-
derstandingand use of "revelation"is worldlyin
that I do not see aesthetic experience revealing
religious or supernaturaltruths (whateverthese
might be), my use is inspiredby the religious de-
finition: it gives a sense of therebeing a process
not entirelywithinthe hands of humanbeings by
which truth is revealed, a sense, it seems to me,
thatis missingfromthe worldlydefinition,which
presents a more prosaic picture of people ex-
changinginformation.The religioussenseof "rev-
elation,"then, accordswith the idea thatthere is
such a thing as real value in the world, some-
thing having roots in the relation of people and
their environment, not simply in that between
people, as the worldlysocial constructivistwould
have it. Still, it is relatively easy for this sense,
even when understoodin the context of people's
relation to their environment, to be contorted
back into a quasi-religiousunderstandingof the
rootsof value:"revelation"becomes shamanistic.
A shamanistic view of the relation between
people and theirenvironment,as I will sketchit,
has it thatvalue is determinedby nature,and our
access to this value is by directfeeling. Natureis
imbuedwith "spirit,"which "speaks"to those in
direct contact with it, revealing itself and our
proper relationship to it. The shaman "hears"
nature tell us how we should be "at one" with
it.37 A shamanistic view, then, is worldly and
revelatory: it is nature that speaks. But this,
speaking ironically, is a "SuperNature"38un-
known to people, except throughsome inexplic-
69
able, extraordinary,and inarticulatefeeling pos-
sessed by a few, and immutable,speakingwith a
single voice for eternity.This relationof people
and environment contrasts sharply with that
suggested by the notion of aesthetic experience
where, in Deweyan terms, there is a mutual
adaptationinvolvedin the relationof people and
environment.
Only part, of course, of any individual'senvi-
ronmentis composed of nature;there are other
people, ideas, and the builtenvironment,too. But
the patternof mutual adaptationin the process
of our aesthetically experiencing all these as-
pects of our environment, and the way value
emerges, is the same. "Mutualadaptation"hap-
pens when an individual reassesses a relation-
ship with a friendor colleague or familymember
and comes to a new and satisfactory arrange-
ment; or reconsiders his views about life and
settles on some promising world view; or criti-
cally reviews the art and industryabouthim. In
each case the individualis active in engagement
with the environment,and questions about the
propriety of relations with other people one
knows, of the right science and morality,of the
beauty of art and artifice, are settled in the dia-
logue that ensues when one has friends, col-
leagues, and family, when one considers differ-
ent ideas, when one attends to more and more
art. Of course, one can fail to listen to others,
stick with some dogma, pursue a narrowrange
of experiences,eitherdeliberatelyor by default.
But it is just this kind of experiencingthat sets
aestheticexperienceapartas revelatoryof value.
One-sided experiencing does not meet the de-
mands set by humanflourishingsince it is basic
to humanneed, I take it, that relationshipswith
other people are mutuallybeneficial, that ideas
have sustainable material and moral benefits,
and that the beautyof the human-madeworld is
a matterof commonjudgment. Similarly,then,
with nature:a person is not a passive earpiece
before nature, as the shamanistic view has it;
nor can she do with it as she will if she wishes to
survive for long in it: the relationshipis struc-
tured aroundhuman need (one example of this
relationship might be sustainable agriculture).
Aesthetic experience, then, can be said to be
revelatory of real value because it marks an
adaptive felt response of humans to their envi-
ronment, and this adaptabilityis grounded in
humanneeds.39
70
D. C. Mathurhas rightly pointed out that the
concept of "pervasive quality" is central to
Dewey's account of the aesthetic: in Deweyan
terms,the unitythatgives an experienceits name
as thatexperienceis constitutedby a qualitythat
pervades the whole experience.4 Mathur'sre-
minder is salutary. Aesthetic experience is not
markedout in Dewey's accountas simply a con-
summatory felt response to something; if it
were, an experience might be built around any
human want. But then, wishing to hold to the
basic structureof the accountof aesthetic expe-
rience that Dewey provides, what is the "qual-
ity" thatholds an experiencetogether?Relation-
ships with other people, thoughts, and the built
and naturalenvironmentset problemsof adapta-
tion, and these arise, I have argued,because hu-
mans must flourish in the world. "Quality"or
value, then, is a function of need. A consumma-
tory felt response marks out an experience in
which a need has been satisfactorilymet, which
is a furtherway of saying that aesthetic experi-
ence is revelatoryof value.
So some featuresof aesthetic experiencehave
been establishedthatcontrastsharplywith those
set out by the "social constructivist"thesis (and,
incidentally,a "shamanistic"viewpoint).In sum-
mary: aesthetic experience is a naturalfelt re-
sponse. Humansshare a common neurophysiol-
ogy that sets a capacity to feel; feelings are
feelings about the world (naturaland human-
made), and they set up challenges (which in turn
inauguratecritical practices) to adapt success-
fully to it. Aesthetic experience involves a con-
summatoryfelt response,a successfuladaptation
to the environment.And successful adaptationis
controlledby need. In short:aestheticexperience
is a critical, adaptive felt response, revealing
value in the world.
The significance of such an experienceis per-
haps particularlytelling in considerationof cul-
turesthatneglect the experientialbasis of value,
undermining in various ways (for example,
through political propagandaor aggressive ad-
vertising) the role of personal experience and
public debatein its determination.Moraland re-
ligious imperativesmay be thoughtto act as al-
ternativenormativeconstraintsto aesthetic ex-
periencing on the potential excesses of such
cultures;but then it is assumed (or argued) that
the "right"and the "holy" can be properly ac-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
counted for without any recourse to the "aes-
thetic." Raising such an issue takes me beyond
the present discussion, but does illustratethat a
Deweyan accountof aesthetic experienceas rev-
elatory of value releases the "aesthetic"into in-
tellectual environs beyond those encouragedby
aesthetic attitudetheorists,and thereforethe im-
portance of clarifying the distinction between
"aestheticattitude"conceivedas a "disinterested"
encounter with artworksand nature,and "aes-
thetic experience"as the live experienceof value
for humanbeings.
JEFFREYPETTS
28B HemingfordRoad
Islington, London, Ni OJU
England
1. ChristopherJanaway,"AestheticAttitude,"in The Ox-
ford Companionto Philosophy,ed. Ted Honderich(Oxford:
Oxford UniversityPress, 1995).
2. George Dickie, "TheMyth of the Aesthetic Attitude,"
American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964): 56-65. Note
that I take both Janaway's and Dickie's skepticism about
"aesthetic attitude"to be meant to hold against "aesthetic
experience,"the terminologicaldifferencebeing of no matter.
3. MonroeBeardsley,"AestheticExperience,"in TheAes-
thetic Point of View, ed. Michael J. Wreen and Donald M.
Callen (CornellUniversityPress, 1982), pp. 285-297.
4. JohnMcDowell, "AestheticValue,Objectivity,and the
Fabricof the World,"in Pleasure,Preferenceand Value,ed.
Eva Schaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983), p. 16. McDowell takes his question to be one about
the relationbetween this special feeling, called aestheticex-
perience,andjust aesthetic value. Yethis broachingthis pu-
tative relationcapturesthe thoughtthatmaybe a "merefeel-
ing" can reveal value, not just aesthetic, but perhapsmoral
and religious, and maybe has a role in our scientific com-
prehension of the world. Although aesthetic value is the
focus of this essay, the broaderoutlook is always in view.
5. Ibid., p. 1.
6. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Perigee
Books, 1980). My intention, then, is not to provide an exe-
gesis of Dewey on aesthetic experience.
7. Ibid., "The Live Creature,"pp. 3-19.
8. Ibid., p. 13.
9. Ibid., p. 17.
10. Ibid., p. 44.
11. Ibid., p. 18.
12. Ibid., p. 35.
13. AnthonySavile, The Testof Time(Oxford:Clarendon
Press, 1982), "Beauty,"pp. 152-190.
14. Dewey, Art as Experience,p. 19.
15. EdwardBullough, "'Psychical Distance' as a Factor
in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle,"in his Aesthetics:Lec-
tures and Essays (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1957), pp.
91-130.
Petts AestheticExperienceand the Revelationof Value
16. Jerome Stolnitz, "The Aesthetic Attitude,"in Intro-
ductory Readings in Aesthetics, ed. John Hospers (New
York:Free Press, 1969), pp. 17-27.
17. Bullough, "'PsychicalDistance,"' pp. 93-94.
18. Stolnitz, "The Aesthetic Attitude,"p. 19.
19. Ibid.
20. George Dickie, "TheMyth of the Aesthetic Attitude,"
pp. 56-65.
21. Ibid., p. 58.
22. Dewey, Art as Experience,p. 15.
23. Ibid., p. 14.
24. Ibid., p. 22.
25. The intention is to demonstratethat a positive and
plausible account of aesthetic experience can be given in
terms other than those effectively criticized by Dickie. The
ideas expressed here are influenced by Wiggins's "sensible
subjectivism,"which states that "genuinelypleasing things
are things that not only please but have this effect because
they are pleasant, where the 'because' introduces explana-
tions and justifications."David Wiggins, "A Sensible Sub-
jectivism," in his Needs, Values,Truth:Essays in the Philos-
ophy of Value(Oxford:Blackwell, 1991), pp. 185-214. The
quote is not direct, but does express the view given on pages
199-200; for "pleasant"one can equally well read "funny,"
"shocking,""disgusting,"and so on.
26. Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects (London: Jonathan
Cape, 1995).
27. LudwigWittgenstein,TractatusLogico-Philosophicus,
trans. D. Pears and B. McGuiness (London: Routledge,
1993), 6.54.
28. TheShorterOxfordEnglishDictionary:On Historical
Principles, 3rd ed., "disinterest."
71
29. Marcia Muelder Eaton, "The Social Constructionof
Aesthetic Response," The British Journal of Aesthetics 35
(1995): 95-107.
30. Ibid., p. 96.
3 1. Ibid., p. 97.
32. Ibid., p. 98.
33. Ibid., p. 101.
34. Ibid., p. 105.
35. Dewey, Art as Experience,p. 16.
36. TheShorter OxfordEnglish Dictionary, 3rd ed., "rev-
elation."
37. This set of views informs, for example, Gablik's view
(Suzi Gablik, The Reenchantmentof Art [London: Thames
and Hudson, 1991]) of the properfunction of art (the artist
should adopt the role of the shaman).Here the shamanistic
viewpoint is explicit, but I think it lies behind many other
views, particularly those that encourage or applaud the
"spiritual"(invariablyundefined) in art and experience.
38. Not, incidentally,to be mistaken with the supernat-
ural, which, I take it, is meant to refer to a qualitativelysu-
periorstate of things "above"nature.
39. In biological terms, the many different cultural re-
sponses of humans to their environmentswould mark in-
stances of "adaptiveradiation"("the evolution from one
species of animalsor plants of a numberof differentforms,"
The OxfordConcise Science Dictionary, 1991), ratherthan
indicate the absence of universalhumanneeds.
40. D. C. Mathur,"A Note on the Concept of 'Consum-
matoryExperience'in Dewey's Aesthetics," TheJournalof
Philosophy43 (1966): 225-231.