A Comment on the Foregoing Criticisms

Author(s): John Dewey

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Mar., 1948), pp. 207-209
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 COMMENT ON FOREGOING CRITICISMS 207

myself how it could have happened. Perhaps his thought is dominated by the
traditional Anglo-Saxon empiricism. Perhaps also the fanaticism and emptiness
of the orthodoxy of the Kantians and Hegelians who were his first masters in
America stirred in him a revolt which has not yet quieted down. Perhaps this
feeling of revolt has prevented him from seeing that the Hegelian and related
structures have fallen to pieces and that the Absolute which he found so for-
bidding, no longer exists as such, but has become one fwith the world, experience,
and history; that the new philosophy has rejected the static elements of Hegelian-
ism in order to preserve and develop the dynamic ones. For the new
philosophy is a theory of perpetual conflict, of solutions that generate new
problems, of a continual enrichment, such as pragmatism claims to be but cannot
logically become. However that may be, his philosophical position is such as I
have described above.

A COMMENT ON THE FOREGOING CRITICISMS

JOHN DEWEY

I fully appreciate the attention given Art as Experience by the distinguished

Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce-as I appreciate his heroic resistance to
the wave of Fascism which swept so many Italian thinkers and educators off
their feet. That he should have read my book and then have taken the trouble
to write about it for publication in another country commands and receives my
hearty thanks. I wish also to express my gratitude to Professor Katharine
Gilbert for interesting Croce in writing the article, and for sending me a translated
copy of it together with the suggestion that I write a reply.
I regret that what I have to say is largely of the nature of a comment rather
than being a reply in any distinctive sense of that word. For a reply, as I under-
stand the word, requires a common ground on which both parties stand and
from which deviations and departures can be measured. I do not find such a
common ground in this present case. And I can perhaps best introduce my
comment by telling why I cannot find it. In substance, it is because Croce
assumes that I have written about art with the intention of bringing it within
the scope of pragmatic philosophy-although I have not, as he sees the matter,
carried out successfully the claim involved in this purpose. The actual fact is
that I have consistently treated the pragmatic theory as a theory of knowing,
and as confined within the limits of the field of specifically cognitive subject-
matter. And in addition I have specifically rejected the idea that aesthetic
subjectmatter is a form of knowledge, and have held that a prime defect of
philosophies of art has been treating subjectmatter as if it were (whether the
creators and enjoyers of it were aware of it or not) a kind of knowledge of Reality,
presumably of a higher and truer order than anything of which "science" is
capable. The consequence of this approach, I concluded early in my studies,

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 208 JOHN DEWEY

was that the subjectmatter is not looked at nor reported in its own behalf and
in its own terms, but by making it over until it seemed to fit into the categories
of some preferred philosophy. As a result, I not only did not write Art as Ex-
perience as an appendix to or application of my pragmatism (which was forbidden
in any case for the reason just stated), or in subjection to any system of phi-
losophy. The net outcome was bad in the eyes of critics who wish to subordinate
creation of art and aesthetic enjoyment to a preconceived system of philosophy;
but, I am happy to add, was reasonably satisfactory to some critics who engage
in the practice of a fine art.
Lest the foregoing be understood to be an admission on my part that my ap-
proach to different subjects is too disjointed to possess even the temper of phi-
losophy, I add that my pragmatic theory of knowledge is based upon the postulate
that knowing is an activity of human beings as living beings; that knowing repre-
sents a highly important concern of human life; while that postulate is also the
one from which Art as Experience is treated. And if it be a legitimate question
to ask which one of the two, science or art, owes the most to the other, I should
be inclined to award the palm to art. For not only is scientific inquiry as it is
conducted a highly skilled technology, but the consummatory fulfillments that
are characteristic of the aesthetic phase of life-experience play a highly impor-
tant part in attaining the conclusions reached in science.
I had supposed that the presence of the word "experience" in my title, es-
pecially in its close connection with The Live Animal of the first chapter, would
indicate the point of view and method of approach adopted in discussion of the
creation and enjoyment of works of art. But it seems that that supposition was
over-optimistic. The meanings belonging to historic empiricist philosophies
have been read into the word, in spite of the fact that the pragmatic theory of
knowing has systematically criticized these empiricisms because of their system-
atic failure to connect experiences with the processes and operation of human
life AS life.
The foregoing remarks indicate the absence of common ground on which to
stand in making a reply. But they should also indicate the point of view from
which I may reply to certain remarks of my critic in pleading Not Guilty to sug-
gestions of slighting acknowledgments to writers to whom I am presumably in-
debted, and to a kind of Xenophobia with respect to Italian writers in particular.
For good or for evil, as I have already said, I have learned little from what has
been written in the name of the Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics, since it has
seemed to me to subordinate art to philosophy, instead of using philosophy as an
incidental aid in appreciation of art in its own language. I have learned much,
however, from the writings of essayists and literary critics, especially from Eng-
lish writers whose works are-themselves a part of the great tradition of English
literature, and from what poets, painters, etc., have said about the arts they have
practiced-a source, in my judgment, that is unduly overlooked by those who
philosophize on art. I do not think that I exaggerate in saying that I owe more
to the books on the plastic arts written by the man to whom my book is dedicated,
Albert C. Barnes, than to all the official treatises on art composed by philosophers.
I fear I shall have to be explicit with reference to the bearing of these state-

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 STYLE AND PERSONALITY 209

ments upon the eighteen points specifically listed by Croce, along with a sugges-
tion that they are samples of other cases which might be mentioned. I would
not say that those which are mentioned are of the order of commonplaces; that
would be going too far. But they are reasonably familiar to connoisseurs and to
cultivated essayists and critics. I shall be surprised if it can be shown that there
are any of these points which have especial dependence upon any philosophical
system. In the case of many of them, I could, by going back over my readings
of general literature over many years, tell the non-philosophic source from which,
in all probability, I derived them. I content myself with two cases. My treat-
ment of "expression" is derived from a combination of criticisms I wrote many
years ago about the idea of "Self-expression" as put forward by some educational
theorists, and by an English essayist; and also, I hope, from a kind of condensed
precipitation of reflections evoked by a great number of conversations and read-
ings that I could not begin to place in memory, either now or when I wrote them
down in a book. There is one other case on which to be specific-the last one
noted by my critic-"that historical knowledge is indispensable for judgment on
art". If the works of Dr. Barnes are accessible in Italy and if Croce cares to
consult them, he will find there an insistence on the importance of continuity of
tradition in production of works of art, as well as of critical appreciation of them.
Indeed, the whole theory of judgment expressed in my book is hardly more than
an echo of what is to be found in what Dr. Barnes has said about the plastic arts,
and which I have found a source of instruction with respect to all the arts. If I
felt in need of self-defense I should add, in conclusion, that I had no intention of
writing the kind of scholarly treatise in which footnotes breed and multiply on
every page as authorities for what is said in the text. My aim was much
humbler.

STYLE AND PERSONALITY:

A Graphological Portrait of Oscar Kokoschka

J. P. HODIN

1. Expressionism and Ratio. Le style, c'est l'homme meme. (Buffon).

When we compare the methods of modem science with those of modern art,
we are surprised by a peculiar phenomenon. In whatever country a piece of
scientific work is carried out and to whatever nationality the scientist may
belong, the methods that he uses are based on internationally recognized and
applied principles, and the results bring about changes affecting the whole of
mankind. In the plastic arts man's creative urge, the will to expression, has
experimented in various directions, and at one and the same time methods of
representation have been used that differ from each other in the principles on
which they are based. Modem art does not give a definite, unambiguous picture
of man's emotional and intellectual life at the present day.

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