Education and Aesthetic Method

Author(s): Nathaniel L. Champlin

Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education , Apr., 1970, Vol. 4, No. 2, Special Issue:
Curriculum and Aesthetic Education (Apr., 1970), pp. 65-85
Published by: University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3331548

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Education and Aesthetic Method

NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

Nowhere in social organization, nowhere in life, is there the interpen

of means and ends, of form, matter, and meaning, such as is experienc
as immediate and ultimate in the arts. What is there experienced is
a hint of what possible perfections are, and a clue to what is sought
understood by perfection in metaphysics and morals.
Irwin Edman

Some 20 years ago Irwin Edman forwarded the thesis' that develop-
ments in the arts, and inquiries into the arts, were extremely relevant,
if not necessary, to our understanding of such traditional categories as
value, meaning, and truth. This paper is identified with Edman's
thesis, but it goes on to argue that developments in the arts and aesthetic
inquiry supply more than enough rationale for a reappraisal of another
fundamental category - that of method. Further assumed, although
the idea is not developed in the present paper, is that a fresh analysis
and evaluation of the concept of method will have significant bearing
upon such traditional categories as value, meaning, and truth.

The term "method" enjoys a variety of uses. It is taken to apply to

"how to do it" manuals, activities that go "by the numbers," recipes,
NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN is Professor of History and Philosophy of Education at
Wayne State University. He is a member of the National Advisory Committee,
Aesthetic Education Project, CEMREL, and has contributed to several publica-
tions, including Educational Theory, The Antioch Review, Saturday Review,
and Educational Leadership. This article was presented as a paper at a pre-
conference session of the National Art Education Association Conference in
New York City (March, 1969), sponsored by the Central Midwestern Regional
Educational Laboratory, Inc. (CEMREL).
1 Irwin Edman, "The Challenge of the Arts to Philosophy," Journal of Phi-
losophy, Vol. 44, No. 15 (July 17, 1947), 407-12.

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66 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

standardized routines, formal directions, time energy or money s

devices, and a mode of dramatic involvement. It is treated as a fu
of the rational, e.g., as a method for proving a geometrical theore
of the irrational, e.g., "there is method in his madness." On t
hand it is distinguished from technique, and on the other hand th
terms are treated as synonyms.
"Method" is also one of the most often used terms in discussions about
or within teacher education. Here, as elsewhere, it is often considered
apart from matters upon which it allegedly may be imposed - separate,
that is to say, from the consequences or the conditions of its employment.
The notion of method divorced from "subject matter," "content," or
"ends," is an assumption in some discussions of professional education
requirements in teacher certification codes. Frequently, it carries the
same meaning when used in pedagogical discussions about "group tech-
niques and procedures," "the case method," "the discussion method,"
"the lecture method," "methods of individualized instruction," "team
teaching," and "the problem-solving method" which, in their turn, are
taken to be proper subject matters for methodology, the field of study
having methods as its subject matter2 and proceeding, presumably,
according to its own method. Educational research and curriculum
theory make major use of the term. And here too one finds quite fre-
quently that method is seen neither to be conditioned by, nor to be con-
ditioning, the matters in connection with which it may or may not be
employed.

Method has been the subject of critical, analytical, and speculative

philosophy since Plato and Aristotle.3 Then, too, there is the work,
among others, of Ockham, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume,
Coleridge, and the nineteenth-century utilitarians. A major thrust of
contemporary philosophy is in the direction of method. There is the
work of John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Max Black, Gilbert Ryle, and
Justus Buchler. Methodological inquiries more directly related to the
work of the schools are to be found in the writings of R. Bruce Raup,
Israel Scheffler, H. Gordon Hullfish, Philip G. Smith, Arno Bellack,
"Richard K. Means, Methodology in Education (Columbus: Charles E.
Merrill, 1968).
'An interesting historical account of the treatment of method was brought
to my attention by Professor David Adams of Western Michigan University,
whose unpublished paper, "Conceptions of Teaching and Questions of Method,"
has been most useful in the preparation of the present paper. See Neal W.
Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1960).

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 67

Joseph J. Schwab, and Marc Belth.4 These are but a few of

quirers who make up the rapidly expanding community of contem
concern.

But in spite of the fact that the literature on metho

we are still without a commonly accepted, critically c
ception of method. Even within the more disciplined con
sophical inquiry the problem of method is viewed in d
First, though not in this order of development or impor
ment to any philosophical position - existentialism,
insofar as it is a commitment to a system of categories an
juxtaposition, can be viewed as a commitment to me
method is often treated as a criterion in the judgmen
judgment of truth taken to be based, in part at least, upo
employed to produce the statements or propositions o
dates for the judgment. Here, such methods as common s
will to believe, and science become objects of evaluatio
ophers would reserve the judgment of truth only for tho
which are the outcome of the successful employment
method, and others would argue that the judgment o
should be made about two orders of statements - thos
scientific method, and those certified by another method
Third, methodology, philosophy of method, and philoso
are sometimes taken to be one and the same enterprise. M
conclusions are understood to be recommendational to all
ing conclusions - knowledge claims - in the various c
ciplines, including methodology itself. (Methodology
own subject matter.) The assessment of the scientific
purports to be scientific inquiry, either in the physical or
or in sophisticated common sense - in the various pr
example - proceeds on the basis of norms or canons, inve
which is considered the proper business of methodology.
Fourth, conclusions about method can be viewed as attem
subject matters for other cognitive enterprises. The conc
recommendational in a special way to the human sciences
Methodic activity, insofar as it is human activity, is to b
those sciences or disciplines which take the human as an
of attention - psychology, sociology, anthropology, guida
psychiatry, politics, law, and various branches of busines
"See, for example, Justus Buchler, The Concept of Metho
Columbia University Press, 1961), and Marc Belth, Educatio
(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1965).

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68 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

Fifth, and this explicitly is the context within which the present
moves, there is the concept of method itself. Here the problem
of forging and recommending a general conception of meth
specifying an arena of applicability. The very question of wha
erly may be considered a matter for methodological investigation
on the choice for a concept of method. Some inquirers would
method to knowledge gaining or securing activities, subsumin
example, artistic activities under the category of knowledge. Oth
would restrict method to knowledge production, but they wou
artistic matters outside the domain of methodic undertakings alt
to be accounted for in or by the discourse of some other field
chology, for example. Still other inquirers would apply the con
method to artistic matters as well as to "symbols verbal and
matical," and hold that the concept of method includes, but
exhausted by, the formal procedures of cognition. Perhaps th
widespread assumption about method, however, is that the
applies only to epistemological subject matters. Methodic acti
understood to be the application of cognitive form or control to
subject matters which will yield to such control. Cognitive an
cognitive matters may be formed, methodized, or ordered, but in
cases, whether separately or in some sort of combination, the
is generally the same - cognitive. Placed outside the arena of
bility of the concept of method, thus conceived, the notion of ae
method would be unintelligible.
The community of inquirers that has developed around the c
of method does boast some shared terms or concepts which he
distinguish the field of methodological discourse from other f
inquiry. A cursory inspection will yield the following: "inte
"aim," "goal," "end-in-view," "conceived consequences," "k
how," "apply," "application," "a way of . . . ," "procedure," "techn
"directive," "efficiency," "standardized," "economy," "regula
"novel," "model," "structure," "institute," "re-institute," "rep
"subject-matter," "content," "symbol," "representation," "oper
"pragmatic," "recurring," "reproducibility," "duplicability," "
able," "form," and "pattern." But with respect to the linguistic or
ceptual framework which helps us to distinguish the field of met
ology, and thus to locate or identify the community of inquirers
not clear as to just how these terms may be related one to ano
what sense is the distinction between method and goal, for e
sounder or more acceptable than the distinction between fruit and

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 69

Which among the many terms and categories being used in method
ical discussions - some of which have impressive etymologies -
us to necessary conditions for, rather than to attributes, compo
parts, or aspects of, methodized activity? Which terms direct us to
companying matters rather than to formal properties? In the abse
a commonly understood, critically controlling conception of m
we are able to answer such questions with far less certainty th
profession would seem to require of us.

The work of John Dewey is especially relevant (and singularly

date) for those of a methodological turn of mind. Many of the
presently holding our interest appear frequently throughout his wri
The issue as to the nature and character of cognitive method a
relationship to noncognitive matters is confronted directly in
of his works. "No other philosopher in this century," writes Bu
"has been more closely identified with attention to method t
Dewey."5 In the words of McClellan, "Dewey showed that one
interpret the manifold operations of intelligence in one basic s
categories. And those categories themselves were descriptive of
cedures, were those of method in the philosophical tradition of the s

teenth centry
conception ... ."6 To
of method beapplied
was explored is the fact
to artistic that Dewey's
activities, but he g
d
subsume those activities under the general conception of scie
method, which in its turn was included in his general concepti
method. Dewey's concept of method was wider and more incl
than his conception of the method of science.
There are at least three senses of method in Dewey's writing
each one has had a significant impact upon educational theory.
though not in Dewey's order, there is the problem-solving me
C.A.T., or the complete act of thought. This is set forth in "five lo
distinct steps."' Dewey observes:
The disciplined, or logically trained mind - the aim of the educative p
- is the mind able to judge how far each of these steps needs to be c
in any particular situation. No cast-iron rules can be laid down. Eac

"Justus Buchler, op. cit., p. 145.

SJames E. McClellan, "Dewey and the Concept of Method: Quest f
Philosopher's Stone in Education," The School Review, Vol. 67, No. 2 (
mer, 1959), 213-28.
'John Dewey, How We Think (New York: D. C. Heath & Co., 19
p. 72.

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70 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

has to be dealt with as it arises, on the basis of its importance an

context in which it occurs. . . . What is important is that mind s
sensitive to problems and skilled in methods of attack and resolution
The second though not disconnected sense of method in Dewey
at once to be more general and pluralistic than this first one
have developed in social and individual experience various wa
effecting consequences --that is to say, getting results, accom
something, or making things happen. With respect to the social,
be said that men have accumulated, shared, and passed on va
bodies of "fairly stable methods for reaching results," these m
being "authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis,
an individual ignores at his peril."9 With respect to the indiv
can be said that a person develops his own distinctive methods, so
which are highly unique and others of which are distinctive e
ments of methods already in widespread use. In this sense, Dewey
"methods remain the personal concern, approach, and attack
individual, and no catalog can ever exhaust their diversity of for
tint."10
This second sense of method achieves its plural character primarily by
sociological and psychological elaboration. That which is elaborated,
however, is not pluralistic. It is a conception which says in effect that
method is abroad when certain features of experience are selectively
ordered to gain certain effects. This is a generalization of method which
includes the first sense of method - the complete act of thought sense -
and whose formal elaboration is not afforded by recourse to psychology,
sociology, or to adaptions of common sense or ordinary discourse. What
Dewey is doing here is spelling out the sociological and psychological
meaning of his concept of method: He is shifting from methodological
to sociological and psychological discourse. Remaining for methodolog-
ical attention is the general conception that method is the deliberate
attempt to effect consequences.
The third sense of method in Dewey is really a methodological elab-
oration of the second sense. It is suggested, though inadequately exem-
plified, by temporal considerations. Something in the present and con-
tinuous with the past functions to guide selectivity and thereby to bring
about one state of affairs rather than another. The "something" which
directs activity is to be distinguished from the consequences effected -
8 Ibid., p. 78.
'John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: Macmillan Co.,
1916), p. 200.
10 Ibid., p. 204.

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 71

from the future realized - in the sense that a man building a

or filling out an income tax form, is going by something othe
the completed house or tax form. So too with those who exit a sit
upon the command, "Let all adults depart or forfeit their live
the result effected, when not considered a terminal point but rat
"end" or "aim" does function as a "something" that guides ac
Two meanings of the terms "end" and "goal" are therefore to
tinguished. Temporal, historical, or common sense accounts w
place ends and goals in the future. Methodological accounts pla
and goals in the "present." In and of themselves, neither is the cor
interpretation. But for those interested in properties of meth
temporal or historical accounts are inappropriate. Dewey tak
methodological route:
... the ends, objectives, of conduct are those foreseen consequences
influence present deliberation and which finally bring it to rest by f
ing an adequate stimulus to overt action. Consequently ends arise an
tion within action. They are not ... things lying beyond activity a
the latter is directed. They are not strictly speaking ends or termini of
at all. They are terminals of deliberation, and so turning points in ac
From a methodological point of view ends are not terminal points
rectives. They are controls. For Dewey one may distinguish en
conceived from ends temporally conceived by invoking the expres
"end-in-view" and stressing the point that what we have in the pr
are representations - symbols - of the temporal end and tha
perform in the capacity of method or control. The explanation
temporal when it is said that the representations, symbols of cond
and consequences, are the stuff of which methods are made
means and ends are differentiations of method, in its turn con
as a symbolic enterprise. Dewey writes:
Means and ends are two names for the same reality. The terms deno
a division in reality but a distinction in judgment.... To think of t
signifies to extend and enlarge our view of the act to be performed. It
to look at the next act in perspective .... Only as the end is converte
means is it definitely conceived, or intellectually defined, to say not
being executable."
Put another way: To have purpose - anticipation or expecta
fashioned in terms of the means to its achievement is to have sym
The process or activity of ordering means to ends is symbolic
" John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Random Ho
1930), p. 223.
" Ibid., p. 36.

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72 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

where a future, a nonpresent is represented in the present and funct

ing in a regulative capacity:
A being which can use given and finished acts as signs of things to co
which can take given things as evidence of absent things, can, in that degr
forecast the future; it can form reasonable expectations. It is capable
achieving ideas: it is possessed of intelligence."
In developing his conception of symbols and their interrelatio
Dewey notes quite often his indebtedness to Peirce. According to
view there are three conditions to be met in order that a sign or sym
be identified. First, there must be something which represents - whi
stands for, takes the place of, or refers to - something else; seco
there must be something which is represented - there must be an ob
of, or a referent for, the sign; and, third, there must be something w
makes the connection or establishes the relationship as a sign-object o
symbol-referent relationship. This third condition is widely recogniz
as the operational definition or interpretant. It is not to be confu
with the psychological "person" or with the physiological "brain
Anything, of course, may be defined to stand for or represent anyth
else. For Dewey, symbols may represent "anything under the sun," b
we must be clear not only of a distinction between sign and object, b
also of what precisely functions as the sign and what functions as
object in any given situation. For example, a girl might in a ph
conversation say to her friend, "I'll leave an apple in the window if t
old man isn't home, so if it is there don't hestitate to come on in." T
term "apple" is here functioning as a sign and presumably has as
object something which is other than the sign "apple" that can be eat
But when placed in the window, and when observed by the friend, th
object functions no longer as an object but as a sign whose definit
supplied over the phone, directs us to another object - a state of affa
in the house minus the referent for the symbol "the old man."
Symbolic structures, here conceived as methods, may perform thei
regulative roles in respect to matters which themselves are symbolic
in respect to matters which are not symbolic. The expression "law
logic" directs us no less to notions than does the expression "dry mar
recipe." Precisely what is formed is dramatically different in each ca
But in both cases what is formed or ordered is functioning in the capa
of referents, and not, at that moment, in the capacity of signs. In b
cases the method or directing agency is a set of representations or sy
bols. "Operations," Dewey observes,
'a John Dewey, Creative Intelligence (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 19
p. 21.

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 73

. . fall into two general types. There are operations that are perfo
upon and with existential material - as in experimental observation
are operations performed with and upon symbols. But even in the latt
"operation" is to be taken in as literal a sense as possible. There ar
tions like hunting for a lost coin or measuring land, and there are op
like drawing up a balance sheet. The former is performed upon exis
conditions; the latter upon symbols."1
There are, in other words, methodic events whose results are prim
cognitive or theoretical - as in the case of inquiries aiming toward
clusions, propositions, explanations, answers, or knowledge. Th
also methodic events whose results are primarily noncognitive
cooking and baking, hammering and sawing, swimming and water
ing. Intelligence, conceived as methodic activity, is not, therefore
exclusive property of those who work focally with what Dew
"sign and number." The full operation may include things, ma
and tools. Intelligence is operative not only as the mathematic
philosopher manipulates theory to gain theory, but also as the car
fisherman, housewife, or automobile mechanic goes about inst
relationships in their respective domains. At the point of m
however, symbols are generic to all instances.
This conception of method plays havoc with current views of te
education which separate method from means and ends. What
as an "academic discipline" or content area is no less a case of m
than the "methods course" alleged in some circles to be a distingu
feature of teacher education programs. The categories we use to st
ture curriculum at the college level --those, for example, whi
tinguish the physical and behavioral sciences and those which diff
tiate descriptive and normative disciplines - all refer us to m
A student, whether he be taking a course in chemistry, psycholog
existentialism, is taking a course in means, ends, and methods. Pu
another way, education in psychology, physics, driver training, lif
techniques, curriculum construction, methods of teaching arit
philosophy, industrial arts, or medicine is one with education in me
According to this Deweyan account, education in method is educ
in the deliberate relating of means to ends. Method or proced
ceives primary emphasis with full recognition of the fact that it
entails ends and means, and hence cannot operate in a vacuu
cannot have method without having something methodized.
"pure" method is, upon analysis, method as subject matter yiel
14John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Henry
Co., 1938), p. 15.

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74 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

method as control. And since the conception of symbol, locate

heart of method, has been fashioned, in the words of Peirce, in l
"that experimental method by which all the successful scienc
have reached the degree of certainty that are severally proper to
today,"15 the method of methods - the method of intelligence, if
will - is one with the method of empirical inquiry, the proced
scientific thinking, or the pattern of problem solving.
The educator thus oriented has now to face the task of selecting
the vast and overwhelming array of means, ends, and metho
mulated in human history those to be included in school activitie
traditional bodies of knowledge are candidates; but so are hosts of
methods, personal and social. Psychological investigation of the le
will yield a plethora of means and methods developing in the hist
each individual and shared in many cases among those who m
the population from which the individual has been selected. Case
is method history. Children already come to school armed with m
A sociological investigation of the human situation will yield rang
methods not covered explicitly by the more traditional knowledg
or by the categories with which we attempt to identify the meth
uniquely personal or individual experience. Indeed, the realm o
bilities is rather striking when we consider the variety and diver
ways in which human conduct has been disciplined or methodized
attempt to list the different kinds of purposes and objective
different kinds of means and ends - faces a formidable task; hum
and have done so many different things. The value problem,
words, is upon us. Suffice it to say here that by and large those
Deweyan tradition have tended to meet this problem with an app
which, when elaborated, finds the method of problem solving to
the means and the end of an educational undertaking, and which
its substantive content - the problems or methods which enter to
up the curriculum - from psychological and sociological investiga
The meat - the stuff - of education in method hangs on thre
hooks: methodology, psychology, and sociology.

IV

Those of us who are concerned with aesthetic education broadly con-

ceived suffer in two major ways in consequence of the immediately
" C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (eds.), The Collected Papers of Charles
Sanders Peirce (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-40), Vol. V,
p. 274.

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 75

foregoing account of method and education. In the first place, and

is not a distinctive consequence, matters aesthetic or artistic are p
in the traditional role of justifying themselves by demonstrating
they may be instrumental in the effort to promote the problem-
method which in its turn is conceived to be a cognitive affair. Sin
terminology which distinguishes properties of method does not ap
aesthetic subject matters then art or aesthetic education - if at
telligible expressions - are cases of cognition. Aesthetic educ
would have to be one with philosophy of art education or art crit
- a case where matters which are not symbolic are described, expl
and evaluated in an activity which is symbolic. Aesthetic educa
an affair of philosophy departments or theoretical journals. Th
education is an education which seeks to develop competence
coursing about aesthetic subject matters, or which seeks to order or
aesthetic subject matters in accordance with "symbols verbal and m
ematical." Much of what passes as "research" in art education
this sort. (Numbers painting is extremely illustrative of methodiz
In an effort to avoid this unhappy state of affairs and thus per
preserve the distinctiveness and integrity of the arts, some ed
would turn us away from methodology and to the other two disci
psychology and sociology. But here again we find someone put
on. By turning away from methodology we are asked to perpetuat
crippling assumption that arts affairs are nonmethodic affairs. Th
is closed on the matter. Neither psychology nor sociology forw
investigate explanations of formal properties of method save whe
themselves become objects of methodological investigation. Furthe
psychological or sociological "bag" does not contain categories
permit distinctions in such art activities as architecture, painting
sculpture. The distinction between gothic and classical in archi
for example, is neither psychological nor sociological. Sociolog
psychological terminology do not explain the difference between
and impressionist painting - between Moore's and Giacometti'
ture. The place and function of art or aesthetic subject matters in
sonal, social, or educational experience is indeterminate in the
of a commonly understood critically controlling conception of art
the task of forging such conception is neither psychological nor s
ical. Putting it another way, the place and importance of art
and education turns on a conception of art that is responsible
distinctions, the activities, and the objects stubbornly and emp
present in such fields as painting, sculpture, architecture, music,

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76 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

and literature. Armed with such a conception, psychology and soc

together with many other disciplines, may provide secure and fr
knowledge. But the problem of delineating the area of the art
other areas, the problem of determining the relationship, if any, b
art and cognition, and the problem of determining the worth of
human affairs is not primarily one for the behavioral scien
bluntly, by turning to the conceptual framework, the terminolog
physiology, psychology, or sociology we explain away rather than
our distinctive materials. Such terminology does not distinguish f
of aesthetic subject matter.
According to the tradition presently holding our interest, prob
constitute the units for structuring curriculum. Psychological an
logical - joined today with anthropological - investigations p
contexts of problems, projects, or activities to be considered by c
ulum theorists. Priorities are to be established with the method of
problem solving - its widespread use and improvement - operating as
a valuational norm. That is, problems are important and significant to
the extent they advance the method of intelligence in individual and
social experience. If anything is a handmaiden to anything else in this
tradition, and according to its supporting scholarship, then psychological
and sociological findings are handmaidens to the advancement and use
of the method of science upon the problems of men. Aesthetics, con-
strued to be a matter for psychological research and investigation, per-
forms an instrumental role. It can hardly be referred to as a norm or
guide in the evaluational enterprise. It is not a significant category for
ordering conditions and consequences in the process of evaluation.

However, in other writings - writings which until fairly recently have

been neglected--Dewey paved the way for an open break with this
treatment of the aesthetic theme. He turns to the arts and attempts a
methodological explanation. But arts affairs, if they are responsive to
method, are not responsive to cognitive method, according to Dewey.
They are not recipe-directed activities. There is a kind of ordering,
methodizing, or forming which is qualitative and which effects qual-
itative consequences or results. Dewey claims that we think qualitatively
as well as in terms "verbal and mathematical." There is, besides cog-
nitive thought, qualitative thought. A case in point, he tells us, is the
thinking that goes on in artistic endeavors: "The doing and making is
artistic when the perceived result is of such nature that its qualities as

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 77

perceived have controlled the question of production."16 Further,

struction that is artistic is as much a case of genuine thought
expressed in scientific and philosophical matters...."1 Here is
which holds arts affairs to be at once methodic and noncognit
which employs the expression "quality" and "qualitative thoug
distinguish not another cognitive method but a noncognitive
Here, quality is not used as a standard of excellence: it is a des
or explanatory device at a rather high level of methodological
tion. And, further, the term "quality" is not used to signify a com
or property of an object which in its turn is not a quality but rat
ontological state to be accounted for either by metaphysics or the
chology of sense perception. Again, the term "quality" is being
duced into methodological discourse to distinguish a very general
In this connection the distinction between quality and quantity is
telligible. The distinction between the cognitive and the qualit
the intelligible expression.
It remained for students of Dewey's methodological thought
velop the immediately foregoing, to move the aesthetic category
securely into methodological discourse, and to link it into edu
theory. Since the 1940s the work upon the aesthetic categor
progressed to such an extent that it may now be treated as
development in educational theory.'s A general theory of art educ
is now a real possibility.
This methodological extension of Dewey's thought holds to t
tinction between cognitive and noncognitive, between theoret
qualitative, methods. With cognitive method one deliberately inst
relationships among or between matters in accordance with m
expressible in linguistic, logical, or mathematical form. One m
the form, or share the form with another person, apart from th
tionships or the matters which are capable of being formed. Direc

"l John Dewey, Art As Experience (New York: Minton, Balch & Co.
p. 48.
" John Dewey, Philosophy and Civilization (New York: Minton, Balch &
Co.), p. 116.
8 See particularly Francis T. Villemain, "Methodological Inquiry Into Aes-
thetic Subject Matter," Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the
Philosophy of Education Society, ed. Robert E. Mason (Philosophy of Educa-
tion Society Proceedings, Southern Illinois University, 1961), pp. 151-57;
Nathaniel L. Champlin, "Methodological Inquiry and Educational Research,"
A Seminar in Art Education For Research and Curriculum Development, Ed-
ward L. Mattil, ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1966),
pp. 291-327; and David Ecker, "The Artistic Process as Qualitative Problem
Solving," The Journal of Aesthetic and Art Criticism, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring,
1963), 283-90.

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78 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

for filling out an income tax form are available and sharable apart
specific sums, dependents, and who is to file the form. The recipe
the clam chowder is available and sharable apart from the clam cho
So, too, with what is called the "theoretical symbol," that is, an
which stands for, represents, or takes the place of another object.
can possess these symbols - and share them with others - with
the same time having that to which the symbols refer. As example
have such terms as "annual income," "taxable income," "law o
contradiction," "the Ten Commandments," "set theory," "Gemi
"Hasselblad," "John F. Kennedy," "numeral," "deep sea scallop,"
onions," and "Mona Lisa." (Even some four letter words may
fered in example.) Because they perform a representing function t
symbols can participate in or as method and we can proceed accord
- that is, methodically.
But with noncognitive or qualitative method one deliberately insti
relationships among or between matters in accordance with m
which is inexpressible - nonduplicable - in linguistic, logical, or
ematical form. One may have the form, or share the form with an
person, but not apart from the relationships or the matters fo
With the theoretical symbol one can have the term or word "G
for example, without having the referent for that word --th
without also having to have what we label or call "Gothic." Bu
form or method we label "Gothic" is another matter which has been
formed. The word "Gothic" is not the forming agency or method. As
a word it may participate in method, of course, method in art history
or art appreciation lectures, for example. What the word refers to,
however, is itself a form which cannot be had apart from this or that
case or collection of cases. The word refers to method and this method
must be confronted in some direct way in order that one know what to
"go by" --what in accordance with which to proceed - if he is to
achieve, gain, or attain the result capable of being labeled "Gothic." A
student of architecture may go to buildings, to models, or to slides. As
another illustration, the term "pattern" may be employed apart from
its referent - what it refers to or stands for. But the form or structure
referred to by artistic use of the term cannot be had apart from this,
that, or those cases. In this connection the expressions "choir in identical
costumes," "row of columns of the Parthenon," "flutes of a specified
column," "the hair of Venus and the waves behind Venus in Botticelli,"
"a drill squad of soldiers," "a polka dot tie," "herring bone weave," or
"a Monopoly set housing development" all refer to a qualitative method

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 79

which cannot be had apart from matters formed. We can represen

form with theoretical symbols as with the statement "By repet
pattern is formed." But the pattern that is the result of delibe
instituting relationships between similar or like components is una
able save as it is a herring bone weave, the flutes of a classical colu
the grid on a piece of graph paper, or a row of houses in some sub
development. The pattern or commonness of components is g
through, or by means of, relationships instituted deliberately betw
similar components, and one cannot have the pattern - the com
ness - apart from the relationships which produce or sustain it.
With the term "clash" we attempt to indicate another qualitative
or method. Here, to be distinguished from pattern, the unlikeness
than the likeness of components is featured. The result of institut
relationship between a particular red and a particular green is a "cl
The red is not the clash. The green is not the clash. They, the c
clash by virtue of the relationship that has been instituted. The re
ship features the unlike character of the colors and produces the c
What we label "dissonance" in music is the resultant of relatio
instituted between instances of musical chords. And in the ancient
practice, still with us, of positioning the mask of tragedy with the mask
of comedy, in the relationship of "fat and skinny," affluent communities
and pockets of poverty, and beauty and the beast, we have instances of
another method, available only as the relata - the relationships yielding
the form - also are available. In other words one cannot have the form
without at the same time having a substantive instance of it.
According to the theory now before us, the basic structural component
of aesthetic subject matters is to be distinguished as the qualitative
symbol, and unlike the theoretical symbol, the qualitative symbol cannot
be had save as what is represented also is directly available. Thus the
term "white," which is a theoretical symbol, refers to something other
than itself which, in its turn, is a qualitative symbol. In order to gain
or to have the quality we designate with the term "white" one must
make a discrimination - one must have, suffer, institute, or otherwise
provide a relationship between two or more qualities, one of which can
be distinguished and labeled "white." (In common sense discourse we
might say that if all were white there would be no white, if all were
night there would be no night, if all were femininity there would be
no femininity, or if all buildings were Gothic buildings there would be
no Gothic buildings.) But qualities are symbols by virtue of constructed,
intended, instituted, contrasts. A qualitative symbol, again, is to be dis-

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80 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

tinguished from a theoretical symbol by virtue of the fact that a

presents itself by representing the relationship out of which it em
or by means of which it gains distinctiveness. A theoretical symb
the other hand, can be had without its referent - that is, what it
for, takes the place of, or represents. Such qualities as those desig
by the terms "anger," "indignation," "Gothic," "Cubism," "inf
attire," "Santa Claus," "circus," "Autumn," "combat," "New En
and "riot" are symbols. They require for their occurrence th
struction of a relationship of contrasting or dissimilar comp
qualities.
Quality operates as an end, goal, or purpose. An architect may seek
to achieve a structure capable of being labeled "Gothic." An actor may
seek a structure - that is, himself - capable of being labeled "indig-
nation." A painter may seek a canvas capable of being labeled "Cubism."
A detachment of soldiers may attempt to develop an infiltration course
capable of being labeled "combat situation." An orchestra may play a
piece capable of being labeled "music of the big bands." And a group
of people may be building permissiveness in an inquiry-centered situa-
tion. Quality as end or goal has been called "Total Quality." There is
a total qualitative symbol.
Quality also operates as method or form. In order to gain the quality
we call "Gothic" the architect is guided by a quality common to many
structures yet distinguishably different from, for example, the quality
we term "classical," in its turn common to other structures. The drama
student confronts the quality we label "indignation" as he confronts its
occurrence on film in the various social situations where it is employed
or presented by others, and perhaps in his own mirror. He may guide
himself accordingly. Indignation shapes indignation. So too in the case
of styles in painting - such qualities as are designated by the terms
"Cubism," "Pop," "Op," and "Pollack" are methods and criteria for
selecting and ordering qualities. The detachment of soldiers has con-
fronted the quality we can distinguish and label "combat" and accord-
ingly institutes relationships to provide an instance of such a situation in
an appropriate training center. There is a style or form of music dis-
tinguished as the music of the great bands to which one must go if he
is to provide an instance, albeit unique instance, of such music. When a
group of inquirers moves with the commonly shared qualitative method
we label "attentive permissiveness" it rejects, for example, raucous levity
- a matter which may be reversed when the group shifts to another con-
trol. (A group out for a good time may find one member chiding an-

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 81

other for being too serious and for not "getting with it," the "it"
the quality of festive celebration.) Quality as method has been
"Pervasive Quality." There are pervasive qualitative symbols.
Quality also operates as means. In order to gain the quality w
"Gothic," the architect selects as means such other qualities as vertic
pointed arch, elongated sculpture, and stained glass or Rosetta wind
rather than --if again he is to gain an instance of Gothic -
zontality, the cantilever, African Negro Sculpture (Nigerian, per
Doric columns, and picture windows of the thermopane variety
drama student presses into service a qualitative kind of voice, s
gesture, and word as means to gaining a quality labeled "indigna
The painter utilizes a qualitative kind of line, plane, color, pattern,
proportion as means to the end called "Cubism." The band mem
play a kind of chord, a certain chord relationship, and musical
means to their end. And a detachment of soldiers constructing a "c
bat situation" for training purposes selects as means such quali
explosions, tracer fire, shell holes, barbed wire, splintered trees, ra
than--if, again they are to achieve an instant of combat quali
barn dance music, formal attire, beach umbrella, and, perhaps a ven
dressed in white denim and carrying a tray of wares to which he d
attention with the call, "Peanuts, popcorn, candy, and chewing
Conceived as means such qualities, qualified by pervasive quali
method and total or unique quality as end, have been named "
ponent Qualities." There are component qualitative symbols.
Thus, the terms "Total Qualitative Symbol," "Pervasive Qualit
Symbol," and "Component Qualitative Symbol" are proposed as
categories of methodology. With disciplined elaboration they m
cited as authoritative for the contention that the conception of aes
education is intelligible and that it is one with education in met

VI

By taking advantage of a rather widespread practice in publis

circles we can "research" the immediately foregoing methodolo
claim. We can arrange photographs taken during the process of art
production in the order in which they were taken, as in Figure
shall assume that the color is dramatically different in each series.)
appears or is displayed at number 6 appears also to some extent
antecedent moments of "photographic arrest." Each 6 has a cha
displayed also by 5, 4, 3, and so on. Thus, one can argue with D
that the end "as perceived" also pervades the antecedent acts an

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82 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

Figure 1.

2 :~~~~ _ _ _ _ _ _:i::::::::::i::::

/:::::i::::,,~,,,:,, ii-ii:i8li'~iij

Imp ow /

1, m ?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14

:~~:4 / --:ii~:iii-~iBi-i:i::'
A::: B: C .: ::::i: :::-::::::::l ::-:::

44

A . .B... ...

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 83

Figure 2.

A. B. C.

pervasive rathe
duction. The a
He has worked
vading the ac
control, the m
formal propert
Several testin
Figure 2 may
them in the se
Figure 2 so th
place of B-3, a
the task of dist
mix all steps in
individuals to
may be perform

VII

The vast array of theoretical means, ends, and methods in respect to

which educators were said to have the problem of choice is now joined
by an equally impressive range of qualitative means, ends, and methods.
What are called the "fine and applied arts" are, of course, candidates
But the conception of qualitative method is far more inclusive. Indeed,
as Dewey writes, problem solving goes on in and by means of a qualita-
tive setting - a situation. The situation within which either inquiry or
"fine" art activity goes on is itself to be defined at the most inclusive
level in aesthetic terms. That is, a psychological inquiry, for example
cannot proceed independently of a situational setting, in its turn de
scribed not in psychological but in aesthetic terms. Further, aestheti
method, insofar as it is a human enterprise can be elaborated upon much
as is the case with theoretical method. That is, there have developed in
social and individual experience various ways of effecting aesthetic con-

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84 NATHANIEL L. CHAMPLIN

sequences - aesthetic methods if you will - which have be

thorized by past experience" and "which an individual ignores
peril." With respect to the individual or personal it can be said
person develops his own distinctive aesthetic character --his o
tinctive qualitative methods, some of which are highly unique and
of which are the distinctive employment of methods already i
spread use. In this sense we can expand upon Dewey's though
"methods remain the personal concern approach, and attack of
dividual, and no cataloging can ever exhaust their diversity and f
In short, a methodological analysis of aesthetic subject matters pr
all of the behavioral sciences with new categories and hence new s
matters. We now have the interesting state of affairs in whi
psychologist and sociologist are being asked to turn to the field o
thetics and aesthetic analysis for an account of their major subjec
ter - the human. Thus equipped, they may provide the elabo
in respect to which educators may conduct their own evaluations.
cators, in other words, would be turning to the behavioral science
relationship is reciprocal.
The range of possibilities for aesthetic method, once extended,
include many matters - in and outside the work of the schoo
now included. If it is the case that no learning can go on sav
situation whose "final" description is aesthetic, and whose make-u
cludes the stuff of art, then all teachers are potentially art teacher
traditionally goes under the title of art education is to be joined
other curriculum items as health and physical education, fam
education, language arts, and general elementary and sec
methods. Sex education, if one believes in the old dictum "w
what we do" is, upon analysis, education in aesthetic method.
Outside the schools aesthetic methods are to be found in t
leries, in the home, upon the streets, in metropolitan and sub
centers, as well as in the professions and institutions that go to m
the table of organization of a civilization. Indeed, it has been
that a way of life - the most inclusive character and definiti
civilization - is a case of aesthetic method.
The problem of evaluation is overwhelming to say the least. A
methodology for conducting sweeping social evaluations becomes a pres-
sing requirement for the field and profession of education. Aesthetics
would become a major concern in discussions of national priorities. But
here we find prevailing categories wanting; for, if it be recalled, the pre-
vailing Deweyan tradition focuses in cognitive method, sociology, and

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 EDUCATION AND AESTHETIC METHOD 85

psychology. In the extension of Dewey's neglected themes, however, t

Deweyan tradition simply will not do. Dewey himself suggests why th
is the case: "... if it be a legitimate question," he writes, "to ask w
of the two, science or art, owes the most to the other, I should be
clined to award the palm to art.""1 "Art," we find him saying, " -
mode of activity that is charged with meanings capable of immediate
enjoyed possession - is the complete culmination of nature, and
'science' is properly a handmaiden that conducts natural events to
happy issue."20 And, "Esthetic experience is a manifestation, a rec
and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means of promoting
development, and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality
civilization."21
The three "hooks" upon which we have been hanging the mater
and activities of curriculum - cognitive method, knowledge of the
dividual, and knowledge of the social - can now be joined by anoth
But the aesthetic isn't simply an addition. At a high level of abst
tion in descriptive-normative methodology we have "cognitive"
"theoretical method" and "qualitative" or "artistic method." Belo
them we have "psychology," "sociology," and the other categories
human disciplines - both descriptive and normative. And above th
if it comes to conflict at the level of cognitive and qualitative method,
would have to place the aesthetic category. The conclusion that startle
some of us is that categories of method --categories for curricul
theory - are also categories for a general theory of valuation - tha
their foundations philosophy of education and value theory are theor
of art experience.

" John Dewey, "A Comment on the Foregoing Criticisms," The Journa
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 6, No. 3 (March, 1948), 208.
0 John Dewey, Experience and Nature (Chicago: The Open Court Pub-
lishing Co., 1929), p. 358.
2' John Dewey, Art As Experience, p. 326.

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