How educational is experience? An excursion into John Dewey s Art as Experience

Abstract

The concept of experience by Dewey is a promising basis for educational reflection. With Art as Experience as a point of departure the possibilities and limitation of the concept of experience are studied. In a first step the concept is studied on an anthropological level as an understanding of the relationship between the person and her world. In a second step the concept is discussed on the basis of the distinction between “aesthetic quality” of experience and of “aesthetic experience”. In the third and last step the educational implications of the Deweyan distinction between statement and expression are examined. The analysis of Art as Experience shows that the concept of experience only to a limited extend does lend itself to the theory of education and needs a revision in order to be able to function as its theoretical basis.

PESGB Annual Conference 2012 30 Mar to 01 Apr 2012 New College, Oxford Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain