Art as Occupations: Two Neglected Roots of John Dewey's Aesthetics

Abstract

Our purpose in this paper is to analyze two neglected roots of Dewey's aesthetics: his fragmentary or piecemeal aesthetics and its links with education. Bearing this in mind, we put forward a twofold hypothesis. Firstly, that there is a link between this fragmentary aesthetics and education, which has neither been clearly established by Dewey nor systematically examined in the literature. Secondly, that some of Dewey's educational conceptions -particularly the coherent articulation of occupations, art teaching and overcoming of the vocational-humanistic education dichotomy- are essential to a reevaluation of his aesthetics from a contemporary perspective.