Art as Experience

Dewey expands his theory by turning to what unifies the arts, how they differ, and how they are grounded in human psychology. Together, these three chapters consolidate his central claim that aesthetic experience is continuous with life itself and not confined to narrow traditions or categories.

Rhetorically, Dewey engages the reader more directly in this portion of the text. He uses rhetorical questions—“What subject-matter is appropriate for art? Are there materials inherently fit and others unfit?” (187)—to stage debates that readers must answer with him, creating the feel of a Socratic dialogue. The frequent use of first-person pronouns (“I,” “we”) furthers this effect. For instance, phrases like “We should find” (203) establishes solidarity with the audience, while phrases like “As far as I can see” (201) temper the text’s dense theoretical passages with moments of conversational intimacy. This stylistic blend of academic vocabulary and personal address models the democratic participation Dewey associates with art itself.

Thematically, these chapters deepen the idea of Aesthetic Experience as a Unified Process of Life. Dewey’s insistence on a “common substance” highlights that every work of art begins in an enveloping qualitative whole—a background mood from which parts develop. This holistic emphasis parallels his naturalistic grounding: He says art, like life, fuses sensation, meaning, and emotion into unified rhythms. When Dewey later observes, “That art weds man and nature is a familiar fact” (271), he makes the philosophical stakes explicit. According to him, art is not an escape from the world but a medium that reconciles individuals to nature’s forces and rhythms, extending them into meaning.

This section also reinforces the idea of art as a social force and communicative act. Dewey critiques the elitist view that only certain themes—heroic or noble—are worthy of art, showing how modern artists from Wordsworth to Cezanne break down those hierarchies. He argues that all aspects of life are potential materials for art when they are sincerely experienced and transformed through medium, and this aligns with his larger democratic project. Dewey underscores this idea by emphasizing art’s communal roots in rites and ceremonies, which historically united people in shared celebration. Yet his phrasing—“to unite men” (270-71)—reveals the historical gender bias of his language, reflecting broader exclusions in philosophical discourse of his time. Similarly, some of his references to “primitive” or “Negro” art, while aiming to expand the canon, reveal the dated racial terms of his era. For a contemporary reader, these moments highlight the importance of situating Dewey’s democratic aesthetics within its historical context.

Chapter 10 turns to the varied substance of the arts, insisting that differences among media matter, but not in rigid or hierarchal ways. His survey of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature shows that each medium exploits distinct energies—weight and balance in architecture, light and color in painting, temporality in music and literature. Yet Dewey resists sharp divisions, noting how each medium interpenetrates the others and develops historically in relation. This contributes to the theme of The Interdependence of Artist, Audience, and Artwork: Dewey sees the medium not as a neutral tool but a living condition that shapes how experience is expressed and perceived.

Finally, in Chapter 11 Dewey foregrounds human contribution, especially imagination. He critiques outdated psychological theories that fragmented sensation, emotion, and thought, arguing instead for an integrated model. His definition of imagination as the welding of varied elements into a new whole ties directly to the theme of unity, while also explaining why original art is often resisted before it is understood. Dewey also emphasizes that art is never solitary. Rather, it draws on cultural traditions even as it transforms them. In this way, imagination links personal experience with collective life, embodying art’s communicative and democratic role.

In sum, Chapters 9-11 both broaden and humanize Dewey’s aesthetics. They reveal how art unifies substance, varies across media, and emerges from the imaginative capacities of living beings embedded in culture. Stylistically, Dewey’s rhetorical questions, personal pronouns, and metaphorical language enact the very qualities of participation, reciprocity, and rhythmic order that he attributes to art. The section therefore advances his claim that art is not a luxury or isolated product but the heightened form of the very processes by which life organizes itself into meaning.