Reflections on Richard Shusterman's Dewey

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Autor/in	Johnston, James Scott
Titel	Reflections on Richard Shusterman's Dewey
Quelle	In: Journal of Aesthetic Education, 38 (2004) 4, S.99-108 (10 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0021-8510
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Pragmatics; Philosophy; Art; Social Problems; Persuasive Discourse; Self Concept; Aesthetics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pragmalinguistik; Philosophie; Arts; Kunst; Social problem; Soziales Problem; Persuasion; Persuasive Kommunikation; Selbstkonzept; Ästhetik
Abstract	Richard Shusterman's recent two books--"Performing Live" and "Surface and Depth"--are a much welcome antidote to versions of philosophy anticipating the ends of art. His work also celebrates forms of artistic expression that have not yet earned cultural recognition as art. Shusterman's pragmatic mode of argumentation has become a means to sustain a body of aesthetic cultural work whose importance lies in yielding a renewed vision of cultural, aesthetic, and interpretative problems. But where Shusterman's enterprise departs from business as usual is primarily in his meta-discourse, in his self-conscious concern to reflect anew on the status of philosophy and on the uses to which is often unwittingly put. I find this aspect of Shusterman's work to be its greatest strength: his is not the currently fashionable literary view of pragmatism that urges scholars to a new line of action-often before they are even concerned about instrumentalities. In Shusterman's discourse instrumentalities are always parts of the ends they create. His pragmatism is therefore best described as reconstructive, advancing and refashioning the experiential realm. Pragmatism is often credited with freeing philosophy from its search for foundations. For Shusterman, such freedom is important as it allows philosophy to be put to other, perhaps more urgent, tasks, like resolving social and cultural problems. Because these social and cultural problems are themselves the result of such old-fashioned philosophical views, they have become hardened, in need of loosening up before such attempt at resolution can even begin. A problem that Shusterman turned into one of his most original contributions has been the relationship between philosophy, experience, and the body. Shusterman reconstructs this relationship through a discussion of a new discipline that he named "somaesthetics." The concept of somaesthetics, which first appeared in Shusterman's remarkable "Pragmatist Aesthetics," (this work, which is Shusterman's signature publication, is now in its second edition and has been translated into 12 languages) is closely linked to the idea of pragmatic reconstruction. If philosophy is a constant reconstruction, what is it that it should reconstruct? Shusterman's answer is that philosophy is to be linked to its capacity to produce better experiences. Philosophy, in other words, should be instrumental as a learning tool that can be applied to life. If the concept of experience is intimately connected with a particular felt quality, it makes sense to claim that the body is inextricably implicated in the experiential process. Thus Shusterman defines "somaesthetics" as "devoted to the critical, ameliorative study of one's experience and use of one's body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and creative selffashioning" (PL, 138). Even though it is now fashionable to talk about the fragmentation of the self, the uncertainties of life and our impotence against the powers that construct us, most of us still want a sense of wholeness, direction, and relative safety in an admittedly contingent and dangerous world. Being more aware of one's surroundings, having a clearer sense of one's emotions, and understanding what one is doing while acting can accomplish just that. Even it is only that, there are still important philosophical consequences to consider: not only does a heightened awareness create healthier individuals, who in turn produce an overall healthier society, but it also empowers individuals to learn more about themselves and who they are--indubitably one of the main aims of philosophy. (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10