Dewey on Arts, Sciences and Greek Philosophy

• Published in: In the Beginning was the Image: The Omnipresence of Pictures p. 153
• Main Author: Matthew Crippen
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Peter Lang GmbH 20.12.2016
• Subjects: Abstract art; Aesthetic objects; Aesthetics; Applied philosophy; Art genres and movements; Art history; Arts; Astronomical objects; Astronomy; Axiology; Behavioral sciences; Cognitive processes; Cognitive psychology; Earth sciences; Geography; Geomorphology; Learning; Learning styles; Literary studies; Literature; Narratology; Objects of contemplation; Philosophy; Philosophy of science; Physical sciences; Psychology; Scientific method; Scientific observation; Symbolic learning; Terrestrial planetary structures; Visual arts; Visual learning
• ISBN: 3631678606; 9783631678602
• DOI: 10.3726/b10396

In this chapter, I ponder John Dewey’s efforts to understand science in terms of both the practical and fine arts; and how his writings on art and science suggest that Plato and Aristotle correctly identified conditions under which things become visible to cognition, even while not satisfactorily answering how these conditions can be met. Since Dewey understood aesthetic experience as a dramatic process, I also discuss how visual experience is imbued with narrative and therefore temporal structure, and the importance of this to understanding and learning. Dewey wrote that “[t]he doings and sufferings that form experience are, in degree to