Art against Aesthetics Available to Purchase

Isobel Armstrong, surveying the history of aesthetic thought for a truly “democratic thinker,” settles on the John Dewey of Art as Experience (1934), “for whom the question of value is not a central issue — for whom, indeed, judgment is a massive deflection from the meaning of aesthetic experience.” The Radical Aesthetic (2000) contains a great deal of material, but the radical heart of Armstrong's polemical book consists in its engagement with Dewey. This essay examines the virtuous, value‐free aesthetic that emerges from this engagement, and describe its hidden costs.