The inheritance and development of Berleant's aesthetic thoughts in relation to Dewey's pragmatist philosophy
The inheritance and development of Dewey's philosophy by Arnold Berleant's aesthetic thoughts can be understood from the following three dimensions.First of all,Berleant inherited the spirit of Dewey's discipline reflection and extended his cause of"philosophical transformation"to aesthetics,not only profoundly criticizing the traditional aesthetics characterized by"non-utility",but also reconstructing aesthetic experience based on the comprehensive perception of the body and constructing a body-centered aesthetic experience theory,thus endowing aesthetic experience the characteristics of embodiment and entirety.Secondly,Berleant stuck to Dewey's pragmatism of integrating the subject-object division with the concept of"experience",and actively absorbed two prominent features of Dewey's concept of"experience"—"initiative"and"contextualization",making them an important feature to enrich the connotation of his environmental aesthetic experience theory and enhance its rationality.Thirdly,Berleant deeply integrated Dewey's thought of"continuity"into his own aesthetic thinking.This open way of thinking with continuity contributes to the core of continuity of his theory of aesthetic participation,and on this basis,he tried to construct a kind of inclusive universal aesthetics.