From a Remote Pedestal to Everyday Life. The Social Role of Art in Gadamer and Dewey

In this paper I tackle Gadamer’s and Dewey’s conceptions of art, showing a possible dialogue between American Pragmatism and Gadamerian Hermeneutics. Despite the obvious differences, it is possible to show fundamental commonalities between the two philosophies when it comes to the role of art. They share the double goal of critiquing the aestheticism of modern age, the conception of art as a mere “art for art’s sake,” and of recomposing the continuity between aesthetic experience and everyday life. I argue that this common goal entails a reassessment of the relation between the work of art and the public, a reassessment that has fundamental consequences for the role of art in our societies. The present comparison will also help shed new light on Gadamer’s conception, often accused of being a merely conversative theory. For both Gadamer and Dewey art does not consist in a product of the elites that is given to the spectators: rather, the spectators cooperate with the author in the creation and development of the work of art itself.