John Dewey and the Expressive Object

I propose to discuss certain aspects of John Dewey's mature work on aesthetics, Art as Experience (1934). Monroe Beardsley has described this text as one of the most important contributions to aesthetics, and although Dewey's work has been utilised in areas of psychology (Benson, 1993), romanticism (Kompridis, 2006) and aesthetics (Shusterman, 2000, 2009: Nakamura, 2009), he has to my knowledge never been read in the context of film theory. I intend to introduce this work in three stages. Firstly, I will outline a central element of Dewey's philosophy which, in broad terms, lies in his reluctance to separate the organic creature from its environment. Secondly, I will draw upon Dewey's notion of the 'expressive object' in order to argue that it is an interesting way to think about film, which Dewey himself never did. Finally, I will show how Dewey develops the idea of the expressive object and, in doing so, pre-empts several recent debates concerning the relationship between film and philosophy. This is most evident in his reluctance to reduce art to either philosophical thought or conceptual form. Against a monopolisation of art through rationalist philosophy whose task is always to offer an adequate explanation of the artwork and thereby reduce its significance, Dewey centralises the experience of art which then becomes a source, and indeed a test, for any philosophical system. In thinking through the relationship between film and philosophy Dewey's largely forgotten work offers both an interesting perspective in its own right and an important historical antecedent to the sort of questions currently being raised.