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Interviewing Richard Shusterman: Part I Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education the refereed scholarly journal of the Thomas A. Regelski, Editor Wayne Bowman, Associate Editor Darryl A. Coan, Publishing Editor For contact information, please point your Web Browser to: ACT Journal: http://act.maydaygroup.org or MayDay Site: http://www.maydaygroup.org Electronic Article Väkevä, L. (2000). Interviewing Richard Shusterman: Part I. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education. Vol. 1, #1 (April 2002). © Lauri Väkevä, 2000 All rights reserved. The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author. The ACT Journal and the MayDay Group are not liable for any legal actions which may arise involving the article's content, including but not limited to, copyright infringement. Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 2 of 10 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ LLVV::: There seems to be a general since the mid-1980's. From the 1950's to Interviewing Richard renaissance of pragmatism gaining hold the mid-1980's pragmatism was very Shusterman within many disciplines, including much eclipsed in the States by analytic Part I aesthetics and educational philosophy. philosophy imported from England and Why do you think pragmatism has the continent (e.g. Carnap). However, in Lauri Väkevä attained new popularity both sides of the areas like education, which were very [email protected] Atlantic? Is there a need for these central to Dewey’s interests but revitalized pragmatic standpoints, completely marginal to analytic especially in current theory of art and in philosophy, there remained throughout related fields? Are there competing this time a core of philosophers who This part of the interview was made via positions in the new stream of pragmatic email in May 2000. Dr. Shusterman thought, e.g., those following Rorty and I differ not only from Rorty kindly replied to a other relativists contra "traditional" but from all the other series of questions concerning the role pragmatists? Do you think that pragmatists I mention by of pragmatism in contemporary postmodern philosophy and classical insisting on the value of the philosophy, the new pragmatic standpoints cohere enough to non-linguistic dimension of experience approaches to John Dewey’s thought, justify these positions? Is there a deep pragmatist aesthetics in art and music contradiction in doing pragmatic were faithful to the pragmatist tradition, education, and the Finnish-translated philosophy in analytic terms? but they had little influence on the main book, Pragmatist Aesthetics (Shusterman philosophical scene in America. (I 1997a). RRSS::: Yes, there has been a significant should mention that Dewey’s great revival of pragmatism in the United interest in education was not only States and to some extent also in Europe expressed in theoretical writings -- many Väkevä, L. (2000). Interviewing Richard Shusterman: Part I. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education. Vol. 1, #1, (April 2002). http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/ShustermanPt1v1_1.pdf Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 3 of 10 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ articles and his famous book Democracy school (especially Adorno and Walter Hilary Putnam) are those who, like and Education (LW 9), but also in Benjamin). Continental philosophy myself, turned from analytic philosophy practical work. He set up a very seemed to deal with larger, more to pragmatism. These two philosophers influential experimental school in politically relevant questions and issues and Nelson Goodman and Joseph Chicago.) that analytic philosophy seemed to Margolis (also important analytic I first got deeply interested in almost completely ignore. But the style philosophers of art who then expressed pragmatism when I came to teach in the of much continental theory seemed too strong pragmatist tendencies) are all United States in the mid-eighties. I think unclear, inadequately argued, and older philosophers who have had a very the main reasons for my interest in undisciplined for my tastes. Pragmatism, helpful influence on my work, even if I pragmatism are typical for many as James and Dewey practiced it, seemed very often disagree with them. Putnam philosophers. First, there was the feeling to provide the model of how to combine and Margolis are far more interested in that analytic philosophy was not making the clear arguments and common sense traditional metaphysical questions than the sort of progress it had initially hoped of analytic philosophy together with the Rorty or I am, and they are far less for. It was still good as a critical tool and large and socially important issues of subjectivistic and voluntaristic than method, and its best work seemed to be continental philosophy. My book Rorty. But I also do not share the in progressively criticizing its own Pragmatist Aesthetics (Shusterman extremity of Rorty’s sense of founding theories, notions, and projects: 1997a), by treating particular problems contingency and idiosyncrasy. As I those enunciated by G.E. Moore, and topics in the philosophy of art, also argue in a number of my books, Rorty’s Bertrand Russell, the early Wittgenstein, tries to show how pragmatism is a very treatment of contingency confuses what Frege, the Vienna Circle. But secondly, fruitful middle way between the analytic is not absolutely necessary with what is there was the excitement I felt about and continental traditions of philosophy. merely arbitrary and accidental. He thus continental theories of poststructuralism The most influential pragmatists does not give adequate attention to the (Foucault, Derrida) and the Frankfurt- in the United States (Richard Rorty and power and justifiability of social norms, Väkevä, L. (2000). Interviewing Richard Shusterman: Part I. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education. Vol. 1, #1, (April 2002). http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/ShustermanPt1v1_1.pdf Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 4 of 10 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ and to the biological nature of human are in some ways postmodern, but they LLVV::: What about the role of Dewey’s beings. He tends too easily to dismiss are not nihilistic or relativistic in the aesthetics today? What does Dewey's both the social sciences and natural sense that anything goes or that any view aesthetics have to offer for the current art sciences. He focuses on literature as the is as justifiable as any other. Though in world? What difference would it make if way to self-salvation and social some of writings I have, for polemical we thought of the arts pragmatically? improvement. I differ not only from and didactic purposes, sharply contrasted What implications do you see that it Rorty but from all the other pragmatists I analytic aesthetics to pragmatist would hold for art education? What mention by insisting on the value of the aesthetics on several key points, I don’t about the art politics in general? non-linguistic dimension of experience think it is impossible to combine analytic (the other philosophers tend to equate philosophy and pragmatism, especially if RRSS::: In some ways, Dewey’s aesthetics experience with linguistic experience and we think of analytic philosophy more as seem obsolete even for the artworld of Rorty rejects the notion of experience a method or style of argumentation. the time in which he wrote his famous altogether) and on the importance of Goodman, Putnam, Rorty, Margolis, book Art as Experience (LW 10). attention to a bodily dimension of Stanley Cavell, and myself combine ideas Though he wrote in the 1930's his taste philosophy, which I partly pursue and methods of analytic philosophy with in plastic art did not really extend past through the notion of philosophy as a certain general pragmatist orientations turn of the century post-impressionism. way of life. that the classic pragmatism of Peirce, He never really came to grips with The other significant area where James, and Dewey made famous: cubism and other very influential my work is very different from theirs is orientations that are less about breaking movements. Similarly, while Dewey in my attention to popular art as a things down and tracing them back to affirmed in principle the right of people valuable source for reviving aesthetic their ultimate foundation and more about to enjoy popular art and suggested its experience and directing new energy to looking forward to see how their potential to give aesthetic experience to social and political causes. My positions consequences work in practice. those people, he himself did nothing in Väkevä, L. (2000). Interviewing Richard Shusterman: Part I. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education. Vol. 1, #1, (April 2002). http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/ShustermanPt1v1_1.pdf Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 5 of 10 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ his writings to make a real case for the fully embodied experience, in the Aesthetic Experience (1997c) and further aesthetic value and legitimacy of the appreciation of art. Most contemporary in Performing Live and in French book popular arts. He seemed to recognize aesthetics has tended to be overly of 1999 (La fin de l’experience that popular art would need to be intellectualist, emphasizing
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