Abstract

In my recent book, Art and Engagement (1991), I develop the idea of aesthetic engagement as central to the appreciation of art. The human contribution to the constitution of the "work" of art, I claim, is a critical part of appreciative experience. This contribution, however, is easily misread into the history of the idea of experience that has dominated Western philosophy since the seventeenth century, a history that sees experience as an inner, personal, subjective affair. From this vantage point, the metaphysical implications of an aesthetics of experience seem to lead resolutely to idealism.1 'Experience', however, is a troublesome term precisely because its meaning is equivocal. Despite its association with philosophical idealism, experience allows a range of interpretations in various contexts. Even though aesthetic experience is often understood subjectively, it is mistaken to think that it allows of no other alternative. These comments raise a complex of issues, two of which I want to consider here: first, the metaphysical significance of experience and, second, the bearing of art on metaphysics.