Dewey’s Debt to Barnes

摘要

Abstract John Dewey’s association with Albert C. Barnes significantly influenced his monumental Art as Experience, a fact Dewey fully acknowledged both in that work and in other writings. Yet Barnes’s contribution to Dewey’s ideas has seldom been discussed. Even those who write about Dewey’s aesthetics frequently ignore it, or provide distorted descriptions of Barnes’s life and of the two men’s relationship. Dewey was drawn to dynamic individuals who provided empirical evidence for his philosophical views. Barnes’s passion for education, conviction that looking at visual art could transform lives, and faith in action all influenced Dewey’s thinking. An examination of the Dewey-Barnes correspondence and of some of their joint activities helps set the historical record straight about Dewey’s debt to Barnes. It also contributes to our understanding of both men’s aesthetic theories and is particularly relevant as the Barnes Foundation moves to a more public venue in Philadelphia in 2012.