How the general notion of experience is understood determines to some extent what one thinks about art and aesthetic experience. Pragmatism widens the concept of experience from that of sense experience. Action, practice and movement are epistemologically significant elements of experience. The environment is not just perceived, it is experienced also by acting, moving around and participating in different practices, as can be spelled out in terms of Peircean semiotics. From the pragmatist point of view, aesthetic experience is not characterized only as disinterested contemplation of art works and other elements of our environment as objects of perception. Aesthetic experience is intertwined with different social and cultural practices in the flux of our everyday life. [1

Määttänen, Pentti

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Pentti Määttänen

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Aesthetics of Movement and Everyday Aesthetics

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Contemporary AestheticsSpecial Volume 1 (2005) AESTHETICS ANDMOBILITY2005Aesthetics of Movement and Everyday AestheticsPentti MäättänenUniversity of Helsinki, pentti.maattanen@helsinki.fiFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaestheticsPart of the Esthetics CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Liberal Arts Division at DigitalCommons@RISD. It has been accepted for inclusion inContemporary Aesthetics by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@RISD. For more information, please contact mpompeli@risd.edu.About CAJournalContact CALinksSubmissionsSearch Journal Editorial BoardPermission to ReprintPrivacySite MapPublisherWebmasterAesthetics of Movement and Everyday Aesthetics  Pentti Määttänen AbstractHow the general notion of experience is understood determinesto some extent what one thinks about art and aestheticexperience. Pragmatism widens the concept of experience fromthat of sense experience. Action, practice and movement areepistemologically significant elements of experience. Theenvironment is not just perceived, it is experienced also byacting, moving around and participating in different practices,as can be spelled out in terms of Peircean semiotics. From thepragmatist point of view, aesthetic experience is notcharacterized only as disinterested contemplation of art worksand other elements of our environment as objects ofperception. Aesthetic experience is intertwined with differentsocial and cultural practices in the flux of our everyday life.[1]Key Wordsaesthetics of movement, pragmatism, semiotics of space1. Semiotics of SpaceAccording to Charles Peirce, the main idea of pragmatism is towiden the concept of experience beyond that of senseexperience.[2] The epistemological role of action must betaken into account. We are embodied beings, living organismsthat are in continuous interaction with our environment. TheCartesian dichotomy between internal and external does notmake sense in the pragmatist account. We are in this oneworld already, and the important distinctions are thosebetween different kinds of activities in this world, as opposedto the distinction between what is inside (in the head or in themind) and what is "out there" in the external world.The semiotic theory of Peirce is an essential element of hispragmatism. According to this theory, signs are three-placerelations between objects, sign-vehicles and interpretants. Asign-vehicle refers to its object, but not by itself. It must beinterpreted to refer to its object, and the interpretant servesthat purpose. There are different kinds of interpretants, butthe most important one is the final logical interpretant, a habitof action that terminates the chain of interpretation.[3] Thereare different levels of meaningful activities, linguistic, artisticand so on, but our bodily action in the physical environment isalso meaningful action.What a thing means, Peirce says, is simply what habits itinvolves.[4] Chairs and tables, doors and windows, buildings,squares and the like, all literally objects of perception, areinterpreted through habitual activities (actual or potential) thatare related to them. As moving pieces of flesh, we interpretthe environment in the course of everyday life through ourhabits. As cultural beings, we also attach symbolic meaningsto objects of perception; therefore we have a multilayeredsystem of meanings corresponding to different kinds ofinteraction with our physical and cultural environment.[5]We also experience the social environment it, as moving partsof it, by moving around, walking and jogging and using cars,buses and trams. Fellow citizens are experienced in terms ofwhat they are about to do, how they are about to act. Thismutual anticipation of one's own and other people's actions isa way of thinking about and interpreting social reality. Strictlyspeaking, one cannot perceive social reality. We can perceivea police officer, but the institution of law and order cannot bereduced to him. From the symbols that an officer carries, wecan conclude that s/he will probably behave in a certain way incertain circumstances. But such activity is perceived only afterit begins. Social reality thus exists as habits of social actionand is also experienced through action by participating inhabitual social practices.[6]Meanings, on the other hand, exist as habitual social practices,i.e., habits are meanings. This is one way to express theprinciple of meaning as use, and not only by way of linguisticexpression, but by use of any object like tools, instruments,buildings and so on. The wider notion of experience leads to awider notion of meaning as well.[7] This notion of meaningentails that when we experience our environment asmeaningful, when we attach meanings to it, we experience itas places and objects related to different kinds of meaningfulsocial practices. A church, for example, is associated withcertain religious texts as well as with different ceremonies andrituals performed by people coming to the place and behavingin appropriate ways. An art gallery or a concert hall isinterpreted to be not only a specific place for exhibiting andperforming works of art but also a place associated withvarious cultural practices, conventions and conceptions,including views about aesthetics.[8] Museums and galleries arethe places where paintings and other objects can beexperienced in an impersonal environment not too closelyconnected to the pleasures and sorrows of practical, everydaylife. Similarly, musical scholarship suggests that the idea ofconcert halls as places where musical 'works' could becompleted apart from everyday matters developed along thesame lines and for the same reasons as museums andgalleries.[9] In this way the environment can be seen as asystem of signs, a sort of spatial code, interpreted withlinguistic and other meaningful practices.[10]In moving around we move in the middle of this system ofsigns that are interpreted in terms of these meanings to theextent we are acquainted with the practices in question, aswell as when we are not actually participating in thesepractices. All places and locations are saturated with thesemeanings which, in one way or another, affect our everydayexperience.2. Art as ExperienceThere are different sorts of pragmatism, but if we takeseriously one of the incentives of classical pragmatism, namelythe theory of evolution, the conclusion is that as products ofnature we do not have access to any transcendental spheres.Thus, the Neo-Kantian conception of aesthetic experience asdisinterested appeal to the transcendent cannot be accepted.Instead, all experience is interpreted in terms of meanings,and all meanings are tied to different kinds of actions.Therefore we cannot have experiences completely devoid ofpractical engagement. We can, however, distinguish betweentwo kinds of action.Aristotle defined praxis as action the goal of which is theaction itself and poiesis as action the goal of which is theproduct of that action.[11] For example, building a boat ispoiesis. The best example of praxis, on the other hand, is life.To live a good and happy life is the highest purpose of lifeitself. Life as praxis has no specific product or outcome thatcould be of higher value, and we are not in the world for thepurpose of being transported to transcendence. Ethics isconcerned about what kinds of choices are proper for living agood and happy life. For Aristotle these problems are alwayscontextual; the choices are about particular acts in concretecircumstances.In a similar way, one can distinguish between two kinds ofexperiences: experiences that are valuable in themselves andexperiences that are primarily means for some furtherexperiences. This is precisely the distinction that John Deweyused as a basis in his definition of aesthetic experience.[12]This notion is completely at odds with the Kantian notion ofaesthetic experience.[13] Of course, Dewey had much more tosay about aesthetic experiences, but this basic distinctionenables us to define disinterestedness in a relative way.Aesthetic experience is disinterested in the sense that it isrelatively independent of activities that one has to perform inorder achieve some further goals. For example, usually onehas to buy a ticket for a concert, but few people go toconcerts in order to have ticket-buying experiences. Usuallythey seek musical experience. Dewey's distinction is alsoformal in the sense that it does not specify the content of anaesthetic experience. Something can be experienced asbeautiful, sublime, horrifying, exiting or whatever as long as itis something that is pursued for its own sake.Consequentially and importantly, then, aesthetic experiencesin general are not separated from practical activities. On thecontrary, they are forms of praxis, important elements of agood and happy life, and they can be neatly intertwined withother practical activities that can be considered forms ofpraxis. In general we are not dealing with categorical but withrelative distinctions. An aesthetic experience may have afurther goal, such as self-education, and it is possible to be soenthusiastic about one's work that it becomes almost a goal initself. Aesthetics in this sense is intertwined with life; it is akind of everyday aesthetics rather than a doctrine abouttranscendentmatters.A good example of this kind of everyday aesthetics is the so-called praxial philosophy of music and music education. It isbased on the Aristotelian notion of praxis but not limited to it,as becomes clear from Thomas Regelski's extensiveanalysis.[14] However, praxialists usually refuse to use theword 'aesthetic' because the term is quite often understood inthe spirit of Neo-Kantian aesthetics that is strongly criticizedby them. Another reason is the fact that it is often hard to tellwhat exactly is meant by the word, the Kantian, Deweyan, orsome other meaning. Regardless of this terminological issue,the point is that works of art are discussed in the context ofother social and cultural activities without the theoreticalburden of the aesthetic views developed in connection withgallery art. Music as "good time," - literally, as "worth while"time, time well-spent, to use Regelski's expression, is a goodexample of a Deweyan sort of aesthetic experience.3. Aesthetics of MovementDewey's definition of aesthetic experience is based on thedistinction between means and ends. In a similar way, movingmay be determined by a need to proceed to a certain place --home, work or somewhere else -- in an efficient way. Then itis purely a means for getting to that place. On the other hand,people may be moving around without any definite ideas aboutwhere to go. In this case movement is a kind of end in itself.These kinds of differences in the motives of moving have aneffect on ways of moving, for example on whether one goes onfoot or uses vehicles. As in Dewey's aesthetics, the distinctionbetween movement as means and as an end is relative. Bothaspects may be present.Now the question arises whether those experiences of movingand experiences related to movement that are pursued fortheir own sake can be called aesthetic experiences in Dewey'ssense. At least it can be said that they satisfy Dewey's formaldefinition of aesthetic experience. If the consummatoryaspect[15] of the overall experience of movement isdominant, it is quite safe to conclude that movement can bean element in our everyday aesthetics. This kind of movementmay even be a part of the pragmatist slogan "make your life awork of art." Actually the pragmatist framework is not evennecessary for this, as is shown by the modernist example ofthe flaneur.There is no movement without context, without physical andsocial environment. Various elements of the environment maygive rise to experiences that contain elements ofconsummation. An old metaphor compares the urbanenvironment with a machine. But machines are not designedfor the purpose of serving the needs of their own constituentparts, the nuts and bolts, wheels, bearings and gears of themachine itself. Machines, instead, are designed for the purposeof maximum output with sufficiently good quality. What, incomparison, is the output of the city-machine? Is it profit forsome people, or is it a good life for the moving parts of theurban machine, that is for the people living in thatenvironment?4. The Ethical DimensionAesthetics is intertwined with ethics. Aesthetic praxis is not sodifferent from other forms of praxis. Aesthetic goals and othergoals of good life cannot be categorically separated, and thereare no easy solutions to what specific choices are good.Aristotle defined the good by saying that good is that for whichpeople strive. The problem is that people seem to strive fordifferent goals. No one of these goals can be taken as acommon denominator of all possible good things, as the moralgood by virtue of which other good things are good. This isrelatred to the accusations of the so-called naturalistic fallacy.These accusations are, however, based on a kind of aprioristicfallacy, the assumption that some common denominator existsand that it can be found out with a priori conceptualreasoning. However, nothing guarantees that such a commondenominator actually exists.Aristotle observed that ethical choices depend heavily oncontext. The pragmatist notion of meaning, according to whichmeanings are habitual practices, entails that it is not possibleto find sufficient and necessary conditions that govern all kindsof phenomena. The true character of praxis is that it leavesroom for different kinds of goals that can be considered to begood goals from certain points of view. The relevant problemof philosophical ethics is not the problem of a one-and-onlydefinition of moral good as opposed to all natural goods, but offinding a way to contribute to the creation of circumstances inwhich people can discuss and negotiate how to accommodatetheir respective goals in a fair and equal way.These considerations all have some consequences for theurban machine in which some of us live. If the machine isdesigned with "poietic" principles, just to function smoothlyand efficiently to produce an output distinct and separate fromthe machine itself, it probably is not the best machine forpraxis, for the happy life of the moving parts of that machine.These parts have slightly different values and goals, differentways of life and points of view, not to mention different tastesin art. The friction caused by these differences should bediminished, not by forcing all moving parts to move andfunction in terms of efficiency, but by using enough lubricantto allow for realizing individual (but not individualistic)purposes. Art in an everyday context can play some role in thislubrication.The stress on art in everyday context does not, of course,mean that galleries, museums and concert halls should beclosed. Neither does it mean that art works as physical objectsshould necessarily be different. The same physical entity canbe interpreted in different ways. To take something as a workof art is to interpret it with meanings, and these meanings arelinguistic, educational and so on. The variety of these practicesand traditions implies that there will always be as different astheaesthetic views and attitudes with which people evaluateart works and other objects of the environment. Thepragmatist point of view easily allows for this pluralism as itdenies the possibility of a priori ethical standards and analysesof cultural phenomena in the relevant practical context.The environment around us is quite complicated. The physicalenvironment of buildings, squares, roads and vehicles canperhaps be made to function as a machine, but thatenvironment is loaded with cultural meanings and isintertwined with our social environment. The social realityexists as habitual social practices and is interpreted andexperienced in the same way as physical reality: throughhabits of action, by participating in these practices. Thisprovides one possibility for characterizing art located in themiddle of the various and ubiquitous practices of life: It is arton the move.Endnotes[1] The work on this paper has been supported by the EmilAaltonen Foundation. I am indebted to Thomas Regelski forinsightful comments on this topic.[2] Charles Peirce, Collected Papers, ed. Charles Hartshorneand Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932-1958), passage 1.336.[3] Ibid., passage 5.491.[4] Ibid., passage 5.400.[5] Pentti Määttänen, Action and Experience, AnnalesAcademiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 64 (Helsinki: AcademiaScientiarum Fennica, 1993).[6] Pentti Määttänen, "Space, Time, and Interpretation,"Proceedings of Nature, Culture, Semiotics: Location IV,September 23-26, 2004, Tallinn - Tartu (forthcoming).[7] This wider notion of meaning can be found alsoin LudwigWittgenstein's later writings about language games. PenttiMäättänen, "Meanings as Use: Peirce and Wittgenstein," Timeand History. Papers of the 28th International WittgensteinSymposium, August 7-13, 2005, Kirchberg am Wechsel, ed.Friedrich Stadler and Michael Stöltzner, Contributions of theAustrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Vol. XIII (Kirchberg amWechsel: Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, 2005).[8] The place may thus have an effect on the reception of anartwork because of the meaning associated with the place.[9] Lydia Goehr, Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. AnEssay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1992).[10] 'Spatial code' is Henri Lefebvre's term. The views ofLefebvre and Peirce are compared in Pentti Määttänen,"Semiotics of Space: Peirce and Lefebvre," Proceedings of The8th Congress of IASS, July 7-13, Lyon (forthcoming).[11] Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea. The Works of Aristotle, Vol.IX (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), 1140 b 6-7.[12] John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Perigee,1980), p. 57.[13] Pentti Määttänen, "Aesthetic Experience: A Problem inPraxialism," Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, 1,1 (2001) http://mas.siue.edu/ACT/index.html.[14] Thomas A. Regelski, "Social Theory, and Music and MusicEducation as Praxis," Action, Criticism & Theory for MusicEducation, 3, 3 (2004) http://mas.siue.edu/ACT/index.html.[15] 'Consummatory' is Dewey's term for expressing the ideathat an experience has a character of fulfillment, is satisfactoryand self-sufficient. See John Dewey, ibid., p. 35.Pentti MäättänenDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of HelsinkiP.O. Box 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 20 A)00014 University of HelsinkiFinlandpentti.maattanen@helsinki.fiPublished December 21, 2005

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