John Dewey a problematika objektivity umělecké kritiky

John Dewey and the Objectivity of Art Criticism The article is concerned with the aesthetic theory of John Dewey, particularly his conception of art and the work of art. In his essays on art, Dewey formulates the conviction that aesthetic inquiry can properly consider the material object to be a work of art only after its incorporation into our continuing experience. The article is therefore mainly about whether such a conception of the work of art allows us to talk about art criticism and whether in such a case we can apply to it the requirement of objectivity. The article has three parts. In the first, the author endeavours to demonstrate the motivation and reasons behind Dewey’s ‘experiential conception of art’; the second part is devoted to developing his conception of art criticism and its possible objectivity; the third part seeks to make more precise Dewey’s ideas about art criticism in comparison with T. S. Eliot’s ideas about the function of literary criticism.