David Best

The rationality of feeling : understanding the arts in education

The rationality of feeling natural response and action reasoning questions differences free expression creativity feeling artist and audience two attitudes the particularity of feeling the aesthetic and the artistic art and life.

Intentionality and Art

A work of art is something which is unlike anything else. It is art which, best of all, gives us the idea of what is particular. ... it is due to feeling (friendship, love, affection) that one human being is different from others. To label, classify someone one loves, that is impious. ... It is due to feeling alone that a thing becomes freed from abstraction and becomes something individual and concrete. So, contrary to what is commonly believed, the contemplation of particular things is what elevates a man, and distinguishes him from animals (Simone Weill).

Emotional Education through the Arts

In this paper I will suggest some consequences for the position and scope of the arts in education which derive from a consideration of the logical problem of form and content. Specifically, I am concerned to raise for consideration some points about an area of education which seems to me to be of great importance yet which, at all levels, seems to have been generally either neglected or misunderstood, namely emotional development, and to indicate the uniquely valuable contribution which can be made by the arts. I do not, of course, wish to suggest that all works of art are emotionally expressive, but incontrovertibly some, indeed many, are of this character, and it is with such works that I am concerned.

The Aesthetics Of Dance.

In considering dance, the arts generally, human movement and physical education from a philosophical point of view, it has increasingly struck me that perhaps the biggest single area of confusion in the theoretical literature on these important aspects of human experience concerns the relationship of body to mind. This is, of course, a very large issue in contemporary philosophy, which I have tried to consider rather more fully in a recent book. But I want now to concentrate on one aspect of that issue, and to suggest that much popular talk and many theories of expression and meaning in the arts, especially dance, are vitiated by an underlying confusion about the emotions generally. In this paper I want to try to show just how a fallacious theory of the emotions creates insuperable difficulties for an understanding of any of the arts. It can, I suggest, be shown that though it is commonly accepted without question, this theory implies a position which few would want to accept, for a consequence would be that the arts, like the emotions in general, could not be intelligibly discussed. And even those who hold this traditional dualist view of the emotions usually contradict that consequence pragmatically, in that they exchange opinions about the arts as freely as anyone else. As an example, consider the dilemma in which a teacher of dance, imbued with such a theory, would find herself if she were to trace out the consequences of it, though we should remember that the same issue of principle would apply in other art forms and to discussion of expression in other physical activities.

Accountability and the Education of Feeling

Accountability is a major issue in education these days. In my view all aspects of education should be accountable, which means, inter alia, that they should be open to objective assessment. In this paper I propose to show the relation between some of the issues I considered in the previous two conferences,2 to extend my thesis, since there is so much more to say on the topic, and to show the relevance of these issues to the demand for accountability. I have argued for the objectivity of the creation, appreciation, interpretation, and evaluation of the arts.3 One of the most obvious problems for such a thesis is constituted by the expression of feeling in the arts. For most people seem to assume that notions of feeling or emotion are necessarily opposed to, and incompatible with, objectivity. In my view such an assumption not only is fundamentally confused in that it rests upon a radically incoherent conception of the relation of mind and body, but also incurs disastrous educational consequences. For if the expression of feelings in the arts is a subjective matter, then there is no legitimate justification for it in education. It is my conviction, on the contrary, that the expression of feeling in the arts is fully objectively assessable. I shall offer the outline of a philosophical position which I hope that arts educators can use to support their case that the education of feeling is of vital educational importance and that it is fully accountable.