A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AESTHETICS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ROLE OF PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE (SOCIAL, EXPERIENCE)

Philosophical discourse centering on aesthetics has produced esoteric conceptualizations of terms such as beauty, taste, and judgment. The questions raised by these conceptualizations have become the province of professionalized philosophy, the fine arts, and participants in an elitist high culture. Thus, contemporary professional views remove aesthetics from common purview and may render it inaccessible and incapable of being integrated with human activity. Under such conditions, our society can be termed an unaesthetic society.;This study examines the relationships between professionalized philosophy and aesthetics, art and aesthetics, art theory and philosophy of art, art education and aesthetic education, and the influence these relationships have had on historical and contemporary aesthetic thought and praxis. This study traces how these relationships fostered a concentration on a set of enduring aesthetic problems and, consequently, influenced the nature and method of aesthetic inquiry, the definition of aesthetic experience, the role of aesthetics in society, and contemporary aesthetic education.;Through a critical examination of aesthetics, this study suggests that the foundations upon which contemporary aesthetics has been based limits the scope of aesthetics for aesthetic education in a democratic society. Therefore, a social and public view is explored and a public philosophy is proposed as a foundation for aesthetic education. The study presents public philosophical perspectives as a basis for qualitative inquiry and a synoptic view of aesthetics. The need to consider human experience as well as understanding of the historical and social principles manifested as highest expressions of human activity is addressed.;In summary, the role of aesthetics in a democratic society is not served by a view in which social and moral considerations of aesthetics are second to the formal qualities of art. In regard to the latter, cultural claims for aesthetic education fall short or represent specific segments of society.;Alternatives for a social and public view of aesthetics exist but have been ignored. Therefore, philosophy may have to explore a non art-related philosophy of aesthetics and include nature, ordinary experience, and community as a foundation for the pedagogy of aesthetic education.