Aesthetic experience has had a long and contentious history in the Western intellectual tradition. Following Kant and Hegel, a human’s interaction with nature or art frequently has been conceptualized as separate from issues of practical activity or moral value. This book examines how art can be seen as a way of moral cultivation. Scott Stroud uses the thought of the American pragmatist John Dewey to argue that art and the aesthetic have a close connection to morality. Dewey gives us a way to reconceptualize our ideas of ends, means, and experience so as to locate the moral value of aesthetic experience in the experience of absorption itself, as well as in the experience of reflective attention evoked by an art object.

"Horton offers a truly original approach to her subjects -- sophisticated, probing, daring. Her book is an important contribution to scholarship on both writers and to a rethinking of how we approach writers from the 'contact zone.'."--Sidonie Smith, Binghamton University.

The first comprehensive history of the nature study movement and its significance to American environmental thought and politics. Argues that nature study advocates, through their systematic program or educating children about nature, formed a critical foundation for the launching of the conservation movement.

"Examines the relationship between art and morality discussed in the writings of American pragmatist John Dewey. Argues that there is a clear connection between the experience of art and the project of moral cultivation"--Provided by publisher.

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Dewey believed that schools should change from places where children's heads were stuffed with facts to environments where children were encouraged to think for themselves. Reprinted here are three of his most important books on education, along with a selection of reviews from contemporary journals.