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Art, imagination, and experiential knowledge

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Abstract

In this paper, I argue that art can help us imagine what it would be like to have experiences we have never had before. I begin by surveying a few of the things we are after when we ask what an experience is like. I maintain that it is easy for art to provide some of them. For example, it can relay facts about what the experience involves or what responses the experience might engender. The tricky case is the phenomenal quality of the experience or what it feels like from the inside. Thus, in the main part of the paper, I discuss how art can provide us with this as well. I conclude by situating my view in the context of the broader debate over transformative experiences. I maintain that art can solve some but not all of the problems that arise when deciding whether to undergo a transformation.

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Notes

  1. Many philosophers are skeptical about aesthetic testimony. We cannot know, they claim, whether an item is beautiful based on someone else's say-so (for discussion, see Hills, 2020; Hopkins, 2011; Meskin, 2004; Nguyen, 2017; Robson, 2012). But it is usually conceded that we can learn from others whether we are likely to enjoy the item (see Meskin, 2004, p. 72). This is especially true if the testifiers have been reliable indicators of our preferences in the past.

  2. Artists sometimes give expression to their own experiences. In such cases, external confirmation is not required. We are warranted in taking what the artwork reveals at face value.

  3. My account might suggest that works of art direct us much like Lego instructions do. They identify each individual part of the whole and tell us exactly how it combines with the others. While some works of art may proceed in this fashion, most do not. Art typically directs our imagination in less didactic ways. For example, the musical score of a movie sets a mood, and this mood helps to structure our sense of what is happening in the plot. It prompts us to imagine the scenario in a particular way or from a particular perspective without telling us exactly what it is we are to imagine. Metaphors have a similar power. Romeo need not discursively describe the place of Juliet in his world. He can just say, “Juliet is the sun,” and this figure of speech frames our understanding of his experience of young love. One benefit of these non-didactic forms of guidance is that they are open-ended. The meaning of a live metaphor is inexhaustible; the structuring implications of the mood set by a musical score does not have hard and fast limits. This open-endedness helps address the gap problem discussed later in the paper.

  4. When I say that conveying experiential knowledge is art’s domain, I mean that it is something art is capable of doing. I do not mean that it is an artistic function—something a work does by virtue of being art as opposed to something else. I admit that conveying experiential knowledge is not something all or only art can do. I also concede that it may not be part of what makes something good art. Thus, enjoying a work’s ability to reveal what an experience is like may not amount to appreciating it qua art. On all such issues, I wish to remain agnostic.

  5. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article, as well as Sarah Reynolds, Saul Fisher, Ram Neta, and L. A. Paul, for their invaluable feedback and support. I am also grateful to the participants of the Yale University workshop on transformative experiences, the 2022 Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Division of the American Society for Aesthetics for their insightful comments and discussions.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Northern Michigan University, 1401 Presque Isle Ave., Marquette, MI, 49855, USA

    Antony Aumann

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Aumann, A. Art, imagination, and experiential knowledge. Synthese 201, 100 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04109-2

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