Semiotic Aesthetics and Aesthetic Education

Abstract

Because of the dearth of system, as well as of confidence, with which I enter upon this discussion, it will be helpful to me, at least, to set up an initial framework for it. Not that the framework itself is exempt from critical examination; but where it does not go seriously wrong, it may justify itself by sorting and relating the various kinds of question that will turn up. One of my difficulties is that I have been reading (partly re-reading) my way through the six extant volumes of the Journal of Aesthetic Education, and perhaps I have been reading too fast. This is an excellent journal, admirably edited by Ralph Smith, and it provides a rich sense of the range of questions involved in aesthetic education, as well as many and varied answers to them. But too large a dose can be bewildering. Unless I adopt a simplified schema, even if it is somewhat ad hoc, I can't see how to draw out a few of the questions for special attention, without getting entangled in the rest.