Pragmatism and Art: Tools for Change

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John Howell White Kutztown University

In conjunction with other pos[structuralist moves away from an objectivist world, neo)pragmatism can provide art educators with useful theoretical perspectives to guide inaterpretations of works of art, pedagogy and curriculum. Interpretive strategies that are drawn from the pragmatic tradition and that utilize concepts such as contingent wholes (belief), demystification (alternative interpretations) and recontextualization (change), can provide art educators with alternatives to objectivist interpretive strategies, such as those promoted by Feldman (1994) and Barrett (1994) in art criticism and Tyler (1949) in curriculum. A neopragmatic …