The concept of experience has a contested status in leisure studies. Much of the controversy over experience concerns whether the deployment of experience design techniques and philosophies helps or hinders leisure studies and the provision of leisure services. The intent of this inquiry is to recast the role of experience in both the study and practice of leisure. Rather than debating the merits and demerits of experience design methods and values, I will argue that experience itself is fundamental to both understanding leisure and living a good leisure life. Aristotle’s distinction between three types of virtuous knowledge (episteme, techne, and phronesis) that correspond to three ways of life (theoria, poiesis, and praxis) provides the foundation for a more expansive understanding of the role experience should play in leisure studies and services.
Donald McLean (Sat,) studied this question.