An Unconscious Dimension of Thinking, Situations, and La Vida: Reflections on Bethany Henning's Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious

this book is doing different related and valuable things. First, Bethany Henning explores a neglected dimension of Dewey's thought. In particular, the book inquires into the dimension of the unconscious and tries to develop what she considers an "implicit" "theory of the unconsciousness" or of the "aesthetic unconscious" in Dewey's philosophy. Then, based on all of the above, it provides a diagnosis and possible solution to a problem with philosophers and with American culture.The neglected dimension of Dewey's thought that Henning explores highlights the ways in which Dewey foresaw what feminist thinkers have said, and recent scientific accounts of human life and thinking are confirming: What we "feel" (what is "qualitative," "ineffable," and "noncognitive") is key to how to think and how to live (guidance and meaning). It has therefore been puzzling to me (along with John McDermott, Tom Alexander, Mark Johnson, and a few others) why even Dewey scholarship has to a large extent neglected exploring this aspect of his thought. Frustrated with Bertrand Russell, Dewey says that "Mr. Russell has not been able to follow the distinction I make between the immediately had material of non-cognitively experienced situations and the material of cognition—a distinction without which my view cannot be understood" (LW 14:33; emphasis added).More importantly, by neglecting this insight and these aspects of his thought, we have failed to utilize one of the most important resources to diagnose sociopolitical-moral problems today! This is what I have been trying to do in recent years, and I see Dr. Henning as trying to do the same. She is not just providing a theory of the unconscious for the sake of speculation, but she does so with instrumental intent, in the hope that it will help us better approach a concrete social-cultural problem we suffer in our society, a topic to which I will return.My reading of Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious has provoked a few questions: (a)Is there, in Dewey, a conception of aesthetic and religious experience that can be understood as an "implicit theory of the unconscious"?(b)Even if there is one, do we need one? For what purpose?(c)What would we miss if we were to say what needs to be said and explored by Henning by using different terms/concepts and avoiding the possible misunderstanding and dangers of making reference to "the unconscious"?(d)Would Henning agree that the problematic aversion or repression in American culture that concerns us is more than that of the unconscious, the qualitative, body, and nature that form the focus of her book?(e)Henning agrees that we need more than art and "deep" psychology to ameliorate the problems that concern us. What is this "more"? How?In regard to (b), I can think of one good purpose, which Henning develops in Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious: to engage in a dialogue with psychoanalysis and contemporary philosophies that draw from psychoanalysis and feminism (e.g., Kristeva) or, in general, other academics concerned with the same problems. I also wondered as I was reading the book why Henning does not put Carl Jung in dialogue with Dewey as well, just as a matter of curiosity. But I wonder, if we need to develop a "theory of the unconsciousness" or of the "aesthetic unconsciousness" to both make a contribution to the "depth" of lived experience (La Vida) and also deal with the social-cultural problems that concern us.There are dangers with talking about or making reference to "the" unconsciousness or "the" aesthetic unconsciousness and theorizing about them. The problem is that it comes across as a noun, and not as way of participating in La Vida or nature, that is continuous in a significant way with what is more conscious and more cognitive: we are at any time more or less conscious. But Henning seems aware of all of this. She is careful enough to make clear that she is acknowledging continuity, but I confess to "feeling" uncomfortable sometimes with her reference to that dimension of La Vida by taking about "the" unconsciousness, and the idea that what she wants to accomplish is a theory of "the" unconsciousness. The danger of misunderstanding what she is up to, and reification by taking this way, both seem real to me.Both Dewey and Ortega y Gassett share Henning's view of "La Vida," but they (knowingly or unknowingly) avoid the sorts of descriptions and terminology she prefers. Instead, they raise their criticisms and arguments of this dimension of experience by speaking or stressing the distinction between the foreground/background of situations, thought/habits, "reparar"/"contar con." What would we miss if we were to say what needs to be said by using the terms these philosophers preferred?I conducted a test when I was reading the book. I would stop at key passages and ask myself: Could this be said and understood without having to invoke something like the "aesthetic/Dewey's unconsciousness"? For example, what if, instead of positing an "unconscious dimension" (Henning 35) in Dewey, we talk about those aspects and forces of lived experience that we are less conscious of, which are less cognitive, such as what we feel (as qualitative, or affective) and our habits?Admittedly, to talk about what is ultimately ineffable is hard, and the language we have inherited is itself dualistic and exclusionary (there is either the conscious or the non-conscious), but it is an open question how best to capture what we are describing and ultimately point to what is actually lived (had) and avoid misunderstanding and dangers.That Henning does not share my reluctance to use certain terms may be a minor difference of strategy. Perhaps, given that she is trying to talk to people in psychoanalysis and in the academic world, she has to talk that way. Sometimes, however, I wonder if the difference is more substantial. Perhaps for Henning, the "unconscious" is the most basic notion on her way to conceiving that layer of lived experience we both agree exists. While, for me, the "unconscious"—or better, "the not-so-conscious"—is merely one of many descriptions or qualifications of the most basic notion of a "situation" and lived experience ("La Vida").Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious also provides a diagnosis and possible solution to a problem with philosophers and American culture. As Henning says, "American life is in the midst of a crisis" and has "cultivated a perilous aversion to the ambiguous and unconscious ground of thought" that has resulted in an insensitivity to the intimate relatedness human beings enjoy with the environment that sustains them (7). In her diagnosis, there is an emphasis on repression, denial (injustices), fractured culture, trauma (injustices), and alienation (from our bodies and nature).Some of the causes she identifies are the fact that experience is filtered through tech devices, that a concern for social justice often includes a disdain for the religious dimension, and that philosophy has aggravated these ills by, at times, prescribing detachment, disdain, and dismissal of the "depth" of lived experience. So, what can cure our habitual "aversion" or "repression"?Henning finds that a theory of "the unconscious," and that a reincorporation of art and religious sensitivity, may help us. She emphasizes the use of these phases of experience in "revealing," "accepting," and "coming to terms with" persistent and recalcitrant problems. Henning presents artwork as analogous to "working through" a rupture created by trauma and explains that we need to find "opportunities to cultivate our sensitivity to the unconscious portions of experience" (Henning 58, 130). I agree with her, but would nevertheless like to pose some questions. While there was no need for her to address them in her book, they emerge from my reading it."Where do we go from here?" Henning is pointing to a "real" problem in the United States. While theoretical and scientific inquiry is important, it is a problem that must be first experienced, or "felt" in the qualitative sense. There is no hope for the United States if the people fail to feel the lack of meaning (and democracy) to be a problem. I am afraid too many Americans who grow up here do not "feel" the problem that concerns Henning. Many Americans will deny that they suffer from "repression," and this is precisely where art can help. However, for those of us who are immigrants, or are marginal, or who come from another culture, this problem is immediately obvious. We do not need art or have knowledge to immediately experience the pervasive, indeterminate situation: the disconnect with the body, the lack of community, and the denial of violence and trauma in the everyday life of the people.In regard to question (c) above: Is it the best approach to the concrete problem that concerns us about America, to treat it as a "social pathology" of a society across situations (time and place)?There is approach to social philosophy characteristic of a European tradition that takes society to be "intrinsically sick" with a malaise that requires adopting a theoretical, critical, historical stance in order to understand how the systematic sickness affects present social situations. In other words, this approach assumes thatFor me, the Deweyan approach, and the more correct-empirical one, is very different from this dominant approach among academics. We can talk all we want about entire societies and culture as being "sick" in some respect, just as we can talk abstractly about "cancer," but we need to engage in a more context-sensitive inquiry, as particularistic as possible. For, after all, every problematic situation is a unique context. The starting point and focus should not be on procuring a national diagnosis (on a society or culture as a whole) or large historical narratives.Dewey's radical contextualism differs from approaches that start with large (global) historical narratives or grand causal accounts. Dewey explains why this methodological, particularistic commitment to context is so demanding: We need to develop the ability (and the disposition) to look for particular kinds of solutions by particular methods for particular problems which arise on particular occasions. In other words, we must deal with concrete problems by concrete methods when these problems present themselves in our experience. (John Dewey's Lectures 53)Regarding question (d) above: Would Henning agree that the problematic aversion or repression in American culture that concerns us is more than that of the unconscious, the qualitative, body, and nature that form the focus on her book? For instance, historical injustices and traumas and the gamut of aspects of La Vida that Dewey identified with the "precarious" traits of existence. We witness this on the prevalence of "fear," the common habitual quest for what is stable and cognitive, and the quest for efficiency, certainty, purity, simplicity, and clarity in the everyday life of many Americans. What is at stake is also genuine experimentation and democracy as a way of life.Yes, some sort of collective psychoanalysis and the use of art can help with an America that suffers from repression. But are we dealing with just one repression, of the unconscious or the body, as stressed by Henning? It seems to me more like a series of interrelated repressions, of historical injustices and traumas and the gamut of aspects of La Vida that Dewey identified with the "precarious" traits of existence. We suffer from aversion, discomfort, and impatience with death, contingency, novelty, ambiguity, chance, error, vagueness, and plurality.The consequences of these repressions are more than just failure to connect with the unconscious or deeper meanings; it is a society incapable of embracing pluralism or limited in experimentation to guide its course and deal with its social problems. But also, as a result, it is incapable of embracing all that Dewey thought was required to adopt Democracy as a way of life. For Democracy as a way of life is a proposal about how to live in a world that has an inextricable mixture of order, unity, goodness, community, stability and uncertainty, risk, conflict, death, novelty, change, error, individuality, and pluralism. Therefore, both deep meaning and deep democracy are at stake.Regarding question (e): I am sure that Henning agrees that we need more than art and "deep" psychology to ameliorate the problems that concern us. What is this "more"? How? Should not community and education be integral to the possible solution or strategy suggested in Bethany Henning's wonderful book?A diagnosis coming from psychoanalysis or one that emphasizes the unconsciousness and uses art promises to put us in touch with a "deeper" dimension of La Vida, but given the integrity of "La Vida," all other dimensions are usually interrelated. There are economic, structural, institutional, political, moral, and psychological aspects to the lived integrity of social problems; they may all require our close attention in order to avoid one-sidedness or oversimplification. This is why science and art should work together. Henning is aware of this; she even suggests the complementary character of science and art a few times in the book, but can more be said? How would they work together?For me, what she has suggested that we do should be a part of experimenting with a more pluralistic-holistic approach, calling for multiple-context sensitive strategies. It requires more extensive and diverse forms of "therapy," education via the arts, and more.Transformation of habits and the environment are key. This is a matter of transforming our interactions at all levels of lived experience. This is especially hard in a society where genuine and "deep" communications are rare, and I believe they are the source of the sort of interaction that Henning argues for: they reach to the "depth" of lived experience. Our relationships and our communications are superficial, non-aesthetic in the ways that Dewey stresses, mechanical without significant "undergoing." The solution, he tells us, is creating the conditions for genuine democratic interaction/communication to emerge, another key function of art. Should not community and education be integral to the possible solution or strategy suggested in Henning's wonderful book?