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Berleant’s Critique of Aesthetic Disinterestedness Revisited, Again
Harri Mäcklin
Like many of us working on aesthetics today, my views on the discipline have been fundamentally shaped by Arnold Berleant. When I first encountered Berleant’s works as a young university student, his way of appreciating the complexity, fluidity, and dynamics of aesthetic phenomena felt like a fresh breeze compared to the rigid and often simplistic theories we studied in the classroom. Although I cannot fully delve into my indebtedness to Berleant in this paper, I want to take this opportunity to thank him for his groundbreaking work.
I would like to focus here on one of the cornerstones of Berleant’s thinking, namely his critique of aesthetic disinterestedness. Starting from his seminal early works, The Aesthetic Field (1970) and Art and Engagement (1991), Berleant developed his own aesthetics in contrast to the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness, which he considers the fundamental dogma of modern Western aesthetics. Indeed, Berleant’s oeuvre can be described as a sustained effort to dismantle the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness and replace it with a more dynamic model of aesthetic engagement. Berleant’s critique is widely discussed in research literature and has received criticism from many fronts.[1] I will briefly revisit some of Berleant’s main arguments against aesthetic disinterestedness. I’d like to also raise some questions regarding the phenomenological details of his position.
The notion of aesthetic disinterestedness does not have a single, universally accepted definition; indeed, it is more like an umbrella term that during its long history has gathered various meanings and connotations.[2] The common thread of most definitions is that having an aesthetic experience requires the adoption of a special attitude, in which the perceiver detaches the aesthetic object from nonaesthetic concerns and contemplates the object purely for its own sake. Here’s a standard definition from Jerome Stolnitz, who in the twentieth century was perhaps the staunchest advocate of aesthetic disinterestedness:
[…] [W]e do not look at the object out of concern for any ulterior purpose which it may serve. We are not trying to use or manipulate the object. There is no purpose governing the experience other than the purpose of just having the experience. Our interest comes to rest upon the object alone […].[3]
The fundamental claim of this theory is that aesthetic experience is a unique form of experience that is separate from other forms of enjoyment and devoid of all nonaesthetic interests, be they moral, epistemic, pragmatic, and so on.
Though its roots go way back to the ancient Greeks, the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness gained its modern form in early eighteenth-century Britain by thinkers such as Lord Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, and Archibald Alison. A little later in the century, it gained traction in Germany and was canonized as a basic notion of aesthetics by Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790). From then on, the claim goes, it has served as an axiom that to this day runs through much of modern Western aesthetics.[4]
One of Berleant’s problems with the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness is its treatment as a universal aspect of all aesthetic experiences, even though it emerged as a reaction to the specific changes in the art world of eighteenth-century Europe. This was the time when the fine arts were conceptually separated from other forms of human activity. This conceptual development reflected the institutionalization of art, in the form of museums, concert houses, and public libraries. These conceptual and institutional demarcations of the fine arts led to the idea of artworks as discrete, self-contained objects that call for distinct, disinterested apprehension.
In Art and Engagement, Berleant argues that this theory has lost its relevance in the contemporary era. Contemporary art, he maintains, often requires audiences to engage with artworks in ways that . This claim surely holds as much today as it did in 1991, when Art and Engagement was published. Furthermore, Berleant in his later works has extensively demonstrated how the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness fails to capture our aesthetic engagement not only with artworks but also with natural and built environments, everyday objects, other human beings, and so on.
Besides this historical argument, Berleant also argues that the theory of disinterestedness works with an inadequate phenomenological model of aesthetic experience. It is this phenomenological critique that mostly interests me. Berleant argues that the theory is built on a strict, subject-object division, in which a disengaged and distanced perceiver contemplates an aesthetic object as a fixed, self-enclosed entity that is isolated from the surrounding world. Berleant claims that this static and overtly intellectual conceptualization severs aesthetic experience from the complexity of human life in a way that does not stand up to closer phenomenological scrutiny.
I’d like to take a closer look at this critique from two perspectives.
The first of Berleant’s problems is that the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness construes the aesthetic encounter in terms of distance. The subject and object of aesthetic appreciation are construed as being distanced from each other and connected only by a dispassionate and intellectual contemplation. In an exchange with Ronald Hepburn, Berleant discusses the problems of such a construal as follows:
One is the transformation of experience into an intellectual puzzle that compromises the perceptual immediacy at the heart of aesthetic [sic]. Another is the tendency to fragment the aesthetic situation into separate elements, typically the beholder on one side and the art object on the other, elements that then need to be related and reconciled. Such a division has created many of the “problems” that dog much philosophical aesthetics, among them problems concerning emotion, representation, expression, and the like.[5]
Berleant argues that the notion of contemplative distance does not correspond to the phenomenology of aesthetic experience. By drawing from John Dewey’s pragmatism and phenomenologists like Mikel Dufrenne and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Berleant argues that the model of contemplative distance should be replaced with a model of aesthetic engagement, in which the perceiver and the aesthetic phenomenon are in a complex and dynamic interaction with each other. The perceiver does not engage with the aesthetic phenomenon only by intellectually contemplating it from afar, but also by employing their affective, imaginative, and bodily capacities. The aesthetic phenomenon, in turn, is not static and self-enclosed, but something that calls for a response from the perceiver and is partly constituted in and through this response. Furthermore, the encounter of the perceiver and the aesthetic phenomenon does not occur in a vacuum, but in a highly complex context that Berleant has called the ‘aesthetic field,’ which consists of the presence of the artists and the performer and also the physical, cultural, and social contexts in which the encounter occurs. Berleant developed this model in an important early work, The Aesthetic Field, that, I feel, is nowadays less read than Berleant’s later works; I found the book extremely sobering as a young philosophy student and warmly recommend it to anyone who has not read it yet. The theory of aesthetic engagement was developed in Art and Engagement and expanded in several later works. Although I cannot at this point expound Berleant’s theory of aesthetic engagement in further detail, I want to note that, so far, I am fully on board with Berleant’s argument.
Berleant’s second problem has to do with the way the theory of disinterestedness conceptualizes the aesthetic encounter as involving the isolation of the aesthetic object from its surroundings. The idea here is that aesthetic experience requires the aesthetic object to be disconnected from the flow of life and that the perceiver’s attention is solely aimed at the aesthetic object, sometimes to the extent that the perceiver loses awareness of the surrounding world, time, and even of themselves as the subject of the experience. This isolation of the aesthetic object is seen as a distinct act that separates aesthetic appreciation from other human activities. Berleant, in turn, insists upon the continuity of experience. He claims firstly that the aesthetic object is not severed from its surroundings, but is experienced as a part of the same flow as any other experience. Secondly, he insists that aesthetic appreciation is not a sui generis form of experience, but is an act that employs the very same capacities as nonaesthetic activities. Berleant writes:
There is no need to sacrifice the distinctive, complex quality of aesthetic appreciation without separating such experience from its other modes. We can retain intense attention, perceptual acuity, wonder, and the raptness of powerful aesthetic occasions without the necessity of erecting a separate mode of experience to account for it.[6]
Now, I must admit that I find it harder to accept this contestation of aesthetic isolation than the other aspects of Berleant’s position. Admittedly, Berleant has supported his claim with many examples of aesthetic experience that do not involve the isolation of the aesthetic object such as aesthetic experiences of nature or the built environment or many forms of contemporary art. However, one can similarly find examples of aesthetic experiences that seem to be precisely founded upon the isolation of the aesthetic object from its surroundings. Furthermore, in these cases, it seems that this isolation cannot be accounted for simply in terms of intense attention, as it involves a complex intentional act that indeed seems to be distinct from other forms of intentionality.
What I have in mind here are the types of experiences described in classical phenomenological aesthetics. A common feature in the writings of Edmund Husserl, Eugen Fink, and Roman Ingarden—just to mention a few pioneering names[7]—is the claim that aesthetic experience involves a distinct intentional act in an encounter with an artwork that aims at the constitution of the aesthetic object. Their descriptions hinge upon the observation that the aesthetic object—the intentional object of aesthetic appreciation—is not identical to the physical object that is present to our senses. For example, when we look at a landscape painting, the intentional object of the experience is the landscape that opens before our eyes—the forests, the lakes, the mountains—and not the canvas and the pigments that sustain the image. Similarly, when we read a novel, the primary objects of our attention are not the words on the page, but the characters and the events that they conjure up. Aesthetic experience is borne out of a duet between the perceiver and artwork, where the perceiver uses the cues given by the artwork to constitute the aesthetic object. The aesthetic object has no existence outside the encounter of the perceiver and the artwork.
Part and parcel of this phenomenology is the claim that the aesthetic object is not experienced as belonging to the surrounding world as an ordinary object among objects, but as something distinct and separate from it, as if it existed in a domain of its own. Husserl, for example, argues that the aesthetic object is neutralized, by which he means that we suspend belief in the existence or nonexistence of the object and posit it as being simply a phenomenal object. Furthermore, Husserl argues that image consciousness is sustained by a distinct ‘consciousness of conflict’ (Widerstreitsbewusstsein), in which we latently are aware of the difference between the appearing aesthetic object and its physical substrate and also of the aesthetic object’s separation from the surrounding world. It is precisely because of this consciousness of conflict that we do not mistake the landscape painting for a real landscape. Similarly, Ingarden argues that artworks can produce what he calls a ‘check’ (Hemmung), which knocks the perceiver out of the ordinary flow of life and calls them to adopt the aesthetic attitude through which the aesthetic object is constituted. Ingarden writes:
With this “check” is connected a certain diminishing or even extinguishing of the actual experience which relate to things and affairs of the real world. A certain narrowing of the field of consciousness relating to this world takes place, although we do not lose the involuntary feeling of its presence and existence, and we continue to feel that we are in the world. Nevertheless, our conviction of the existence of the world, which constantly colors our actuality, is shifted, to a certain extent, to the periphery of our consciousness or loses weight and force. In the later phases of the intensive aesthetic experience there can emerge the strange but well-known phenomenon of the quasi-forgetfulness of the real world.[8]
This momentary forgetfulness of the actual world does not mean that aesthetic experience is some sort of a blackout or an irretrievable break in the flow of experience. It simply describes the way the actual world momentarily recedes to the margins of consciousness when attention becomes saturated by the presence of the aesthetic object. The experience, and the meaning of the aesthetic object revealed by it, can be integrated back in the flow of experience, but only retrospectively, after the experience itself has already dissipated. One could say that there is a dialectic of isolation and integration, of immersion and reflection, at play in aesthetic experience.
Similar arguments could be drawn from the works of Mikel Dufrenne, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hans Robert Jauss, and many others.[9] My point is that these phenomenological accounts of aesthetic experience conceptualize the experience as involving the isolation of the aesthetic object from its surroundings. It may well be that these descriptions apply only to a small subset of aesthetic experiences that are given a paradigmatic position. It is a perfectly justified question if this phenomenology also applies in other aesthetic domains such as natural and built environments; I suspect that it does not, and Berleant’s alternative model is most likely a more valid account in this case. Furthermore, , and indeed ‘disinterestedness’ might be a poor term for what they describe. In any case, they do argue—like the proponents of aesthetic disinterestedness—that some aesthetic experiences involve a distinct intentional act where the aesthetic object is isolated from its surroundings before its meaning is retrospectively integrated back into the flow of experience.
The curious situation then seems to be that Berleant employs phenomenology to undermine the theory of disinterestedness, while many phenomenologists have put forth descriptions that support at least some of the claims on aesthetic disinterestedness. These descriptions are at odds with Berleant’s strong thesis regarding the continuity of experience in aesthetic engagement, and they undermine some key aspects of Berleant’s critique of disinterestedness. This raises the question if Berleant’s contestation of aesthetic isolation disregards the fulcrum of aesthetic experiences and commits him to the same type of universalization that he finds problematic in the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness. However, I can readily admit that the role of the actual world in aesthetic experience is an exceedingly complex problem and believe that the comparison of classical phenomenology and Berleant’s phenomenological pragmatism could be very fruitful for shedding more light on this issue.
Given these concerns, I would like to ask Berleant for clarification on the following questions: How does your theory of aesthetic engagement relate to these classical phenomenological accounts of aesthetic experience? Do you think they can be reconciled with each other or do you think there is something fundamentally wrong with these accounts? In case of the latter, what are the grounds for dismissing them? Finally, how does the theory of aesthetic engagement account for deeply immersive aesthetic experiences?
Harri Mäcklin
harri.macklin@helsinki.fi
Harri Mäcklin, PhD, is a Docent of Aesthetics at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include phenomenological and hermeneutic aesthetics and the history of modern German and French aesthetics. His work has especially focused on immersive experiences and immersive art, and he has published articles on classic figures in phenomenological aesthetics, such as Mikel Dufrenne, Martin Heidegger, and Roman Ingarden. He is also a co-editor-in-chief of Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology and an art critic at the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
Published on November 14, 2025.
Cite this article: Harri Mäcklin, “Berleant’s Critique of Aesthetic Disinterestedness Revisited, Again,” Contemporary Aesthetics, Volume 23 (2025), accessed date.
Endnotes
[1] See for example: Thomas Leddy, “A Dialectical Approach to Berleant’s Concept of Engagement,” ESPES: The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics. 6, no. 2 (2017): 72-78; Crispin Sartwell, “Berleant’s Opening,” Contemporary Aesthetics 9 (2021), https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol0/iss9/6/; Cheng Xiangzhan, “Some Critical Reflections on Berleantian Critique of Kantian Aesthetics from the Perspective of Eco-aesthetics,” ESPES: The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics 6, no. 2 (2017): 30-39.
[2] Cf. Norman Kreitman, “The Varieties of Aesthetic Disinterestedness,” Contemporary Aesthetics 4 (2006), https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol4/iss1/18/.
[3] Stolnitz, Jerome: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Criticism: A Critical Introduction (Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 35.
[4] For a standard history of aesthetic disinterestedness, see Jerome Stolnitz, “On the Origins of ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20 (1961): 131-144; for even more extensive history of the concept, see entry “Interesse/interessant” in Karlheinz Barck et al., Ästhetische Grundbegriffe, vol. 3 (Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2011): 138–174.
[5] Arnold Berleant & Ronald Hepburn, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness,” Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003), https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol1/iss1/7/.
[6] Berleant & Hepburn, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness.”
[7] Edmund Husserl, Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898–1925) (Springer, 2005); Eugen Fink, “Vergegenwärtigung und Bild,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 11 (1930): 239-310; Roman Ingarden, The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art (Northwestern University Press, 1973).
[8] Ingarden, Cognition, 192.
[9] Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (Northwestern University Press, 1973); Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (Continuum, 1989); Hans Robert Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics (University of Minnesota Press, 1982).