The title of this book may raise some sceptical eyebrows. For the very notion of pragmatist aesthetics could be thought to be fundamentally paradoxical. The pragmatic, of course, is inextricably wed to the idea of the practical, precisely that idea wit h which the aesthetic is traditionally contrasted and even oppositionally defined as purposeless and disinterested. One of the aims of this book is to relieve this paradox by challenging the traditional practical/aesthetic opposition and enlarging our conception of the aesthetic from the narrow domain and role that philosophy's dominant ideology and cultural economy have assigned it. Aesthetics becomes much more central and significant as we come to realize that in embracing the practical, in reflecting and informing the praxis of life, it also extends to the social and political. The emancipatory enlargement of the aesthetic involves similarly reconceiving art in more liberal terms, freeing it from its exalted cloister, where it is isolated from life and contrasted to more popular forms of cultural expression. Art, life, and popular culture all suffer from these entrenched divisions and from the consequently narrow identification of art with elite fine art. My defense of the aesthetic legitimacy of popular art and my account of ethics as an art of living both aim at a more expansive and democratic reconception of art.

In rethinking art and the aesthetic, pragmatism also rethinks the role of philosophy. No longer neutrally aimed at faithfully representing the concepts it examines, philosophy instead becomes actively engaged in reshaping them to serve us better. The task of aesthetic theory, then, is not to capture the truth of our current understanding of art, but rather to reconceive art so as to enhance its role and appreciation; the ultimate goal is not knowledge but improved experience, though truth and knowledge should, of course, be indispensable to achieving this. Similarly, while it should not ignore the traditional problems of philosophy of art, pragmatist aesthetics, if it wants to make a real and positive difference, cannot confine itself to the traditional academic problems, but must address today's live aesthetic issues and new artistic forms. Thus, after considering such classic topics as aesthetic experience, organic unity, interpretation, and the definition of art, I devote two long chapters to popular culture and rap.

In seeking to bring theory closer to the experience of art so as to deepen and enhance them both, a pragmatist aesthetics should not restrict itself to the abstract arguments and generalizing style of traditional philosophical discourse. It needs to work from and through concrete works of art. These should be taken not as cursorily considered examples, but as foci of sustained aesthetic analysis, objects whose experience is enriched through close and theoretically informed critical study. I attempt this more aesthetic style of aesthetic discourse with a poem by T. S. Eliot and a rap by Stetsasonic. Though this bringing together of high modernism and hip hop within a single book might be seen as symptomatic of postmodern eclecticism (or simply of my own schizoid taste), I would rather it be taken as emblematic of a socio-cultural ideal where so-called high and low art (and their audiences) together find expression and acceptance without oppressive hierarchies, where there is difference without domination and shame.

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