Abstract

Do not let the subtitle fool you. “An outline” is a far too modest description of Ryder’s book, for it presents an interesting and carefully crafted account of experience in the broadly pragmatic naturalist framework. The author mentions John Dewey’s notion of aesthetic experience as his primary background inspiration and his analysis is at its best in the aesthetic parts of the work, which is by no means to discredit the merits of its other major sections that deal with the cognitive and the political dimensions of experience in interesting ways. Indeed, Ryder’s book is among the most important texts in the tradition of pragmatist aesthetics of recent years and everyone interested in pursuing aesthetics in the...