ART EDUCATION AND THE WORLD OF LIFE: MICHEL HENRY ON THE CULTURAL VALUE OF ART

A commonplace criticism of Michel Henry's phenomenology of life is that it denies that the subject's existence in the world is of any importance to life's flourishing. Henry's phenomenological study of art and aesthetics, including his study of the work of Russian art-theorist and painter Wassily Kandinsky, has typically been understood as reinforcing this very position. This paper will argue that those who critique Henry's study of art, and indeed his phenomenology more generally, on these grounds are both right and yet mistaken. They are right in that the flourishing of absolute life does not depend on the subject's worldly existence. However, they are mistaken in that from the point of view of human beings, the finite subject's existence in the world, particularly her engagement with the arts, does play a part in the well-being of their life. In support of this position, I will argue that Henry's study of art and aesthetics reveals that our worldly relationship with art plays a role in educating our feelings, and that this education is vital to the flourishing of the life of finite living beings. Our engagement with art does this, as I will show, by enhancing our attunement to ourselves, others, life, and the world, and in allowing us to experience and understand the world as an expression of life, and as therefore being important to us personally. As further testament to the importance of our worldly engagement with art for life, I will show how, in Henry's view, our worldly engagement with bad art plays a part in the corruption of life and thereby stunts our emotional growth and leads us to feel increasingly alienated from the world.