Knowledge worlds apart: Aesthetic experience as an epistemological boundary object

Abstract

In recent years, research into the positive effects of the arts on health and wellbeing has increased in the medical and health sciences, psychology, and sociology. But the traditional aesthetic disciplines, like art history, are largely absent from this research field, in spite of their century-old tradition of studying the arts. Why is that, and how can we bridge the divide between these separate worlds of knowledge? This chapter argues that opposing definitions of knowledge keep them apart, but that they can overcome this obstacle by initiating respectful, negotiating dialouge. As a result, arts and health and the aesthetic disciplines will be able to exchange knowledge, and learn not only about art but also about their own epistemological outlooks