Abstract

This chapter examines how aesthetic experience can enhance critical thinking, drawing on a phenomenological approach grounded in Mikel Dufrenne’s The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1953/1973). Traditionally, imagination, feelings, and emotions have been viewed as obstacles to critical thinking (Fischer, 1997; Bowell & Kemp, 2005; Ruggiero, 2012). However, recent scholarship in multi-modal argumentation (Gilbert, 2022; Groarke, 2022; Tindale, 2022) highlights their cognitive value. Aesthetic experiences, whether through visual art, literature, music, or performance, engage these faculties in ways that foster analysis, reflection, empathy, and imaginative insight. The chapter argues that aesthetic experience demands active interpretation and emotional engagement, which can strengthen core critical thinking skills. By examining imagination, feeling, and emotion as integral to aesthetic perception, it presents a more expansive model of reasoning that integrates affective and cognitive dimensions. This chapter advocates for the inclusion of aesthetic experience in higher education to foster more reflective, inclusive, and human-centred forms of learning. It calls for a broader recognition of the arts as a powerful tool in cultivating critical, imaginative, and emotionally intelligent thinkers.

Keywords

Critical thinking, aesthetic experience, feelings, imagination, emotions, education

Introduction

The role of imagination, feelings, and emotions in critical thinking has long been contested in education, with dominant traditions often treating these faculties as impediments to rational thought (Fischer, 1997; Bowell & Kemp, 2005; Ruggiero, 2012). However, a growing body of scholarship, particularly in multi-modal argumentation and philosophy of education, challenges this reductive view by highlighting how non-cognitive and affective dimensions of reasoning play a vital role in understanding, engagement, and meaning-making (Gilbert, 2022; Groarke, 2022; Tindale, 2022). These developments are especially urgent in higher education today, as universities seek to respond to increasingly complex, diverse, and interconnected learning environments. As traditional disciplinary boundaries and pedagogical assumptions are being re-evaluated, educators and researchers are called to imagine new models of learning that are inclusive, affectively engaged, and epistemically pluralistic.

This chapter contributes to this reimagining by proposing a phenomenological account of aesthetic experience as a resource for critical thinking in higher education. Drawing on Mikel Dufrenne’s seminal work The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1953/1973), I explore how imagination, feelings, and emotions – far from being peripheral – can enhance core components of critical thinking, such as reflection, coherence, empathy, and transformative understanding. Rather than isolating these faculties from reason, I argue that aesthetic experience integrates them in a way that enriches students’ cognitive and affective engagement with complex ideas.

In doing so, the chapter advocates for an educational philosophy that transcends the inherited binaries of thought and emotion, logic and imagination, and intellect and feeling. The notion of ‘education without borders’ is not merely geographic or technological – it is also epistemological and affective. It calls for approaches that allow students to bring their whole selves into the learning environment, engaging not only their analytical capacities but also their aesthetic sensibilities, emotional intuitions, and imaginative insight. Aesthetic experience, as conceptualised by Dufrenne, offers a powerful framework for realising this vision by situating critical thinking within a more expansive and human-centred educational model.

The chapter unfolds in three parts. First, I examine Dufrenne’s account of imagination in aesthetic experience, emphasising its capacity to create coherence, shift perception, and mediate between subjective and shared understanding. Second, I show how these imaginative functions contribute to critical thinking by fostering deeper interpretive and empathetic engagement. Third, I explore Dufrenne’s treatment of feelings and emotions, outlining how they can support reflective judgment, moral awareness, and student motivation. Throughout, I discuss the pedagogical implications of this approach for higher education, particularly in fostering inclusive, interdisciplinary, and affectively engaged forms of critical thinking.

It is important to acknowledge that imagination, feelings, and emotions are extensively theorised across multiple disciplines. This chapter does not aim to offer a comprehensive survey of these perspectives. Instead, it focuses on Dufrenne’s phenomenological framework as particularly conducive to rethinking the nature and value of critical thinking in a borderless, human-centred educational context.

Imagination in the phenomenology of aesthetic experience

Imagination is described as a faculty that helps us make sense of our perceptions by creating coherence out of fragmented representations. It enhances our ability to interpret the world around us and allows us to grasp and understand through perception. It is also seen as a force that both negates and affirms reality, ultimately grounding our consciousness. (Shen-yi & Gendler, 2020). There are different accounts of imagination since it is a highly debated topic. In this section, I will present imagination in the phenomenology of aesthetic experience with a focus on Michael Dufrenne’s account of imagination. The reason for this focus is that his account is a good fit to uncover the potentialities of imagination for critical thinking. Then I will offer possible benefits of imagination for critical thinking.

In the phenomenology of aesthetic experience, perception progresses through three stages to be transformed from ordinary to aesthetic perception: (1) presence, (2) representation and imagination, (3) reflection and feeling. Imagination plays a crucial role in transforming perception into aesthetic experience (Dufrenne, 1973). Imagination’s role is mainly a transformative, and therefore a creative role. To transform ordinary perception, in Dufrenne’s words, from brute images to aesthetic ones, we rely heavily on our imagination. To look at something with an active imagination is to transform that ordinary perception into an aesthetic one. To give an example, think about the famous artwork Fountain by Marcel Duchamp (1917). What would be perceived as a urinal turns into a fountain, an artwork. This is not because the object changes; it is because our attitude of approaching the object changes. In this example, we use our imagination to transform an everyday perception into an aesthetic one.

Below, I will first talk more about the imagination in aesthetic experience by demonstrating the stages of aesthetic experience, and then we will see how this imaginative transformation from ordinary to aesthetic can be used in critical thinking.

At the initial stage, perception is global and pre-reflective, engaging the body directly with the sensuous world. This stage is about experiencing the raw force of sensory input without the intervention of imagination. The presence is characterised by an irrecusable sensory force, which we submit to through the agency of the body. Body does not only refer to the five senses, but also the combination of those senses. The awareness of presence is not only about sensing that something is present in front of you, but also about how your presence is positioned against the object, what your body feels by the presence of the other object and the reverberations of all other presences in the environment. This awareness is pre-reflective for Dufrenne because he thinks nothing is interpreted or transformed here (1973). To give an example from critical thinking, imagine the immediate moment when you first encounter an argument. You see it or hear it, but it has not been processed yet. That moment is when you sense the presence of the argument, and it is pre-reflective because it is neither understood nor transformed. Of course, examples from arts would be easier to imagine: you encounter a painting; you look at it as a whole, but you do not decipher it yet. You are merely experiencing the presence of the painting without understanding or processing it. Another and last example that can be given is from daily life. Think of the cases where we are walking in a centre of a city in a rush hour. There are a lot of people, cars, and other stuff going on, but we do not process them all. They all stay in the pre-reflective stage. Otherwise, it would be overwhelming for us to process everything in a crowded city.

At the second stage, our perception objectifies sensory input, shaping it into recognisable entities through imagination. While imagination is vital in creating a spatiotemporal field for objects to appear, Dufrenne argues that in true aesthetic experience, the artwork is so articulate and eloquent that it does not need further imaginative elaboration (1973). The work of art itself “spares us the expense of an exuberant imagination” (Dufrenne, 1973, pp. 366). The reason behind this claim lies in the fact that artworks are already imagined and transformed by the artist, so the spectator does not have to put much imaginative effort into the work. However, that does not mean that there is no usage of imagination when perceiving an artwork. As an artwork gets more imaginative and complex, it requires more imagination to decipher and understand. In that sense for Dufrenne, imagination has two main functions: it is both regulative and constitutive. The regulative function of the imagination refers to the capacity of understanding that it provides for us. Let me describe this in more detail with an example from the art world (Figure 8.1).

Figure 8.1 is a representation of Picasso’s painting Guernica. The painting is generally interpreted as a representation of the horror and chaos of war. Without knowing anything about the painting, not even its name, we can first look at it in the pre-reflective stage. Without processing it, we can simply become aware of it at the level of presence. To understand the complexity of the icons used in the painting, we need to connect the dots. There are two types of dots here: (1) the dots we already have in our minds, such as experiences, knowledge, and memories; and (2) the dots we get from the painting in the form of icons, colours, and their interconnections. Through imagination, we connect all these dots, resulting in an interpretation and understanding of the painting. Without imagination, we would be lost in the painting and unable to figure out what it tries to convey.

On the right-hand side, there is the face of a man who looks like he is screaming with his hands in the air. This is one of the dots we get from the painting. Then we look at the dots we have: what does screaming mean? What do hands in the air mean? We have answers in our minds for these, and we find the appropriate ones to connect to come to an understanding. In this process, imagination helps us to connect everything and gives us a picture to understand. Imagination also plays a crucial role in maintaining the necessary distance and detachment in the aesthetic experience. It allows the spectator to engage with the work of art without being wholly absorbed or entirely detached. This balance is essential for genuine aesthetic appreciation because, in that balance, we can fully use both our knowledge and what we get from the artwork. This balance will be discussed in terms of critical thinking when approaching arguments.

In the process of understanding, imagination helps us to connect the dots. But imagination requires help to reach and connect the dots that we have. It needs feelings to navigate itself correctly in the mind to reach the accurate dots to achieve an understanding. So, the final stage involves a reflective process that can either lead to objective understanding or to sympathetic reflection closely tied to feeling. It is through this sympathetic reflection that perception becomes genuinely aesthetic. Feeling allows the spectator to respond deeply to the aesthetic object, making it accessible by engaging with its expressed world. Even though feelings are going to be discussed in the next section, they must be touched upon here as well since they work together with imagination. Dufrenne calls this ‘sympathetic reflection’ (1973). This is a type of reflection where feelings of the expressed world and the spectator meet to come to a common understanding. These feelings and emotions are coming from our depth. Here depth refers to the deepness of one’s feelings and thoughts. So, if one can open oneself to the artwork, letting all of one’s feelings play a role, we will get a deeper understanding of the artwork. This does not have to be more complex or sophisticated, as this depth is about how much the work resonates within our thoughts and feelings.

Now, this depth brings us to the constitutive use of imagination. As mentioned above, imagination is a transformative faculty. It transforms ordinary images or perceptions into aesthetic ones. To do this, it needs our depth. This depth contains our feelings, emotions, thoughts, experiences, knowledge, etc. It must reach those and add them to the image or perception that is perceived. This is how the ordinary is transformed into the aesthetic. It can be argued that this is also the origin of how artworks come into being. Parts of the world are transformed into aesthetic ones through the medium of art, and what makes the transformation is not the colour, line, sound, etcetera, but the depth of the artist. Again, imagination does not produce this depth but helps us bring and apply that depth to the perception itself. Additionally, aesthetic experience sometimes challenges the imagination by presenting deformations or abstractions, which can enhance the aesthetic experience, as is the case in Picasso’s Guernica. This hindrance prevents imagination from operating unrestrainedly and fosters a deeper engagement with the artwork. In other words, the more aesthetic it gets, the more imagination and depth are required to understand it. Similarly, the more creative it gets, the more imagination and depth are required to create it.

To give an example, I wish to use one of the terms developed by Dufrenne in the Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1973). The term is affective presence, where imagination contributes to the felt presence of an object, such as a poet invoking the sea. Here, the sea is experienced affectively rather than materially or conceptually. Let’s look at an example from William Wordsworth. The poem is called I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (1807):

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The first sentence of William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud describes a scene where he encounters a field of daffodils. Wordsworth’s use of vivid imagery – such as “a host, of golden daffodils” and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” – goes beyond a mere visual description. This imagery triggers our imagination, creating a lively and joyful presence that affects the reader emotionally. By personifying the daffodils as “dancing”, Wordsworth invites us to perceive these flowers as living, joyful entities, fostering an emotional connection rather than viewing them as mere objects in nature. Through this affective presence, the daffodils evoke a sense of joy and peace within us, allowing us to share in the emotional uplift that he felt. This experience transcends a material understanding of the scene. Instead of just recognising the presence of flowers by the lake, the reader feels the beauty and emotional resonance that Wordsworth conveys. The “host of golden daffodils” becomes a felt presence, invoking awe and delight that is deeply personal and emotional. This offers a deeper understanding for us: deeper in the sense of touching, stimulating or connecting with our feelings and emotions.

Furthermore, the poem facilitates an aesthetic experience that surpasses simple conceptual understanding. It is not about knowing that there are daffodils but about feeling the lightness and happiness they bring. Wordsworth’s depiction creates an inter-subjective connection, allowing us to share in his emotional response to the daffodils. This shared affective presence enriches our own experience of the scene, achieving what Dufrenne describes as affective presence. In other words, through Wordsworth’s imagination, the reader is invited to experience the daffodils affectively, fostering a profound emotional and aesthetic connection with the natural world. If this affective presence and deepness could be used in critical thinking, it would increase both our understanding and thinker’s creativity since these are the main two functions of imagination.

Possible benefits of imagination for critical thinking

In higher education contexts that increasingly value cross-disciplinary inquiry, diverse perspectives, and holistic learning, imagination can serve as a powerful tool in expanding the scope of critical thinking. This section explores several ways in which imagination may contribute to critical thought, especially when understood through the lens of aesthetic experience. Drawing from Dufrenne’s phenomenology, I identify five key capacities that imagination can support: creating coherence, facilitating understanding, transforming perception, balancing distance and engagement, and enhancing reflective and sympathetic thinking.

Creating coherence

Imagination plays a vital role in making sense of fragmented or complex representations. In critical thinking, it can help students and scholars weave together disparate elements into coherent interpretations. For example, when analysing the causes of World War I, imagination helps students construct a cohesive narrative by synthesising political, economic, and cultural factors – an essential skill in historical reasoning and interdisciplinary learning.

Facilitating understanding

Imagination helps bridge existing knowledge with new information. This process supports the generation of hypotheses, exploration of implications, and integration of unfamiliar ideas. A scientist investigating a novel disease, for instance, may imagine how it spreads by drawing on analogies with past epidemics – demonstrating how imagination fosters deeper, if tentative, insight into complex phenomena.

Transforming perception

Aesthetic experience shows us that imagination can turn the ordinary into the meaningful. Similarly, in critical thinking, imagination encourages learners to approach problems from fresh angles, much like artists exploring varied perspectives. This aesthetic attitude – characterised by openness, attentiveness, and creative re-framing – can enable students to engage with ideas in more innovative and generative ways, which is especially important in educational environments aiming to transcend rigid disciplinary and methodological boundaries.

Balancing distance and engagement

Critical thinking requires both engagement with and detachment from the subject matter. Imagination allows learners to empathise with multiple perspectives while maintaining enough distance to evaluate them critically. For example, in legal education or ethics, students must imaginatively step into others’ experiences while still reasoning impartially – developing both cognitive flexibility and emotional awareness.

Enhancing reflective and sympathetic thinking

Imagination can deepen critical reflection when combined with feeling, enabling a more personal and empathetic connection with the subject. This mode of thinking supports ethical reasoning and human-centred learning, as seen in disciplines like social work or education, where understanding others’ experiences is crucial. While such sympathetic reflection does not guarantee objectivity, it can enrich the depth and relevance of one’s critical engagement.

Taken together, these imaginative capacities offer a broader and more inclusive model of critical thinking – one well suited to expanding the borders of education. By recognising imagination as a legitimate and vital component of critical inquiry, higher education can better support learners in becoming not only analytical but also creative, empathetic, and contextually aware thinkers. The next section will turn to the role of feelings and emotions in aesthetic experience and explore how they, too, can contribute meaningfully to critical thinking.

Emotions and feelings in the phenomenology of aesthetic experience

Aesthetic experience, when viewed through phenomenology, demonstrates a complex nature of feeling that goes beyond mere presence. Unlike ordinary presence, feeling has a unique cognitive effect that reveals an inner depth within the spectator (Dufrenne, 1973). This depth links the subject’s emotions and feelings with those of the object, uncovering an aspect of reality that surpasses straightforward representation and action. The subject’s attitude is crucial in this process, requiring a stance of self-questioning and authenticity. To engage with the depth revealed by feeling, the subject should move beyond self-representation. This shift from representation to feeling must be spontaneous and non-dialectical, demanding the suppression of the imagination’s tendency to trap us within representational limits. Genuine engagement with reality from our depths allows us to experience feelings in their pure, mediated immediacy. Let me now describe the process of engaging with an artwork through feelings and emotions.

To engage deeply with a painting, the subject must move beyond mere self-representation. Instead of viewing the painting solely through the lens of personal experiences or biases, the viewer should attempt to connect with the artwork on its own terms, allowing it to speak and reveal its depth. Only when biases are suspended will the spectator be open to the artwork fully. That is where feelings come into play in the process. This deep engagement involves a spontaneous transition from thinking about the painting to feeling the painting. Instead of analysing the painting’s technical aspects (like brush strokes, composition, etc.), the viewer lets themselves be immersed in the emotional and aesthetic experience it offers. When the spectator is able to genuinely engage with the painting, meaning that they open themselves up to it, they can experience feelings in their pure, mediated immediacy that reverberates with the feelings they have. It can be described as a meeting between the world of art and the world of the spectator. Now, let me give an example from Van Gogh’s The Starry Night (Figure 8.2). I should note that though every aesthetic experience is unique to itself and can vary from person to person, they still have intersubjective commonalities.

Imagine standing in front of The Starry Night at a museum. You start by contemplating the scene, noticing the swirling sky and vibrant colours. Instead of immediately thinking, “This looks like a beautiful night sky,” or “I remember a night like this,” you let go of these immediate judgements. In other words, you allow yourself to be drawn into the swirling patterns and intense colours. You might feel a sense of wonder and awe at the vastness and dynamism of the sky. This isn’t just a reaction but a deeper feeling of connection with the energy and emotion Van Gogh poured into the painting. It is a meeting of yours’ and Van Gogh’s worlds.

As you continue to engage, you might start to feel a sense of melancholy or loneliness, reflecting on the quiet town beneath the vibrant sky. This feeling arises not from the specific details of the town or sky but from the overall atmosphere and emotional resonance of the painting. In this moment, your experience transcends mere representation. You are not just seeing a depiction of a night sky but feeling the depth of Van Gogh’s emotional and aesthetic expression. This authentic engagement allows you to connect with the painting in a profound and meaningful way, experiencing feelings that are both immediate and deeply mediated by the artwork. For example, the dark blue sky might make you feel melancholy and sadness. At the same time, the depiction of the stars and the moon might make you feel warm, as if it were a fine night’s sky and you were walking towards to the town. All these resonations might change from person to person; however, this does not change the fact that there is a deep and aesthetic experience that feelings and emotions are active.

The difference between emotions and feelings

Distinguishing between feeling and emotion is crucial for understanding the depth of the aesthetic experience for Dufrenne. Emotions and feelings, though often used interchangeably, serve different functions and arise from different contexts. Emotions are immediate, reactive responses to specific situations. They are often intense and short-lived, and they are typically triggered by external events or stimuli (Dufrenne, 1973). Emotions are tied to particular circumstances and can be seen as the body’s way of responding to what is happening around or within us. For instance: when watching a horror movie, a sudden jump scare might provoke fear. This emotion is a direct reaction to the perceived danger on screen, causing a physiological response (like a racing heart or goosebumps). Another example might be how seeing a friend after a long time can evoke joy. This emotion stems from the specific situation of reunion and brings about feelings of happiness and contentment. Emotions are generally considered more surface-level responses to the external world, providing immediate but often fleeting reactions to particular events.

Feelings, on the other hand, are more profound and enduring states that constitute a form of knowledge (Dufrenne, 1973). They are not just reactions but ways of being that involve a deeper engagement with the world. Feelings reveal inner or personal truths and connect the subject with the object in a deep way. They are reflective and contemplative, offering insight into our experiences and perceptions. For example, listening to a poignant piece of music, like a Chopin nocturne, might evoke a feeling of melancholy. This is not just an emotion tied to a specific event but a reflective state that allows you to explore deeper layers of sadness and introspection, revealing insights about the human condition and your own experiences. Another example might be standing before a painting by Monet: the feeling of tranquillity and beauty that washes over you is not just an immediate reaction but a deeper connection to the artwork. This feeling involves recognising the harmony, the play of light, and the emotional resonance of the piece, which can transform your understanding of beauty. Feelings maintain a purity essential to the aesthetic experience because they engage with the world on a deeper level. This kind of feeling helps us to connect with art, nature, and experiences in a way that transcends immediate emotional responses, allowing for a richer, more profound engagement with reality, as we saw with the above example.

After discussing feelings and emotions in the context of Dufrenne, we can now discuss sympathetic reflection. This is a type of reflection that relies on feelings and emotions during the aesthetic experience.

Sympathetic reflection

In this section, I wish to present what sympathetic reflection is according to Dufrenne. Although examples that are given in this chapter are also examples of sympathetic reflection, I wish to give an account of the term.

Sympathetic reflection refers to a way of engaging with an aesthetic object (such as a work of art) that goes beyond analytical dissection and embraces a more receptive, empathetic, and intimate mode of understanding. Sympathetic reflection involves the subject (viewer) being open and receptive to the artwork, allowing it to communicate its meaning without trying to analyse or deconstruct it immediately. This empathetic engagement attunes the viewer to the feelings of the artwork, fostering a deeper, more profound connection.

By allowing the artwork to impart its meaning, the subject fosters a deepened understanding and intimacy with the aesthetic object. This closer relationship enhances the overall aesthetic experience, as the subject is not merely observing but is actively engaging with the essence of the artwork. The depth and intimacy of the aesthetic object are mirrored in the subject’s own internal world. As the subject engages more deeply with the artwork, they can experience a transformation that reflects the profundity of the object, creating a reciprocal relationship that enhances creativity and understanding.

Sympathetic reflection embodies a faithful and passionate attention to the aesthetic object. The subject approaches the artwork with a sense of devotion and passion, seeking to connect with it on a profound level rather than just superficially. The necessity of the aesthetic object becomes existential for the subject, akin to their internal choices and judgments. This deep engagement affects the subject’s internal state and becomes a part of their reality. For example, imagine standing before Edvard Munch’s The Scream (Zaczec, 2025). Instead of immediately analysing the techniques Munch used, you allow yourself to feel the intense feelings conveyed by the figure’s expression and the swirling sky. You empathise with the figure’s sense of despair and anxiety, which fosters a deeper connection with the painting. This connection can help you understand the universal human experience of existential angst that Munch is depicting. As you engage more deeply, you might reflect on your own experiences of anxiety and despair, feeling a connection with the painting that mirrors your internal world.

Devoting time and attention to the painting allows its emotional power to wash over you, engaging with it passionately and faithfully. This engagement might lead to a transformation of your own feelings and experiences, making the painting an essential part of your understanding. Through sympathetic reflection, the viewer transcends mere observation and becomes intimately connected with the artwork, allowing for a richer and more profound aesthetic experience. In other words, sympathetic reflection might lead to transformation of the spectator through the aesthetic experience.

Now, let us see how emotions, feelings, and sympathetic reflection might benefit critical thinking.

Possible benefits of emotions, feelings, and sympathetic reflection for critical thinking

Within higher education, especially in learning environments that embrace complexity, diversity, and interdisciplinarity, emotions and feelings are often sidelined in the pursuit of objectivity. Yet, when viewed through the lens of aesthetic experience, they emerge as vital components of critical thinking. This section explores how emotions, feelings, and sympathetic reflection – concepts central to aesthetic engagement – can enhance argumentation, deepen understanding, and support more humane and context-sensitive approaches to reasoning.

Feelings provide a profound and enduring state of engagement that surpasses immediate emotional reactions. In critical thinking, this depth can encourage individuals to reflect deeply on issues, uncovering underlying assumptions and implications. For example, when analysing a complex ethical dilemma like euthanasia, feelings of empathy and compassion can help uncover deeper moral and philosophical considerations, leading to more nuanced and well-rounded arguments. Feelings connect the subject with the object in meaningful ways, revealing inner truths. This connection can translate into a deeper understanding of arguments and counterarguments, facilitating the discovery of novel insights and perspectives that might not be apparent through surface-level analysis. Let’s have a look at the following imaginary dialogue to see how feelings might help us in critical thinking:

Aaron: Hey Furkan, what do you think about euthanasia? I think it’s wrong. It’s basically playing God.

Furkan: I get where you’re coming from. It does feel like a heavy decision. But when I think about the people suffering from unbearable pain, I feel a deep empathy. It’s hard to ignore their need for relief.

Aaron: But doesn’t that open the door to all kinds of abuse? People might feel pressured into it.

Furkan: That’s a valid concern, and it worries me too. My compassion for those vulnerable people makes me think we need strict safeguards. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel that denying someone the choice to end their suffering is also a form of cruelty.

Aaron: Still, life is precious. We should focus on improving care, not ending lives.

Furkan: Absolutely, improving care is crucial. My feelings of compassion push me to support better palliative care options. But for some, no amount of care can ease their pain. Feeling their despair makes me believe they should have a choice, but only with proper protections in place.

Aaron: So, you’re saying you support it, but with lots of rules?

Furkan: Yeah, exactly. My empathy for those in pain and my concern for potential abuse make me think we need a balanced approach. It’s not an easy answer, but feelings can guide us to a more humane and careful solution.

Here, Furkan argues that feelings and emotions can help us discover different dimensions of the topic being discussed. These elements can enhance our understanding and aid in formulating a better response. This is achieved through the shared feelings of the situation and the individual engaging in the thought process, akin to the shared feelings created when we look at a painting.

Empathy and perspective-taking are crucial in critical thinking, much like in sympathetic reflection with art. Engaging empathetically with others’ arguments allows individuals to better understand different viewpoints, appreciating the emotional and contextual factors that shape these perspectives. For instance, in a debate on immigration policy, empathetically considering the experiences of immigrants can lead to a more compassionate and comprehensive evaluation of arguments. Sympathetic reflection fosters a reciprocal relationship where one’s internal state mirrors the engagement with external arguments, promoting personal transformation and openness to change and growth through the critical thinking process.

The transition from thinking to feeling in aesthetic experiences parallels the move from rigid, conventional thinking to creative approaches in argumentation. Embracing feelings can allow for spontaneous and non-dialectical insights, encouraging novel ways of thinking. For example, when tackling a scientific problem, allowing for creative intuition can lead to breakthroughs and creative solutions that pure analytical thinking might miss. The passionate and faithful attention given to an artwork through sympathetic reflection can similarly be applied to problem-solving and critical thinking, fostering creativity and innovation. Engaging deeply with a problem and allowing oneself to feel its implications can lead to unique and creative solutions.

Practical implications for inclusive education and student outcomes

Incorporating aesthetic experience into teaching and learning practices can significantly enrich higher education by offering more inclusive and responsive approaches to diverse student needs. Aesthetic engagement allows for multiple modalities – visual, auditory, tactile, and emotional – which are essential for students from varied cultural, linguistic, and neurodiverse backgrounds. For example, analysing visual art such as Picasso’s Guernica can create access points for students who may face linguistic barriers, allowing them to engage with complex ethical and historical themes like suffering and resilience. Similarly, using emotionally evocative music, such as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, can transcend language differences and foster shared affective understanding across a diverse student cohort.

This multi-sensory and affectively rich approach is especially beneficial for neurodiverse learners. Students with sensory processing differences or nonlinear thinking styles may thrive in learning environments that emphasise creativity and embodied engagement. Activities like sculpture-making or tactile exploration of texture in visual art allow for alternative pathways to understanding that traditional lecture-based instruction often overlooks. These inclusive pedagogies enable students to connect more authentically with content, ultimately fostering a stronger sense of agency, engagement, and belonging.

Aesthetic experience also supports the development of emotional literacy – an increasingly vital competency in both academic and professional contexts. Encouraging students to reflect on the emotional dimensions of artworks helps them articulate their own feelings and engage empathetically with the perspectives of others. For instance, interpreting Van Gogh’s The Starry Night can provide a starting point for discussions about mental health and emotional expression, helping students build awareness and communication skills. Such practices deepen not only cognitive understanding but also social and emotional learning, which is essential in cultivating inclusive and empathetic learning communities.

Moreover, integrating aesthetic engagement into the curriculum helps bridge abstract theoretical knowledge with lived experience. In fields such as environmental science, students might translate data into visual formats – such as infographics or artistic representations of climate impact – making complex ideas accessible while reinforcing their relevance. This translation between cognitive and affective modes fosters students’ ability to communicate knowledge meaningfully across academic, public, and professional contexts.

Student experiences reflect the transformative potential of these approaches. In interdisciplinary lessons that connect literature, philosophy, and the arts, students often report enhanced critical thinking and emotional insight. Analysing Guernica within a history unit on the Spanish Civil War not only helps students retain historical content but also promotes richer class discussions grounded in emotional and ethical reflection. These moments encourage students to think critically while remaining connected to human experience – a crucial skill in addressing real-world challenges.

This deeper engagement extends to philosophical and social topics. In one discussion on existentialism, a student connected Sartre’s notion of existential angst to the emotional intensity of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, allowing them to grasp abstract ideas through emotional resonance. Similarly, reading literature such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) in a human rights course can foster empathy and moral understanding, encouraging students to consider refugee experiences not just theoretically but from within a lived and affective framework. These aesthetic encounters enable more compassionate and nuanced perspectives on global issues.

Education is another arena where imagination, emotion, and aesthetic experience coalesce in powerful ways. As Sara de Freitas (2017) explains, well-designed learning games are immersive, emotionally rich environments that allow learners to explore complex systems, historical events, or ethical dilemmas through active play. These environments align with constructivist and post-structuralist educational theories by supporting meaning-making through exploratory and affective engagement. Imagination allows learners to navigate unfamiliar or hypothetical situations, while emotional immersion enhances memory, motivation, and reflective learning. Games thus become more than cognitive tools: they are dynamic experiences that foster empathy, creativity, and critical analysis.

The aesthetic design of games, their visual, narrative, and interactive dimensions, further contributes to motivation and participation, especially for students who may feel disengaged in traditional classroom settings. Game-based or art-based learning activities, such as collaborative mural painting or role-playing historical events, provide alternative avenues for self-expression, especially for students who may not participate actively in verbal discussions. These activities can build confidence, promote social connection, and enrich the collective learning experience.

Beyond academic outcomes, aesthetic engagement also fosters emotional resilience and creative problem-solving, skills increasingly valued across professions. Role-playing simulations, for instance, help students to develop public speaking and collaboration skills, while reflective writing inspired by artworks can cultivate mindfulness and personal growth (McDonald et al., 2017). Such experiences support students not only as learners but as whole persons, preparing them to navigate the emotional and ethical dimensions of life beyond university.

These implications reinforce the chapter’s broader argument: when imagination, emotion, and aesthetic experience are recognised as integral to thinking and learning, higher education becomes more inclusive, human-centred, and transformative. This approach aligns with the ethos of education without boundaries – moving beyond conventional divides between disciplines, learning styles, and modes of engagement. It encourages an academic culture that values creative expression, emotional depth, and intellectual openness, allowing students to participate in knowledge creation in ways that are personally meaningful, socially responsive, and globally relevant.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the transformative potential of imagination, feelings, and emotions – often sidelined in traditional models of critical thinking – through the lens of aesthetic experience. Drawing on Mikel Dufrenne’s phenomenological framework, it has argued that imagination supports coherence, insight, and creative engagement, while feelings and emotions enrich critical thinking by fostering empathy, reflection, and deeper understanding. Rather than diminishing rational analysis, these capacities complement and expand it, offering a more balanced and human-centred model of thought.

By integrating aesthetic experience into educational practices, critical thinking can become more inclusive, emotionally intelligent, and responsive to diverse learners. This approach supports students in engaging with complexity not only analytically but also affectively and imaginatively – skills increasingly necessary in today’s interconnected world. In doing so, it challenges the rigid boundaries that often divide cognition from emotion, the arts from the sciences, and learners from their lived experiences.

Ultimately, this chapter contributes to reimagining education as a borderless space, where knowledge is co-constructed through multiple ways of knowing, and where critical thinking is shaped not only by logic but also by empathy, imagination, and aesthetic sensibility. Future research should continue exploring how these elements can inform inclusive pedagogies and contribute to more transformative and meaningful education in classrooms.

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