Purpose

This study investigated Egon Schütz’s aesthetic pedagogy with regard to its intellectual origins, main contents, and advantages and disadvantages. This study also adopted Taiwan (our country) as a reference for establishing theories and solving aesthetic-related problems in education.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used an educational hermeneutics approach.

Findings/results

The intellectual roots of Schütz’s aesthetic pedagogy lie in Wilhelm von Humboldt’s classic aesthetics, Friedrich Nietzsche’s tragic aesthetics, Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of art, Theodor Adorno’s critical aesthetics, and Eugen Fink’s existential phenomenology. Its main contents include characters in art and the functions of aesthetic education, the difficult and productive relationship between art and truth, the nature of art as a border experience and border crosser, the theoretical and practical problems of aesthetic education, and the relationship between the meaning of aesthetic experience and aesthetic education. The advantage of Schütz’s theory is its ability to explain these themes well.

Originality/value

Schütz’s aesthetic pedagogy is intellectually impressive despite its drawbacks. It affirms the importance of aesthetic education and points us toward new directions, and functions in teaching, addresses ideals in a concrete manner, and solves basic problems. Therefore, Schütz’s aesthetic pedagogy deserves further attention.