ABSTRACT
Klouda provides an enhanced interpretation of the central notion of experience (zážitek). He argues that this concept can serve experiential education best, if we move to a re-understanding of the historico-philosophical context of the ‘philosophy of life’ (Lebensphilosophie) from which it emerged. The word Erlebnis appears in specific circumstances in German in the nineteenth century, from which it inspired other European languages, including Czech, and shaped analogous neologisms. However, it was not until German philosopher, psychologist and historian Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), that this expression fixated as a new category for a new philosophical approach to a specifically human interpretation of reality, as the social sciences were being born. Dilthey is best known for his attempts to elaborate an epistemological theory appropriate to the methods used in the humanities and social sciences, and for his detailed historical studies concerning the genesis of the modern worldview. This chapter focuses on a different part of Dilthey’s philosophical heritage, his general inquiry into human creativity in his treatise The Imagination of the Poet: Elements for a Poetics. Here, Dilthey most clearly formulated his concept of ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis). To understand this crucial notion, Klouda starts in the first section by briefly outlining its philosophical background. The next section more thoroughly examines how Dilthey formed and utilised his concept of lived experience to describe the creative imagination that is operative in every production and perception of works of art. Third, Dilthey’s aesthetic doctrine is reconsidered in a wider and more up-to-date context in order to show its relevance for disciplines related the udto purpose-free activities such as recreation, play or outdoor adventure.
