The purpose of this article is to portray the importance of aesthetic experience (a notion understood as the systematic observation and critical analysis of artworks) within the framework of transformative learning. The article includes an extended literature review vis-à-vis the contribution of aesthetic experience in unearthing the integrated knowing, encompassing critically reflective, affective and imaginative dimensions of learning. The ideas of Eisner, Broudy, Gardner, Perkins, Kant, Dewey, Sartre, Efland, Frankfurt School and Palo Alto Mental Research Institute are examined as well as the contributions of the scholars of transformative learning theory to the issue at hand. In the final part, a method is presented, which is constructed synthetically resting on the aforementioned theoretical views and regards the utilization of aesthetic experience in the processes of transformative learning.

In the modern world humans need to be able to deal with uncertainty and to give up what is not functional. Thus, informational learning, which is meant as the acquisition of new information by addition, hardly answers this challenge. The learners need to not only acquire new knowledge, but they also need to assess and change their assumptions regarding an issue at hand, at this point transformative learning occurs. One of the methods through which transformative learning could be unearthed is the contact with art (aesthetic experience) which offers a variety of meanings and symbols that may allow the learners to articulate delicate meanings on a certain issue which may not be easily approached through rational argumentation.

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