For Dewey, "criticism is", basically, "judgement". Since a judgement is a practice of inquiry and valuation, it can be said that the Dewey's theory of criticism encompasses theories of experience, art, inquiry and valuation. More concretely speaking, 'criticism' as told in Experience and Nature is a reflective inquiry into the world of experience in which existence and value are unified and thus it emphasizes the philosophical aspects. Criticism as explained in Art as Experience is, to use Dewey's term, "aesthetic criticism", and it focuses on criticism as a 'qualitative' inquiry into the content and procedure of the interaction centering around the perception of aesthetic objects, as the title of 'Criticism and Perception' suggests. Also, the artistic criticism of Dewey should be observed from a unified perspective since every inquiry possesses both a qualitative aspect and a reflective aspect although there is some truth in that it varies according to the subject of the inquiry, that is, whether the subject is of the aesthetic, the physical or the moral. I believe, therefore, one should approach the matter of the criticism of Dewey from the perspective that runs through the entire philosophical thoughts of Dewey so as to fully understand the 'educational connotations' of what Dewey, who strongly rejected the separation of theory and practice by locating 'action' at the core of unification, intended to say from his heart to the world of the humans who live in sufferings and joys and for progress and growth.
Dewey says that criticism is judgement and a judgement is made of interaction between critic and the work of art. A judgement is an act of controlled inquiry, and the judgement demands a rich background and a disciplined insight. Genuine judgement is a development in thought of a deeply realized perception. The material out of which judgement grows is the work, the object, but it is this object as it enters into the experience of the critic by interaction with his own sensitivity and his knowledge and funded store from past experiences. As to their content, therefore, judgements will vary with the concrete material that evoke them and valid. Nevertheless, judgements have a common form because they all have certain function to perform. These functions are discrimination and unification.
One can acquire a mode of aesthetic perception by appreciating works of art and nourishes his or her ordinary experience with art. In this respect, a refined, good work of art is an important tool through which one is informed of a best mode of perception, and aesthetic criticism, which refers to the inquiry into the course of perception that arouses a vital experience during the interaction with a work of art, is now reeducation of the perception of an art product. For Dewey, 'art' as the growth and consummation of an experience is, in its nature, of the educational. For education as defined by Dewey means the growth of experience. In fact, thus, the process of consummation of learning consists of having 'an experience' and constituting it as 'a work of art' as an experience. Then, 'art' is intrinsically education. And criticism is to inform others of the way to consummate such an experience. In the sense that a critic guides others to have such an educational experience on the basis of his own experience, that is, the 'intrinsic learning' of experiencing art, Dewey asserts that criticism is "reeducation".