Abstract
The concept of experience by John Dewey revisited: conceiving, feeling and “enliving”. Dewey takes a few steps towards a differentiation of the concept of experience, such as the distinction between primary and secondary experience, or between ordinary (partial, raw, primitive) experience and complete, aesthetic experience. However, he does not provide a systematic elaboration of these distinctions. In the present text, a differentiation of Dewey’s concept of experience is proposed in terms of feeling, “enliving” (a neologism proposed in this paper) and conceiving. Feeling refers to the basic mode of experience where action, emotion, cognition and communication constitute an original unity. Enliving, aesthetic experience, constitutes the lifeworld, as a person-in-world experience. Even though enliving is holistic and relational, a certain distance emerges between action, emotion and cognition which allows contemplation and choice. Conceiving, on the other hand, refers to the isolating and abstracting understanding of the world with even greater distance between action, emotion and cognition. Such a differentiation provides a clearer understanding of the scope of education. It avoids the risks of regressive tendencies in the concept of experience, and it helps to include conceiving within the realm of experience.
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Notes
In preparing a new introduction in 1951 to Experience and Nature (1925, LW 1, 361), Dewey regretted the use of the term due to the exasperating individualistic and mentalist misunderstanding. In retrospect, he wished that he had used the term culture in order to emphasise the social aspect of experience (see Alexander 1987, 70).
In Experience and Education (Dewey 1938), the distinction seems irrelevant as it is not mentioned at all. Remarkably enough, there is no mention of aesthetic quality even though it is presented as a validity criterion of experience in Art as Experience 4 years earlier. This implicit contradiction is for me just another incentive to differentiate the concept of experience.
The term and concept of “enliving” will be developed later on. In its substance, it is close to that of Dewey’s “experience”. However, since “experience” here is used as a super-ordinate term and concept referring to specifically human ways of having the world, there is a need for a new term for this distinct mode of experience. It is inspired by a term in use in the Nordic countries and Germany—opplevelse (Norway), oplevelse (Denmark), upplevelse (Sweden), Erlebnis, Erleben (Germany). Manen (1997) translates the term as “lived experience” which is useful in many contexts. But in the context of this article, it has several disadvantages. The main one being that experience is a central live process which makes lived experience appear to be pleonastic. Moreover, the term does not easily lend itself to verbalisation, which is important as the emphasis of experience is on process rather than structure. Also, the neologism enliving may be an acceptable term as it is made analogically to enacting and enactment. However, in the end, its legitimacy may be decided by whether it carries sufficient theoretical weight.
In fact, Dewey actually makes this point 9 years earlier in Experience and Nature.
Alexander (1987) seems to concur when he points out that experience for Dewey begins long before the differentiation between subject and object.
Actually, play operates at two levels simultaneously, at the level of play proper and of praxis. At the level of play, proper moral law is suspended. However, since play is action and no action can occur outside praxis play, is not exempt from moral rule. That is the reason why a child may not hurt another child or animal even though operating within the framework of play.
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Hohr, H. The Concept of Experience by John Dewey Revisited: Conceiving, Feeling and “Enliving”. Stud Philos Educ 32, 25–38 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9330-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9330-7