Abstract
To specify a genuine issue of controversy among philosophical schools is often a task of frustration. Differing points of view and varying terminologies have a way of appearing to be in conflict when in fact there are only differing points of view and varying terminologies. In the last two chapters, I have argued that the disagreements between Dewey and his critics about contingency and knowledge are more apparent than real. If one notes how key terms are being used, and if one is careful not to over-generalize in making assertions, there is no need for the parties involved to condemn one another for error.
There is a felt need for reunion in philosophy, for new perspective and vision that is informed by the lessons of careful analysis. In this search for new directions, there is much to be learned from John Dewey, who sought to unite speculative imagination with a sensitive concern for the variety of human experience and the specific “problems of men.”1
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Literature
Richard J. Bernstein, “Introduction,” On Experience, Nature, and Freedom, ed. Richard J. Bernstein (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. xlvii.
See, e.g., “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy,” in Creative Intelligence; “The Development of American Pragmatism,” in Philosophy and Civilization; Reconstruction in Philosophy, enl. ed., Chs. IV and V. Andrew J. Reck has commented in a review of this manuscript that Dewey’s category of continuity can be used to save Dewey’s method from the criticism that it attends to consequences but neglects antecedents. Reck also cites John Herman Randall, Jr., as having employed the category of continuity in his Nature and Historical Experience (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958) to avoid this problem. In response to these points, Reck’s suggestion is reasonable but I still find that the difficulty remains in Dewey’s philosophy. For example, in Dewey’s mature work, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, he employs the category of continuity primarily to emphasize the links between lower (less complex) and higher (more complex) forms of nature and activities. (See e.g., pp. 19, 23, 35-36.) Later in the Logic, Dewey does discuss retrospective and prospective reference in connection with his theory of causal propositions and the sharp dichotomy I have noted between antecedents and consequences appears again. (See pp. 461-462; other instances of the dichotomy can be found in this same work, pp. 131, 499, 511-512.) Randall’s metaphysics, on the other hand, may very well avoid this difficulty. Insofar as Randall’s views represent a modification of Dewey’s, his success is further testimony to my general thesis that much of Dewey’s thought can be reconciled with that of his critics.
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© 1977 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Dewey, R.E. (1977). Toward a Broader Empiricism. In: The Philosophy of John Dewey. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4740-0_8
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