METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 22, No. 3, July 1991 0026-1068 $2.00

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY

JAMES DWYER

What is philosophy? The question often occasions wry smiles and ironic responses from philosophers themselves. In fact, professional philosophers often look upon attempts to answer the question as a waste of time. This is a natural response from those who are content with the way things are going. Those working within accepted paradigms of philosophy need not make those paradigms explicit in order to do their work; they need not be reflective about the intellectual habits and values that shape their deliberate work in philosophy.

But in times of conflict, dissatisfaction, or transition, there is a need to become reflective and philosophical about what one is doing, even when what one is doing is called philosophy. At such times there is a need to examine accepted paradigms and to explore alternatives. When I felt that need, I looked to John Dewey, who was dissatisfied with the accepted ways of doing philosophy and who tried to articulate an alternative. In this essay I want to consider the alternative that Dewey offered us, his conception of what philosophy could become.

I . Dewey’s View of Philosophy In the 1948 introduction to Reconstruction in Philosophy, Dewey says that “Reconstruction of Philosophy” would be a better title (v). The reconstruction that Dewey advocates is based on his vision of what philosophy has been and what it could become. He writes:

When it is acknowledged that undcr disguise of dealing with ultimate reality, philosophy has been occupied with prccious values embedded in social traditions, that it has sprung from a conflict of inherited institutions with incompatible contemporary tendencies, it will be seen that the task of future philosophy is to clarify men’s ideas as to the social and moral strifes of their day. (26)

In this brief passage, Dewey expresses views of what philosophers have thought they’ve been doing, of what they’ve actually been doing, and of what they should be doing. I’ll try to explain each of these views.

According to Dewey, philosophers have thought they’ve been dealing with ultimate reality; they “have seen themselves, and have represented themselves to the public, as dealing with something which has variously been termed Being, Nature or the Universe, the Cosmos at large, Reality, the Truth” (xii). But Dewey thinks that this image, that philosophers have of themselves and that they present to others, is inaccurate. In spite of their thinking of themselves as pursuing Truth

190

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 191

and delineating Reality, philosophers have been dealing with problems and questions that arise because of conflicts of social ends, especially because of conflicts between the aims of contemporary tendencies and the ends of inherited institutions.

Dewey, like Hegel, thinks that philosophers never really transcend the institutions and tendencies of their time. He acknowledged that his study of Hegel “left a permanent deposit” in his thinking (“From Absolutism” 8), a deposit that is evident in the way he thinks about past philosophies. He thinks of Plato’s work, for example, as a reflection and interpretation of “the meaning of Greek tradition and habit” and of the “ideals and aspirations of distinctively Greek life” (Reconstruction 19). This way of thinking recalls Hegel’s remark that “even Plato’s Republic, which passes proverbially as an empty ideal, is in essence nothing but an interpretation of the nature of Greek ethical life” (10). Influenced by Hegel, Dewey tries to understand all past philosophies, even abstract and abstruse philosophical systems, in terms of the social features they reflect and interpret.

Dewey is suspicious of the self-image of philosophers and is willing to give explanations of their activity that they themselves might deny. His approach raises many questions. Is he annoyed when others take a suspicious attitude toward his own work‘? Does he try to privilege his own discourse? Does he believe that all philosophical problems reflect conflicts between the aims of contemporary tendencies and the ends of inherited institutions? Is he trying to reduce philosophy to socia! conditions? Is he ignoring the genetic fallacy? I am not going to try to answer all these questions here. What I want to do is to point out how Dewey’s view of past philosophy is related to his proposal for future philosophy. Once we accept his view of past philosophy, Dewey thinks it will be clear to us what future philosophy should do: it should do explicitly and consciously what past philosophy did unconsciously and in disguise. That is to say, philosophy should deal explicitly and consciously with the conflicts of social ends and values of its own time. Dewey thinks that philosophy should become “a method of locating and interpreting the more serious of the conflicts that occur in life, and a method of projecting ways for dealing with them: a method of moral and political diagnosis and prognosis” (“The Influence” 40).

Much of Dewey’s own work exemplifies his proposal. In lndi- vidualism: Old and New, Dewey considers problems engendered by conflicts between traditional American norms of individualism and current tendencies in economic and industrial life. Similarly, in Liberalism and Social Action, he considers how new conditions in economic and industrial life are blocking the further development of values embedded in liberal institutions. Although there is a political or social aspect to all the problems Dewey considers, he does not restrict himself to political problems. In Reconstruction in Philosophy, for

192 JAMES DWYER

example, he considers a variety of problems that arise from conflicts between the development of modern science and those institutions and habits of thinking inherited from times before the rise of modern science.

Dewey sees much of his own work as criticism, as reflective judgments that aim to discriminate among goods. His criticisms are never free-floating judgments about the good, but attempts to respond to problems occasioned by conflicts in politics, morality, art, or belief. Such criticism requires a careful examination of social norms and institutions and of the habits and traits they foster. When such criticism becomes general in its scope and self-conscious in its practice, it is philosophy or what philosophy should become. Dewey says that “philosophy is inherently criticism, having its distinctive position among various modes of criticism in its generality, a criticism of criticisms, as it were” (Experience 398). Although he says that philosophy is a “criticism of criticisms,” he does not mean that philosophy should always remain at a meta-level, applying itself only to prior criticisms. He means that philosophy will distinguish itself from other forms of criticism only by its generality and self-awareness.

Much more needs to be said about the details of Dewey’s proposal: about the nature of criticism, the starting point of critical or philo- sophical inquiry, the aims and ways of inquiry, and the kinds of solutions to be offered. And something needs to be said about what Dewey thinks is to be gained from adopting his proposal.

II. The Starting Point of Philosophical Inquiry Dewey’s proposal accords a certain role and respect to personal experience. When a philosophical problem is viewed as a problematic experience arising from a conflict of social norms, it becomes legitimate and natural to begin philosophical work with a discussion of experience - even one’s own. It seems to me that this is rarely done, and is even looked down upon, in contemporary philosophy. Let me give one example.

I analyzed the first ten abstracts of papers that were read at the 1984 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). One paper dealt indirectly with some experiences involving stereotypes. Another paper dealt with an analysis of the abstract concept of prudence, but not directly with concrete experiences. The other eight papers began with, and to a large extent dealt with, arguments and articles by other philosophers. In fact, these eight abstracts mentioned the following contemporary philosophers: David Wiggins, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke (twice), Nelson Pike, Bruce Reichenbach, Peter Singer, Gilbert Harman, David Kaplan, Terry Parsons, Kit Fine, and David Lewis. Sometimes I think that what APA members really write about are other APA members. Of course, this is

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 193

not literally true. The authors of these papers are not writing about other philosophers, but about the theories or arguments of other philosophers. The authors typically begin by finding fault with the theory or argument of some philosopher; then they go on to give their own theory or argument, which in turn becomes the starting pointing for someone else’s paper. This is a legitimate and natural way of proceeding within the dominant paradigm. The only point of my amateur sociological analysis is to show what is usually done, so I can go on to sketch how thinks might be different.

Where else could philosophical reflection begin? In Consequences of Pragmatism, Richard Rorty notes that Dewey “agrees with Hegel that the starting point of philosophical thought is bound to be the dialectical situation in which one finds oneself caught in one’s own historical period - the problems of the men of one’s time” (81). Dewey wants to make these problems the explicit and conscious starting point of philosophy. Yet the problems of our time have two aspects we could focus on. We could focus on the social norms, practices, and institutions of our historical situation. Or we could focus on our experience in the problematic situations we encounter. Dewey suggests that we begin with experience. In his essay on “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy,” he emphasizes the need for a notion of experience that would allow us to deal more directly with the problems of our time (58-97). John Smith develops this idea in an essay entitled “The New Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” He notes that unless philosophical problems are “perceived in the conflicts and dilemmas in thought and action which confront everyone, they are bound to appear as occasioned only by what philosophers themselves say and therefore as the exclusive concern of professionals’’ (233). Recall that the papers I analyzed were occasioned, predominantly, by what contemporary philosophers have said. In order to get away from the practice of philosophy as the discussion of what other professional philosophers have said, Smith sees the need for philosophy to begin with and to stay in touch with experience. He writes that there is a

need for philosophy to root itself in the crude experience we all undergo or live through which comes to be preserved in language, social institutions and in the various forms of human activity that make up the common life of a people. From this crude experience there springs a body of beliefs and expectations forming a fund of commonsense serving as a base for philosophical interpretation. (231)

Smith explains that this “experience is always a part of a personal biography wherein the individual gropes for some understanding of what the experience means and how it ‘fits into’ a larger life pattern” (232). Philosophers could make it their task to help to understand and interpret the meaning of such experience.

194 JAMES DWYER

To take the problems we experience in our social and historical situation as the starting point of philosophical reflection often requires a change in attitude toward the traditional problems of philosophy. Dewey points toward this change in his essay on “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” He says that his essay is an

attempt to forward the emancipation of philosophy from too intimate and exclusive attachment to traditional problems. It is not in intent a criticism of various solutions that have been offered, but raises a question as to the genuineness, under the present conditions of science and social life, of the problems. (60)

Thus it is relative to the present conditions and norms that Dewey considers whether problems are genuine.

Although this attitude seems to show a lack of historical sensitivity, it is actually based on a study of the history of philosophy as part of culture. Using what he calls the genetic method, Dewey tries to get at the cultural genesis of philosophical problems. He comes to the conclusion that most of the traditional problems of philosophy arose under and reflect conditions and norms that have changed vastly. Stephen Toulmin reaches much the same conclusion when he examines the origin of traditional problems in epistemology. He says that the

questions of twentieth-century epistemology do still rest on scientific and historical presuppositions. It is just that these presuppositions are some three hundred years out of date. Philosophical ideas about human understanding today are tacitly shaped by axioms from seventeenth-century debates in science and history. (13)

Given this conclusion, it is clear why Toulmin puts the term modern in quotation marks when he refers to the problems of modern philosophy (24). Dewey does the same. In Reconstruction in Philosophy, he discusses “the whole brood and nest of dualisms which have, upon the whole, formed the ‘problems’ of philosophy termed ‘modern’ ” (xxxi).

I am not going to try to recapitulate and evaluate the historical investigations that lead Dewey and Toulmin to adopt this attitude toward the problems of modern philosophy. Instead, I want to consider what is to be gained from abandoning traditional problems and turning our attention to problematic experiences that arise out of conflicts in the present conditions and norms. Dewey thinks that philosophy stands to gain a new vitality and relevance and that philosophers stand to gain a new self-image. Dewey is troubled by philosophy’s isolation from and irrelevance to contemporary culture, and he is embarrassed by the pretentiousness of philosophy as discovery of truth and as knowledge of reality (Quest 309-10; Philosophy and Civilization 4-12). So he proposes a more relevant and modest task for philosophy. He proposes that philosophers help locate, interpret, and deal with problematic experiences arising from conficts of social norms. He thinks that if

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 195

philosophers come to see themselves as working on this more modest and socially responsible task, they could then look their fellow citizens “in the face with frankness and humanity” (Philosophy and Civilization 5) .

I I I . The Aims and Ways of Philosophical Inquiry Suppose philosophers turn their attention to the problems of our time and culture; suppose they consider problematic experiences and discuss social norms and conditions. These changes might help to lessen philosophy’s isolation from and irrelevance to the rest of culture, but what would philosophical inquiry aim at and how would it proceed?

Dewey thinks that the aim of philosophical inquiry is meaning, not truth. In Philosophy and Civilization, he says that meaning “is wider in scope as well as more precious in value than is truth, and philosophy is occupied with meaning rather than with truth” (4). But how does one get at meaning? Dewey himself often uses a genetic method to try to get at the meaning of a particular problem, social situation, or philosophical development, but he never claims that his way of inquiry is the only useful way. He does not think there is any privileged and peculiar method of philosophical inquiry. In his view, the method which has become so characteristic of contemporary philosophy - constructing and analyzing arguments - is not the only legitimate way of proceeding; it is simply one way that may or may not be useful in a particular situation. In order to explain these ideas about the aims and ways of philosophical inquiry, 1 want to consider a disagreement between Dewey and Frederick Copleston .

In his history of philosophy, Copleston notes that there are two senses in which Dewey’s philosophy is Hegelian: Nature has a role in Dewey’s philosophy that is similar to Spirit in Hegel’s, and “Dewey tends to interpret the philosophical systems of the past in relation to the cultures which gave birth to them” (135). After noting this, Copleston adds a critical comment. He says that this

second point helps to explain the fact that when Dewey is treating of past systems, he bothers very little, if at all, about the arguments advanced on their behalf by their authors and dwells instead on the inability of these systems to deal with the problematic situations arising out of contemporary culture. (135)

It is true that Dewey interprets philosophy in relation to culture: he looks at how philosophies of the past reflect and deal with problems of the cultures in which they originated, and he asks how well these philosophies deal with problematic situations of contemporary culture. And it is true that he does not analyze in detail the arguments of particular philosophers. About all this, Copleston is right. What needs to be explained is why Dewey takes this approach and why Copleston

196 JAMES DWYER

objects. It may seem that the critical tone of Copleston’s comment is due to a disagreement about philosophical method, but I think the disagreement goes deeper. Dewey and Copleston disagree about methods and ways of inquiry because they disagree about the goal or aim of philosophy.

The underlying objection to Dewey’s approach is that he commits the genetic fallacy: he gives an account of the historical origin and social function of a philosophical doctrine, and then from that account he fallaciously concludes something about the truth value of the doctrine. This objection seems appropriate if the aim of philosophical inquiry is to ascertain the truth value of a philosophical doctrine. It is not at all clear how an account of the genesis and function of a philosophical doctrine bears upon its truth value, where “truth value” is taken in some narrow sense. Whereas it is quite clear how argument analysis bears upon truth value: the point of argument analysis is to determine whether the premises are true and whether the inferences are truth-preserving.

This objection presupposes that the aim of philosophical inquiry, and the aim of Dewey’s approach, is to get at the truth value of a philosophical doctrine. But Dewey says flat out that the aim of philosophy is meaning, not truth. What is the difference? In Dewey’s view, truth is a subset of meaning. Truths are those meanings which depend for part of their significance on claims and tests of application, control, and verification (Philosophy and Civilization 5 ) . Science aims to supply meanings which are truths. Although Dewey does not think that philosophy should, or can, compete with science in formulating truths, he does think that philosophy should aim to clarify and develop meaning. Philosophy can enrich life with meaning, but not primarily with those meanings which are truths in the narrow sense. Dewey thinks there is something hopeless and insignificant about discussions of philosophical doctrines as discoveries of truth. So instead of discussing these doctrines as claims to truth, he discusses them as revelations of the meaning of cultural forces, predicaments, and aspirations.

Dewey’s discussion of utilitarianism illustrates his view of the aim of phiIosophy (Reconstruction 180-83). He does not analyze the arguments for and against utilitarianism; he does not try to prove that utilitarianism is right or wrong. Instead, he looks at the social origin and function of utilitarianism. He tries to show in what sense it reflected modern developments and furthered reform and in what sense it still embodied old ideas and supported existing institutions. Summarizing his view, he says that utilitarianism partially reflected the

meaning of modern thought and aspirations. But it was still tied down by fundamental ideas of that very order which it thought it had completely left behind: The idea of a fixed and single end lying beyond the diversity of human needs and acts rendered utilitarianism incapable of being an adequate representative of the modern spirit. (183)

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 197

Of course, one could say that Dewey is giving an argument against utilitarianism; he seems to argue that it is inadequate because it fails to represent fully the modern spirit. Whether or not we call this an argument is not important. The important thing is to see how Dewey’s approach differs from argumentation in contemporary philosophy. Indeed, the difference is so great that many analytic philosophers would view Dewey’s account of utilitarianism as historiography rather than philosophy.

N. An Example In order to illustrate Dewey’s ideas about the aims and ways of philosophy, I want to consider one more example. This example concerns a disagreement between Rorty and Copleston. In his history of philosophy, Copleston writes that Peirce

was an original philosopher and a powerful thinker. Indeed, the claim that he is the greatest of all purely American philosophers is by no means unreasonable. He had a strong tendency to careful analysis and was far from being one of those philosophers whose chief concern appears to be that of providing uplift and edification. (85)

Since Rorty thinks that philosophy should provide edification, :: is not surprising that he disagrees with Copleston’s evaluation of Peirce. I want to explore this disagreement, not in order to engage in a debate about who the greatest American philosopher is, but to show how different ideas about the aim of philosophy are involved.

When Copleston says “purely American philosophers,” we may suppose that he means to exclude philosophers like Santayana, Whitehead, and Carnap, but surely not James and Dewey. Why then does Copleston think more highly of Peirce than of James and Dewey? He tells us why: it is because Peirce had a tendency to careful analysis and was not primarily concerned with edification. But “careful analysis” is not a paradigm-neutral term. No American philosopher has given a more careful analysis of the social genesis and function of philosophical doctrines than John Dewey. But this is not what Copleston means. No American philosopher has given a more careful analysis of lived experience, and how philosophical doctrines relate to that experience, than William James. But this is not what Copleston means. By “tendency to careful analysis” he means something like being attentive to arguments and proofs, willing to introduce technical terms and problems, and concerned to get at the truth.

In Consequences of Pragmatism, Rorty notes that Peirce did original work, that he thought about a general theory of signs and developed certain technical notions and problems (160-61). But Rorty says that there is “a tendency to overpraise Peirce” (160). He thinks that Peirce

198 JAMES DWYER

remained the most Kantian of thinkers - the most convinced that philosophy gives us an all-embracing ahistorical context in which every other species of discourse could be assigned its proper place and rank. It was just this Kantian assumption that there was such a context, and that epistemology or semantics could discover it, against which James and Dewey reacted. (161)

Thus Rorty’s evaluation of Peirce is based on the belief that philosophy should not set itself up as the ahistorical tribunal of the rest of culture. Yet this belief suggests only something to be avoided, not a positive aim for philosophy.

Rorty does suggest a positive aim when he goes on to praise James and Dewey. He says that “James and Dewey offered us no guarantees. They simply pointed to the situation we stand in, now that both the Age of Faith and the Enlightenment seem beyond recovery. They grasped our time in thought” (174-75). Rorty’s praise is based on the idea, borrowed from Hegel, that philosophy should aim to articulate the meaning of our cultural situation. When Rorty goes on to offer further praise, he says that we can “honor James and Dewey for having offered what very few philosophers have succeeded in giving us: a hint of how our lives might be changed” (175). Implicit in this praise is a slightly different view of the aim of philosophy. It is not just that philosophy aims to articulate the meaning of our present situation, but that it does so in order to show us possibilities of change, in order to show us how we might change our lives. This view of philosophy seems to be an interpretation of Dewey’s hope that philosophy might become “a method of locating and interpreting the more serious of the conflicts that occur in life, and a method of projecting ways for dealing with them” (“The Influence” 40). Both Dewey and Rorty envision a twofold task for philosophy. The first part of the task is to interpret a conflict or situation, to articulate meaning; the second part of the task is to use the meaning to project possibilities of change.

I tried to show how the disagreement between Rorty and Copleston is rooted in a disagreement about the aims of philosophy, and how the two aims that Rorty accepts are congruent with Dewey’s view of philosophy. But I didn’t mean to suggest that there are no important differences between Rorty and Dewey. A number of philosophers, including Rorty himself, have discussed these differences (Sleeper; Edel; Rorty, “Comments”). Although I am only using Rorty to illustrate Dewey’s conception of philosophy, I will mention one difference between Rorty and Dewey. Rorty accepts the general outlines of Dewey’s conception of philosophy, but he does not see any use for metaphysics within that conception (Consequences 72-89). Dewey, on the other hand, sometimes suggests that there is a role for a naturalized metaphysics. He thinks that metaphysics, by discovering and describing generic traits of existence, can provide “a ground-map of the province of criticism, establishing base lines to be employed in more intricate triangulations” (Experience

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 199

413). Thus Dewey tries to connect the work of metaphysics with the work of criticism, which is the work of philosophy in general. I shall not try to adjudicate this difference between Dewey and Rorty. Whether or not Dewey is able to identify generic traits and characters that prove useful for the critical task of philosophy, he has proposed a conception of philosophy that merits our attention.

V. Solutions that Philosophy Could Provide Implicit in Dewey’s practice of philosophy are two quite different ways of solving problems. One way is by synthesis; the other is by abandonment. When the values and meanings of our norms come into conflict, we could try to overcome the problem either by seeking a synthesis that puts aside some of the less important values and meanings of the conflicting norms in order to bring the more central values and meanings into harmony, or by abandoning altogether the norms that give rise to the problematic experience.

Dewey suggests that we try to solve some problems by synthesis. In Liberalism and Social Action, for example, he notes that liberalism is under attack by conservatives and by radicals, but he argues that the critical problems facing liberalism arise from within the various norms and doctrines of liberalism itself. He tries to show how liberalism worked, from the seventeenth century to about the middle of the nineteenth century, to break down old social restraints and to release new social and personal forces. Yet by the second half of the nineteenth century liberalism had helped to create new social conditions, especially in economic and industrial life, that blocked the further development of values embedded in liberal norms - values like the maintenance of substantive liberty, the development of individual capacities, and the use of intelligence and discussion as instruments of social change. Dewey does not urge us to solve this conflict by abandoning all the norms of liberalism. He cautions against “abandoning in panic things of enduring and priceless value” (3). Instead he attempts to formulate a “renascent liberalism” that saves some of the central values and meanings of liberalism but that gives up earlier liberal doctrines that today work to prevent economic life from becoming an opportunity for social service and personal development. Of course, what Dewey sees as the central values and meanings of liberalism, and what he sees as peripheral, is subject to debate. My point here is merely that what he offers as a solution is a synthesis.

Although Rorty often suggests that we solve problems by abandon- ment, he sometimes suggests that we seek synthetic solutions. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, he tries to synthesize the political values of the Enlightenment with a pragmatist view of truth and a hermeneutic view of reason (32242). He thinks that the Enlightenment is beyond recovery, and he urges us to give up its views of truth, reason,

200 JAMES DWYER

science, and progress - views tied to the image of knowledge as representation. But he seeks to save the political values and meanings of the Enlightenment; he says that these values are “our most precious cultural heritage” (333) and that the preservation of these values is “our best hope” (335-36). He thinks we can combine these values with a culture in which knowledge is seen as a way of coping with the world - not as a kind of representation of reality - and in which reason is seen as a kind of conversation. I do not want to argue that such a synthesis is possible. I only want to point out that what Rorty is suggesting is a kind of synthesis.

Although Dewey suggests we solve some problems by finding or creating a synthesis, he urges us to solve other problems - especially the traditional problems of philosophy - by abandoning altogether the norms that give rise to the problems. In his essay on “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy,” Dewey questions the genuineness of the traditional problems. He admits that these problems were reflections of genuine problems of the social and historical conditions in which they arose, but he notes that conditions have changed vastly, especially in science and social life. He thinks that in order to make intellectual progress now, and to recover philosophy as a meaningful enterprise, we need to abandon the traditional problems and the norms they presuppose.

It may seem odd that Dewey links intellectual progress with the abandonment of problems and norms, rather than with the step-by-step solution of problems and the incremental refinement of norms. But in a passage that anticipates Thomas Kuhn’s distinction between ordinary science and revolutionary science, Dewey explains that intellectual progress

occurs in two ways. At times increase of knowledge is organized about old conceptions, while these are expanded, elaborated and refined, but not seriously revised, much less abandoned. At other times, the increase of knowledge demands qualitative rather than quantitative change; alteration, not addition. Men’s minds grow cold to their former intellectual concerns; ideas that were burning fade; interests that were urgent seem remote. Men face in another direction; their older perplexities are unreal; considerations passed over as negligible loom up. Former problems may not have been solved, but they no longer press for solution. (“The Need” 58)

Dewey often emphasizes the second kind of progress. In an essay on “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy,” he says that

intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume - an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them: we get over them. Old questions are solved by disappearing, evaporating, while new questions corresponding to the changed attitude of endeavor and preference take their place. (4W1)

DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 201

This happens in philosophy as well as science. Dewey notes that change is sometimes slow and difficult because old

norms and ideas “are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply engrained attitudes of aversion and preference” (“The Influence” 40). Thus change requires a change in attitudes. This is the kind of change that Dewey often tries to bring about. For example, in the first chapter of Reconstruction in Philosophy, he tries to show that “philosophy originated not out of intellectual material, but out of social and emotional material,” in order to leave the reader with “a changed attitude toward traditional philosophies” (25). In order to bring about a change in attitude, Dewey tries to get at the meaning of traditional problems and theories by examining the social and historical conditions under which they originated. He says that this “genetic method is a more effective way of undermining” the problems and theories than “any attempt at logical refutation could be” (24).

I tried to show how Dewey sometimes seeks a solution by abandon- ment, in the hope of fostering growth and progress, and how he sometimes seeks a solution by synthesis, in the hope of preserving what is still valuable. But when, we might ask, is it better to seek a solution by abandonment and when is it better to seek a solution by synthesis? Dewey gives us no general answer to that question. We need to work out the answer in each particular case. That is the work of wisdom. We could make it the work of philosophy.

New York University Washington Square New York, NY10003 USA

References

American Philosophical Association, “Pacific Division Programs.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association

Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy. 9 vols. Garden City:

Dewey, John, Experience and Nature. La Salle: Open Court, 1929. ~

- “From Absolutism to Experimentalism.” In The Philosophy of

-Individualism: Old and New. New York: Putnam’s, 1929. - “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy.” In The Philosophy

- Liberalism and Social Action. New York: Putnam’s, 1935. - “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of

57 (1984): P1-P56.

Image, 1966. Vol. 8, Part 11.

John Dewey .

of John Dewey.

John Dewey .

202 JAMES DWYER

- Philosophy and Civilization. New York: Minton Balch, 1931. - The Philosophy of John Dewey. Ed. John J. McDermott. New

- The Quest for Certainty. New York: Putnam’s, 1929. - Reconstruction in Philosophy, En]. ed. Boston, Beacon, 1948. Edel, Abraham, “A Missing Dimension in Rorty’s Use of Pragmatism,”

Transactions of the Charles Peirce Society 21 (1985): 21-37. Hegel, G., Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Trans. T. M. Knox. Oxford:

Oxford UP, 1967. Rorty, Richard, “Comments on Sleeper and Edel,” Transactions of the

Charles Peirce Society 21 (1985), 39-48. - Consequences of Pragmatism, Minneapolis, U of Minnesota P,

1982. - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, Princeton UP,

1980. Sleeper, R. W., “Rorty’s Pragmatism: Afloat in Neurath’s Boat, But

Why Adrift?” Transactions of the Charles Peirce Society 21 (1985),

Smith, John E., The Spirit of American Philosophy, rev. ed. Albany,

Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding, Princeton, Princeton UP,

York: Putnam’s, 1973.

9-20.

State U of New York P, 1983.

1972.