John Dewey’s Empirical Philosophy

There is a big philosophical transformation in Dewey’s era, the dualism philosophy created by ancient Greek philosophy then strengthened and schematized by modern philosophy is facing great difficulity. The main problem is that it can’t solve the problem about the relationship between experience and nature, and also it can’t clearly tell us how the mind which works as a cognitive subject could attain the object. People get tired of this kind of philosophy, Dewey is no exception. The abruption in dualism philosophy tormentes him deeply.The holistic and dialectical thinking in Hegelian philosophy gives a possibility to suture the dualism.Though, due to the concern of practical problems, Dewey eventually leaves from Hegelian philosophy, he strongly commends Hegelian philosophy as a perfect philosophical system and admits that Hegelian philosophy leaves deposits in his own thoughts. The second thoughts origin of Dewey is Darwinian evolution. In Dewey’s opinion, the theory on the Origin of Species has hidden the possibility of subverting the traditional philosophy and it provides a gap for evolutionism’s entrance to the area of philosophy and morality. In my opinion,the discussion about organisms to adapt to the environment in the theory of evolution makes a tremendous impact on Dewey. Later, this dimensionality has dominated his philosophical statement as a starting point. Dewey gets a mothod to criticize the psychological foundation of traditional philosophy from the development of functional psychology. He understands psychology from a biological point of view. William James’s radical empiricism provides an example of empiricism which is different from traditional empiricism. But Dewey suggests that the "experience"in William James’s philosophy doesn’t break through the philosophy of consciousness. About experience,he goes farther and more thorough than James.The empirical philosophy of Dewey is the basis as well as also the most original part of his thoughts. To understand his experience theory, we need to realize three characteristics of Dewey’s philosophy. The first is his concern about human survival status, and it seems that the task of his philosophy is to describe the existence. Secondly, based on the first point, when he describes the empirical theory he regards the interaction of organism and environment as a realistic basis. At last, the method of natural science appears to be an example that philosophy needs to imitate for Dewey. He believes that in the natural sciences there is a union of experience and nature, organism and the environment. The article firstly analyzes the theoretical core of the empirical philosophy of Dewey, namely the place holded by feeling and reason, and then the relation between organism and the environment. In Dewey’s view, the feeling is no longer the gateway to knowledge, but an integral part of the vital functions, it stimulates the action, and is constantly changing. Reason is no longer the masters of rational Kingdom, it is an active and concoctive ability of thinking. In addition, Dewey sees the organism-environment interactions as the true patterns of experience. This paper argues that Dewey’s discourse about the relationship between experience and nature relies mainly on his empirical method. The empirical mothod indicates an attitude which points that experience activity blends with content of experience. In this process, with the range of experience expanding, the significance generates. The article has introduced the two aspects of the empirical method, the primary experience and reflective experience, respectively, and made a presentation to clarify their status in empirical method of Dewey. In addition, we know that the division of two kinds of experience is not absolute in Dewey. What he really wants to emphasize is the experience of unity which in itself principle of continuity exists.Dewey examines the root causes of the philosophy dualism through the history of mankind. He discoveres human nature as well as the social and historical factors as two aspects. Based on this experience theory Dewey suggests that the task of philosophy should not be the pursuit of absolute knowledge, and philosophy should not be a professional philosopher’s rational plaything. Philosophy whose task is to judge, criticize and evaluate should provide guidance for human life. The criteria for evaluating philosophy is the result it gives rise to in human life.