Dewey’s Experience Theory

Dewey’s experience theory is a pragmatic theory aiming to transform the traditionalconcept of experience. Experience, the key concept of Dewey’s experience theory, is also thebasic category of all his thoughts. Influenced by Hegel, Darwin, and James, Deweytransforms the traditional concept of experience, which is based on binary separation. Heopposes considering experience as sensation. it is cognition-related phenomenon and static,psychological activities. According to Dewey, experience is the interactive behavior betweenliving organism and environment; it is intermediary through which organism maintains itsown development; it is also dynamic biological phenomenon. Meanwhile, he classifiesexperience into two kinds: firsthand experience and reflective experience. There’s continuitybetween these two, rather than opposition. This continuity shows the dynamic process ofexperience.In the study of the traditional philosophical methodology, he changes experience into ascientific philosophy method and puts forward empirical method applying it into all fields.Dewey believes his empirical method is different from traditional philosophical methodologyin that his methods starts with the original experience and ends up justifying it after reflectionexperience; whereas the traditional one begins with the reflection experience derived from theoriginal experience without the confirmation of it. His method, therefore, provides us with away of thinking to solve various practical problems.Dewey’s experience theory, the foundation of his philosophical thoughts, is the main lineof his philosophy. Studies of all fields are connected to his experience theory in his thoughts.His experience theory provides people with new vision, though, problems still exist, like thenegation of objective world, the generalization of experience, etc. We are supposed to regardDewey’s experience theory expericene theory critically.