Dewey’s Reconstructions On The Concept Of Experience And Its Contemporary Effects

Philosophers have been talking the concept of experience ever since ancient Greek, meanwhile, experience was made explicit through various ways in different times. According to Dewey, experience and the world of phenomenon are deeply related in ancient Greek philosophy; philosophers back then were convinced that experience modeled itself on reality while the world of Forms was the realm of reality indeed. When philosophy came into its modern shape, the concept of experience that was thrown light upon against the background of dualism had obvious limitations. Even though rationalism and empiricism had divergences on the sources of epistemology, they both misinterpreted the true meaning of experience, modern theories limited their understandings to the epistemological level and deliberately distinguished between sensibility and rationality, experience and nature.Experience and nature, matter and consciousness, action and knowledge were all divided into two separated parts, under the consequence of which, experience was isolated, passive, and given.Dewey was quite unsatisfied with the humble status of experience in classical philosophy and the shabby implications of experience that was bounded to the realm of epistemology, which was characterized by dualism. Thus Dewey thought philosophy should be reconstructed and the key to open new philosophy was a reconstruction of the concept of experience. Dewey sought away out from Hegel’s theory of organic unity, the evolution theory of Darwin, and functional psychology of James. Dewey treated experience as life.Experience in this sense was meant to be radical experience in James’s words: a plausible definition of experience was expected to take human beings, nature and the interactions between them into consideration and combine all these elements in a whole.The new experience was a changing stream and it moved forward in time in virtue of all the interactions accompanied with the development of history, in the sense of which, it also showed the theoretical value of Hegel’s and Darwin’s related views. Dewey not only didn’t disclaim the epistemological implications of experience but also held that experience would be enriched as time went by.Experience and nature were two sides of one coin in Dewey’s eyes. A naturalist empiricism rejected the nonsense topics the classical metaphysics dwelt upon. A transcendental foundation that was settled as a bridge across dualism was a fantasy. Dewey gave up this kind of metaphysical urge and insisted on explicating human beings and the world in virtue of man and nature.Dewey’s naturalized philosophy was based on living activities.Richard Rorty, who both was a successor of pragmatism and regarded Dewey as his hero of philosophy, appreciated Dewey’s reconstruction on philosophy very much. Dewey was a Hegelian in his early times; despite the fact that Dewey was fonder of naturalism and Darwinism later, Dewey himself admitted that Hegel’s thoughts remain an indelible point on his theory. Rorty thought Dewey expressed Strong naturalism metaphysical tendency in "experience and nature",which completely opposited his spirit of Hegel. Rorty therefrom queried the legitimacy of Dewey’s theory of experience. Concerning on this, most of foreign scholars didn’t stand by Rorty’s side and criticized him for he had seen Dewey with tainted glasses. Noe-pragmatists, say McDowell and Putnam, also endorse Dewey’s concept of expenence.