SOURCE: "Dewey's Conception of Philosophy," in The Philosophy of John Dewey, Northwestern University, 1939, pp. 49-73.

[In the following essay, Ratner examines Dewey 's personal definition and objectives for his philosophy, concluding that Dewey believed philosophy to be an integral element of all human life. ]

In his opening contribution to Studies in Logical Theory, Dewey outlined a conception of philosophy which, from the vantage point of the present time, we can see he has been working on and working out ever since. It has not, however, been a development proceeding on a smooth and unbroken line. It has not been an unperturbed and undeviating unfoldment of an ideally preformed idea, nourished and sustained by an environment ideally preformed for it. Rather has the development been of a more natural, even of a more human sort. Its historic career is marked by crises, by phases of change—and some of them of major importance. Hence in our discussion we shall, to some extent, follow the historic route.

I

Philosophy, as described in the essay referred to ("The Relationship of Thought and Its Subject-Matter") has three areas of inquiry. For the sake of convenience, these may be provisionally represented in the form of three concentric circles. The first area, bounded by the innermost circle, is occupied by reflective thought, by logic, or what Dewey now calls inquiry. In the second area are the typical modes of human experience, such as the practical or utilitarian, the esthetic, religious, socio-ethical, scientific. Philosophic inquiry here concerns itself with analyzing what these modes of experience are and, particularly, with discovering their interrelations, how one leads into and emerges out of the other, how the practical or utilitarian develops, perhaps, into the scientific, the scientific into the esthetic or vice versa or whatever the case may be discovered to be. The third area is that of the socio-cultural world, society in its organized and institutional form, the world which generates what we commonly and quite accurately call "social questions." Of the myriad possible questions that can be found here for philosophy to study and answer, Dewey singled out the following as representative samples: "the value of research for social progress; the bearing of psychology upon educational procedure; the mutual relations of fine and industrial art; the question of the extent and nature of specialization in science in comparison with the claims of applied science; the adjustment of religious aspirations to scientific statements; the justification of a refined culture for a few in face of economic insufficiency for the mass, the relation of organization to individuality."¹

Today, at any rate, there is nothing new in this conception of the subject-matter of philosophy, taken distributively. To what extent Dewey's own work has contributed to making our contemporary range of philosophic interest and work legitimate, familiar and accepted we need not stop to inquire. But the significance of Dewey's conception is not to be found in the mere extension of the range, significant as that undoubtedly was and is. It is to be found in the idea of the interrelation of the three areas: that they are functional distinctions, discriminable divisions within one inclusive field of experience, the boundary lines being neither fixed nor impermeable, marking off, but not insulating any one from any of the rest.

The fundamental idea then is that the primary subjectmatter of philosophic inquiry is a continuously interconnected field of experience. But philosophy, especially in the modern epoch and as an academic pursuit, does not receive its subject-matter in its primary form. It receives it, instead, in derivative forms of various orders of remoteness and complication. It gets bundles of highly intellectualized and generalized problems. Each bundle is outfitted with its own tag: epistemology, ethics, logic, esthetics, social philosophy and whatnot. Philosophy is an enterprise of reflective thought and not only should but can only deal with problems in a reflective or intellectual way. But when each bundle of intellectualized problems is treated as if it constituted a separate and distinct substantive realm, as being the original and primary subject-matter of inquiry, philosophy, instead of prospering as a reflective enterprise, degenerates into a mere dialectical process of untying each bundle in some way and tying it up again in another.

To recur to our three concentric circles for a moment. The contents of those circles, as described above, were all intellectualized contents, that is, problems already given an intellectual form. This is as true of the "social questions" which are the contents of the outer circle as it is of the contents located in the others. "The relation of organization to individuality, the justification of a refined culture for a few in face of economic insufficiency for the mass, the value of research for social progress" and so on, are, with respect to their intellectual form, on a par with any other intellectual problems conceived or conceivable. However, no one of ordinary commonsense would confuse these "social questions," or intellectualized problems, with the actual social conditions that raise those questions or that are those problems. And certainly no one of commonsense would substitute the former for the latter, treating the social questions as self-sufficient in themselves, as being the primary and original subjectmatter and pushing the social conditions completely to one side as irrelevant, if not even non-existent.

Whether any philosopher ever succeeded in making a complete substitution of the sort indicated, in any field whatsoever, is more than doubtful. Indeed, it is certain that none ever did. Such a feat is beyond the powers even of a philosopher, no matter how "idealistically" or "intellectualistically" he may be constitutioned or conditioned.

However, the temptation to make the substitution is omnipresent in the intellectual class, and the one to which philosophers most frequently and recurrently fall. In the degree that the substitution is made, to that degree does philosophy become a vain dispute and an arid verbal jugglery. The stress falls on substitution and in the sense indicated. Reflective inquiry, philosophic or otherwise, can handle an actual condition that is a problem only by transforming it into an intellectual form. But such a transformation, when understood and handled as such, is what Dewey calls a surrogate for the actual problem, not a substitute for it. An architect engaged on the problem of remodelling a house uses a blueprint. The blueprint is an intellectualized form of the actual house, a surrogate for it. An architect does not substitute his blueprint for the house; he does not consider the blueprint as constituting the original and primary subject-matter of his inquiry; and he does not think that he changes the house when he changes the blueprint—although changing the blueprint may be all that he professionally contributes towards the consummation of that final end.

Let us suppose there is an architect's office, full of blueprints of various orders and descriptions, rolled up in different sets. Now put a philosopher in that office, bolt the door and shutter the windows and what can he do? It all depends upon what the philosopher experienced before he was imprisoned. If he can read the blueprints and has an active and fertile mind, there is no telling what he will be able to do with them, what strange new blueprint or system of blueprints he will be able to fashion out of the blueprints before him. But suppose the philosopher who was sealed in the office was grabbed out of the transcendental blue and was transported and imprisoned so quickly he had no time to have any earthly experience on the way? What could he do with the blueprints? Barring miracles, whatever he did would be a purely transcendental doing, having no relation whatever to the earthly blueprints, what they stand for and where they came from, what they are surrogates of and what they are used for. Our transcendental philosopher would be bottled up in the architect's office much as the mind is still supposed by some to be bottled up in the brain or some part of the brain.

Pictorial analogies or illustrations when taken too literally or when pressed too far are bound to be misleading. However, if in the foregoing illustration the appropriate substitutions are made, the result is a fair picture of the kind of situation in philosophy against which Dewey fundamentally protested in Studies in Logical Theory and which his own conception of the nature of philosophic inquiry was designed to correct.

II

The problem of unbolting the door and unshuttering the windows of the philosopher's study is the problem of establishing continuous, functional connection between philosophic inquiry and all other activities of human beings, including among the latter of course other activities of inquiry, such as the scientific.

How can this be done? Poised as an abstract problem at large and this problem itself becomes a dialectical one of the insoluble variety, on the order of the problem of determining whether an "inside" mind can know an "outside" world. If we start off with the mind at large as being "inside" and the world at large as being "outside," the dialectical operation can be pursued indefinitely without ever effecting any connection, let alone a functional connection, between the two. In the course of the dialectic, the mind and the world may exchange positions, recurrently yielding what superficially may seem to be the amazing result of getting the world "inside" and the mind "outside." But such consequence, should it prove unduly unpleasant to contemplate, can always be reversed by carrying the dialectic one round further. Similarly, if we start off with philosophy at large and seek by dialectic to connect it with the common world of human experience and affairs at large. In fact, the two problems are variants of the same.

The only way in which the connection can be shown to be—for it is and does not have to be made—is by. giving up the futile task of abstractedly considering "problems in general" and approaching all problems empirically, as a series of specific, concrete problems. Does this beg the question? Dewey has formulated his answer in a great variety of ways, sometimes more clearly and sometimes less. The fundamental idea recurring in all his answers is that this does not beg the question:*the only thing it begs is the empirical method and this only at the outset. Thenceforward, the method proves itself by its works.

Of course, the contemporary philosopher in "begging" the adoption of the empirical method for use in philosophy is not asking philosophers to start out on a completely blind hunch. The scientists have been empirical in their procedure for quite some time now, and it is agreed on all hands that it is a good procedure, that, to put it in the vernacular, it produces the goods. The "appeal to example" is as significant in the intellectual as in the moral life. It has at least a quasi-logical force. One scientist does something in a certain way, getting certain results, and that way becomes an "example" for other scientists to follow; not slavishly and blindly, of course, but nevertheless something to follow. There is a logical presumption in its favor—in so far forth. Likewise when it is a case of adopting a method used in one field for use in another field. Of course, the justification of a method comes through the fruits of its use where it is used. It is not and cannot be justified by pointing to its fruitfulness elsewhere or whence it was taken. Arguments for adopting empirical method in philosophy because the scientists use that method are, therefore, at the outset, always of the nature of "begging"; they are, in the good sense of the term, hortatory. This of course applies equally to any method to be adopted for use in any field, or any part of any field.

That a method justifies itself by the goods it produces where it is used is a principle that cuts both ways. It operates to cut a method out as well as to cut a method in. Cutting a method out that is deeply entrenched is no simple, automatic or instantaneous affair. It is accomplished only progressively, only in the course of actually reconstructing the field by the operative use of the new method.

The adoption of the empirical method for use in philosophy may be considered to be in the nature of an initial attitude or standpoint taken towards the work, that is, the assumption of the empirical attitude is of the nature of an overt act whereby the philosopher identifies himself as one human being among other human beings, as one worker among other workers, or what amounts to the same, whereby he identifies his field of work as one field among others and functionally interrelated with them. Since the contemporary philosopher certainly is not in the position of one who stands just in front of the threshold of Creation, what this act means concretely is that all the achievements of the human race, all the methods of work, all the products and results that have already been developed by those methods in all other fields are legitimately opened for his use. The whole world of human achievement, the world of goods, becomes a community store to which the empirical philosopher has rightful access and from which he may rightfully take what he needs and as he needs it. (And to which, it may immediately be added, he is under obligation to give something in return.) As a matter of fact, even the most non-empirical philosophers have not hesitated to take what they wanted, no matter how empirical the place where they found it. This fact, which Dewey has very amply documented, is not, to be sure, a reflection on their morals, but it is an indictment of their philosophical position.

III

With the assumption of the empirical attitude, the problems in philosophy cease to be unique, parthenogenetic creations. They become formulations in philosophy of common problems arising out of common experience. They all have empirical fathers who can be empirically traced, located and identified. And this precisely becomes the task of empirical philosophy, as Dewey conceives it, with respect to the class of problems in philosophy that have by virtue of their formulation acquired the character of being inherently insoluble. From Dewey's empirical standpoint an insoluble problem is of the nature of an intellectual disease; it is what we may call a "diseased formulation" and the empirical remedy (and the only remedy) consists in tracing the "problem" as it appears in philosophy back to its origins in the primary subject-matter of experience and finding out how, in the course of its intellectual genetic-history, it got that way. How complicated and extensive a process this becomes when carried out in some detail can be seen, for example, in Experience and Nature and The Quest for Certainty.

The fundamental principle of the remedial process is, however, rather simple. Dewey briefly indicated its nature in Studies in Logical Theory, and though brief, it is in some ways the best explanation he has given of his own modus operandi. It can be most expeditiously described by referring again to the three concentric circles. They comprise the inclusive area within which philosophic inquiry is going on. Examination of the contents will reveal that at least some of the contents in one area appear in other areas in other forms and on different contextual scales. The method Dewey prescribed and has so extensively and effectively used is that "of working back and forth between the larger and the narrower fields, transforming every increment upon one side into a method of work upon the other, and thereby testing it."² Uppermost in Dewey's mind, at the time of writing, was the function this "double movement" performs in testing every increment gained. But it also functions to uncover new clews and leads both for solutions and problems and thus is accumulative as well as corrective. Furthermore, this accumulative and corrective process is the natural matrix out of which develop new varieties of empirical method. For empirical method does not consist of a single, linear rule. It is multi-dimensional and many-potentialed, acquiring different specific forms through use in different specific situations, and displaying new powers with every new way in which it is used. When empirical method is deliberately adopted for philosophic use, it has also to be adapted. Since Dewey's "double movement" is a method of working within the field of philosophy which exhibits the two fundamental features of empirical method as that operates in scientific inquiry it may fairly be considered as being a natural adaptation of that method.

The concentric circles give, of course, a cross-sectional view, or the area of philosophic inquiry (as Dewey conceived it in 1903). But the actual field of philosophic inquiry has depth and temporal length as well. It is the socio-cultural world in its full-dimensional, historical character. The method of working back and forth between the narrower and larger fields means, therefore, working back and forth between the technical study of the intellectualized problems in philosophy and the common world of experience, the socio-cultural conditions and activities, including the scientific, which generate or are those problems.

IV

In Studies in Logical Theory, the distinction between what we may call "problems in general" and "general problems" is clearly recognized and made. All "problems in general" or "problems überhaupt" are diseased formulations of general problems. Thus the problem of "knowledge in general" ("Is Knowledge Possible?") is a diseased formulation of the problem of developing a general theory of knowledge or a general logic. From the scientific empirical standpoint Dewey took in those early essays and which he has maintained ever since, it is just as intelligent for a philosopher to ask "Is Knowledge Possible?" as it would be for a scientist to ask "Is Motion Possible?" There are specific cases of motion and scientific inquiry begins by observing (and experimenting with) these specific cases. Although there is no "motion in general" (and hence no "problem in general") the scientist none the less has a general problem; namely, the problem of developing a general theory of motion or, what is the same thing for him, formulating general laws of motion. The general laws, furthermore, are not proved valid, are not tested and established by their ability to evaporate out of scientific existence the specific cases of motion going on and observed but, on the contrary, their validity is established by their ability to explain or account for the specific cases.

Similarly with the general problem of knowledge which is the concern of the philosopher in his restricted capacity as logician. Any general theory of knowledge, any general formulation he reaches, must be competent to explain or account for the specific cases of knowing going on. However attractive and admirable his general formulation may be in all other respects, if it does not meet this fundamental requirement it is invalid or incompetent. A great deal of rightful enthusiasm has been poured over Newton's general laws of motion. But suppose the characteristic of those laws was that they accounted for "all motion" only by making every actual motion unaccountable. Would we then be as enthusiastic? To ask the question is to answer it. Why then any enthusiasm over general philosophic formulations which display their competence to account for a total field of inquiry by the method of rendering inexplicable and unaccountable everything that actually occurs within that field? Should we not enforce on philosophic generalizations the same demand we enforce on scientific generalizations? For the philosopher who, like Dewey, has taken the empirical attitude only an unequivocal affirmative answer is possible. For by taking the attitude, by identifying his field of work as one among others, he has given up all special privileges, all claims to exclusive, prerogative treatment and consideration. Hence when he concerns himself with the general problem of knowledge he proceeds with the firm and basic understanding that his solution of that problem, the general formulations he reaches must be such that they will include, not exclude, will account for, not render unaccountable, the actual ways of knowing which occur. The common man and the scientist experience no "metaphysical" problem, they suffer from no "metaphysical" fright, when engaged in the enterprise of knowing. For them, knowing and knowledge do not rend their experience into two inexplicably unjoinable parts. For the common man and scientist, knowledge does not divide off and then hermetically seal the divisions. It does just the opposite: it functions to break through divisions that have for other, non-knowledge causes, occurred. Knowledge, as actually exemplified in experience, does not create breaches but heals them; it does not function to disrupt and disintegrate experience but, on the contrary, operatively functions to deepen and to expand, to re-integrate and integrate experience in adequate and more comprehensive and more fruitful ways. The general formulation of the philosopher must therefore meet these specific conditions. If it does not, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn: the philosopher has, in the course of his work, severed all connection between his field of inquiry and all other fields. He has set himself up as an emperor in a self-created and insulated empire of his own.

The philosophic task, then, is to reach generalizations that meet specific conditions. This is Dewey's position. How is this done? Let us quote:

Generalization of the nature of the reflective process certainly involves elimination of much of the specific material and contents of the thoughtsituations of daily life and of critical science. Quite compatible with this, however, is the notion that it seizes upon certain specific conditions and factors, and aims to bring them to clear consciousness—not to abolish them. While eliminating the particular material of particular practical and scientific pursuits, (1) it may strive to hit upon the common denominator in the various situations which are antecedent or primary to thought and which evoke it; (2) it may attempt to show how typical features in the specific antecedents of thought call out diverse typical modes of thought-reaction; (3) it may attempt to state the nature of the specific consequences in which thought fulfills its career.³

There is, then, according to Dewey, no opposition or conflict between philosophic concern with the general or generic and interest in the specific. In fact, the etiology of all diseased formulations, for example of the diseased formulation of the general problem of knowledge as the problem of "knowledge in general" is, as Dewey then diagnosed the case, chiefly if not exclusively to be found in the fact that logicians apparently believed that there is an irreconcilable opposition between the two and hence in constructing their general theories always worked to eliminate the specific entirely. Wherefore their theories were doomed to end up as one or other of the extant varieties of diseased formulations, that is, were doomed to end up by presenting in an insoluble intellectualized form the original problem they started out to solve.

Dewey's theory of knowledge or general logic of reflective thought is here introduced for illustration not discussion. It is a specific example of an essential, indeed basic element in his general doctrine in Studies in Logical Theory regarding philosophy. There the concern of philosophy with general problems is not only admitted as a legitimate concern but the competence of philosophy to arrive at solutions of general problems, its competence to reach general theories or formulations is insisted upon as the foundation of philosophy's ultimate effectiveness as Dewey then envisioned it.

As there described, philosophy, from an initiating and restricted interest in the logic of reflection develops into a "general logic of experience." When thus developed it "gets the significance of a method." Its business ceases to be that of defending any vested interest or traditional order in society or any entrenched conception of Reality. Its business becomes that of freely and unprejudicially (or scientifically) examining the various typical modes of experience and discovering their relationships to each other and their respective claims. When fully realized as a method, Dewey envisioned philosophy as doing "for social qualities and aims what the natural sciences after centuries of struggle are doing for activity in the physical realm." Philosophy would answer the "social questions" of which some examples were cited earlier. Philosophy alone would answer these questions because only philosophy, in the course of realizing itself, would have acquired the requisite foundation of general method.

The three stages of philosophy's development are diagrammatically represented by our three concentric circles—to refer to this device for the last time. In view of what has already been said, it is clear that Dewey did not conceive of these stages as separate and distinct, as following upon one another in discrete succession. He conceived of the stages in just the opposite way: as indissolubly and interactively interconnected, as discriminable phases of a temporal or natural-historical development. The solution of problems in philosophy can be reached only by working back and forth between the technical or private domain of philosophy and the final or public domain of sociocultural experience. For philosophy to solve its own intellectualized problems it must move into the common field of problematic situations. And just as truly, if philosophy is ever to become able to handle social situations successfully or constructively, it must begin to handle them—its ability progressing in the "double" process: the periodic return of philosophy into its technical domain being an essential phase of the way philosophy perfects its general methods. In sum, for philosophy to develop either way, within its own technical confines or within the inclusive social world, the "double movement" must be continuously maintained. Undoubtedly there is a great temptation to say that answering "social questions" would be "applied philosophy" but such temptation must be resolutely denied. For such a distinction involves the idea that methods and application can be separated, that methods can somehow be developed in some sequestered location and then "applied" to the situations. Which is fundamentally contradictory to Dewey's doctrine. And at any rate in the sphere of "social questions" almost every one admits the inherent absurdity of the idea that methods and application can be separated. This idea is popularly known as sentimentalism or utopianism.

Dewey did not of course see philosophy as maturing to its full powers as a "method" immediately or even soon. But it was in the direction of attaining this maturity that philosophy's destiny lay, the ultimate end in view of which the reconstruction of philosophy was to be undertaken.

V

In the period between 1903 and 1920, the publication dates respectively of Studies in Logical Theory and Reconstruction in Philosophy, many things happened in the world. For one thing, the brood of social sciences was growing larger and even growing up. And they were obviously increasing their business by taking away the business of philosophy as Dewey had conceived it ultimately to be. By all evidences of the times, philosophy was, in this respect, to repeat its history: its maturation as the science of society was to be achieved through the maturation of the social sciences.

The second thing we need notice here as having happened during this period is the World War. It was largely, though not exclusively, in connection with the social problems created by the War—while it was in progress and for some years after—that Dewey developed his publicist activity, directly participating in current, almost day to day, public affairs. By far the major part of his publicist writings belong to the years 1917-1923. Reconstruction in Philosophy, one of the more widely read and known of Dewey's volumes, belongs very definitely to this period. Since it is the only volume of this period that covers the whole field of philosophy, we may fairly take it as representative of one of the major changes in Dewey's conception of philosophy referred to at the outset. If the change were exclusively restricted to this period, or were to be found only in this book, it would deserve some notice, but only of a passing sort. But recurrent echoes of the strain here developed are observable, if not in all Dewey's subsequent writings, at any rate, in a goodly portion of them.

In Reconstruction in Philosophy two different, though not unrelated, conceptions of philosophy and its function are advanced. One is the conception that philosophy "is vision" and "that its chief function is to free men's minds from bias and prejudice and to enlarge their perceptions of the world about them."⁴ Although this conception of philosophy is not new with Dewey, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the prominence it acquires, not only in this book, but throughout this period and subsequently, is not unconnected with the rise and development of the social sciences.

The other conception of philosophy is a revised version of philosophy as social method, as an "organ for dealing with . . . the social and moral strifes of [our] day."⁵ There is, of course, no contradiction or opposition between these two conceptions, they do lead into and out of each other, but there is at least a difference in emphasis between them, which difference sometimes becomes very important, if not crucial. "To say frankly that philosophy can proffer nothing but hypotheses, and that these hypotheses are of value only as they render men's minds more sensitive to life about them"⁶ is qualitatively different from saying with equal frankness: "the task of future philosophy is to clarify men's ideas as to the social and moral strifes of their own day. Its aim is to become so far as is humanly possible an organ for dealing with these conflicts."⁷

But it is not the relation between these two conceptions of philosophy that we want to discuss just now. It is the second conception only that is of immediate concern. In this book, there is a fundamental conflict in doctrine with respect to this second conception. It occurs throughout, sometimes becoming acute, sometimes practically disappearing entirely. In terms of the foregoing discussion, this conflict may be said to turn on the fact that Dewey recurrently forgets the fundamental distinction he made in Studies in Logical Theory and confuses what we called "problems in general" with "general problems" and because of this mistaken identification repeatedly is led from the argument that the former are intellectual chimeras (which they are) to the conclusion that the latter are of the same character (which they are not).

Thus, for example, in considering various theories of society Dewey

plunge[s] into the heart of the matter, by asserting that these various theories suffer from a common defect. They are all committed to the logic of general notions under which specific situations are to be brought. What we want light upon is this or that group of individuals, this or that concrete human being, this or that special institution or social arrangement. For such a logic of inquiry, the traditionally accepted logic substitutes discussion of the meaning of concepts and their dialectical relationship to one another. The discussion goes on in terms of the state, the individual; the nature of institutions as such, society in general.⁸

Now from this thoroughly sound criticism of "notions in general"—"society in general," "the state in general," "the individual in general"—Dewey passes to a conclusion which is tantamount to a denial of the need for any general theory of society, of the state, of the individual, etc. "The social philosopher, dwelling in the region of his concepts, 'solves' problems by showing the relationship of ideas, instead of helping men solve problems in the concrete by supplying them hypotheses to be used and tested in projects of reform."⁹ And on the next page he is even more specific: "In the question of methods concerned with reconstruction of special situations rather than in any refinements in the general concepts of institution, individuality, state, freedom, law, order, progress, etc., lies the true impact of philosophical reconstruction."¹⁰

A great deal of course can be made of the terms "refinement" and "impact" but a dialectical exegesis is uncalled for. On an earlier page, Dewey writes as follows:

Knowing, for the experimental sciences, means a certain kind of intelligently conducted doing; it ceases to be contemplative and becomes in a true sense practical. Now this implies that philosophy, unless it is to undergo a complete break with the authorized spirit of science, must also alter its nature. It must assume a practical nature; it must become operative and experimental.¹¹

Now there can be no doubt that the theory of knowing as contemplative was also "operative" in the very important sense that it operated to influence men's minds and thus to some extent guide their conduct, misguidance being also a form of guidance. In fact, to render this theory innocuous or inoperative was the chief purpose of the book under discussion. In a very real sense, it may truly be said that Dewey has dedicated his life's work to the accomplishment of this myriad-formed, if not hydraheaded task. For the accomplishment of this task requires the reconstruction of all philosophic ideas that were formed under the influence of the conception of knowing as inherently and exclusively contemplative, which means, in effect, reconstructing all of them since none escaped this influence. The implication for philosophy of the operative and experimental character of scientific knowing is not that philosophy must change its nature and itself become operative and experimental in the same direct sense in which laboratory science is experimental: the implication is that philosophy must change its ideas, its conceptions. Above all it must reconstruct its conception of knowing so that the operative and experimental character of knowing is made an integral part of its general theory of knowledge. This is not accomplished—unfortunately not, needless to say—when philosophers "insert" the characters of operation and experimentation somewhere in their treatises (take "notice" of them so to speak) and then go on with their business as usual. It is also not accomplished when the element of "contemplation" is shoved back so completely that the process of reconstruction becomes one of substituting the operative for the contemplative. And the trend of Dewey's thought, in the period under consideration, was in the direction of making some sort of a substitution. Wherefore the two conceptions of philosophy which are, in reality, two general conceptions of knowledge.

The title of the book—Reconstruction in Philosophy—tells the tale without argument. It is philosophy that Dewey is reconstructing. The impact of this reconstruction is to change the world or some portion of it through changing men's minds or ideas. But whatever the ultimate change philosophy brings about in the world, it is a change that it brings about precisely through changing ideas, through reformulating them, reconstructing them. It is in this way that philosophy "gets the significance of a method." Thus, on the heels of the passage cited where it is asserted that the true impact of philosophical reconstruction does not lie in any refinements in the general concepts, Dewey proceeds exactly to the task of reconstructing the general concept of individuality, etc. Speaking generally, and I hope without any confusing results, it may be said that Dewey's most important line of reconstruction, along which lie his greatest contributions, is his painstaking reconstruction of a considerable number of "concepts in general" into "general concepts." When thus reconstructed, the specific and special are not eliminated or abolished but brought out and embraced. Hence the general concepts can also function as general methods guiding and controlling action to a prospering and not impoverishing issue.

As Dewey very clearly puts it in"The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy":

There are human difficulties of an urgent, deepseated kind which may be clarified by trained reflection, and whose solution may be forwarded by the careful development of hypotheses. When it is understood that philosophic thinking is caught up in the actual course of events, having the office of guiding them towards a prosperous issue, problems will abundantly present themselves. Philosophy will not solve these problems; philosophy is vision, imagination, reflection—and these functions apart from action, modify nothing and hence resolve nothing. But in a complicated and perverse world, action which is not informed with vision, imagination and reflection, is more likely to increase confusion and conflict than to straighten things out.¹²

For good or bad, whether he likes it or not, the philosopher, in his professional capacity, is stuck in the realm of ideas.

VI

In "The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" Dewey writes as follows:

It is often said that pragmatism, unless it is content to be a contribution to mere methodology, must develop a theory of Reality. But the chief characteristic trait of the pragmatic notion of reality is precisely that no theory of Reality in general, überhaupt, is possible or needed. It finds that "reality" is a denotative term, a word used to designate indifferently everything that happens. Lies, dreams, insanities, deceptions, myths, theories are all of them just the events they specifically are. Pragmatism is content to take its stand with science; for science finds all such events to be subject-matter of description and inquiry—just like stars and fossils, mosquitos and malaria, circulation and vision. It also takes its stand with daily life, which finds that such things really have to be reckoned with as they occur interwoven in the texture of events.¹⁴

Here more explicitly than in our earlier examples, we find Dewey going from the proposition that there is no "Reality in general" (which is true) to the conclusion that no general theory of reality is possible (which is false). The passage cited may rightfully be claimed as itself a nuclear or germinal statement of a general theory of reality. But it is quite unnecessary to argue the point. Just as Dewey in The Public and Its Problems thoroughly corrected the idea that a general theory of the state and society is not necessary by developing one, so in Experience and Nature, which appeared some eight years after the citation above was written,¹⁵ he explicitly developed a general "theory of nature, of the world, of the universe."

Experience and Nature thus marks another major change in Dewey's conception of philosophy, what its task is, what it may and should undertake to do. The only way of getting rid of bad metaphysics is to develop good metaphysics; the only way of getting rid of "Reality in general" is to develop a "general theory of reality." The development of a general theory of reality is not of course to be undertaken as a mere task of riddance. It is a proper and legitimate and needed enterprise on its own. Up to Experience and Nature Dewey was preoccupied with the general problem, or the constellation of general problems concerned with locating knowing within experience; and then he took on the still more general problem of locating experience within nature. The more general problem does not abolish or eliminate the less general: it seizes upon the characteristic traits of the latter and includes them in a wider network of meanings. The determination of the place of man within nature is not achieved by eliminating man from the scheme of things. Nor can the scheme of things, or the nature of Nature be determined—as Dewey has comprehensively pointed out—unless we include man as an integral part within that determination. It is a process, again, of working back and forth, only now on an all-inclusive scale, or within an all-inclusive field.

VII

The changes in Dewey's specific doctrines, his changes within the discriminate departments of philosophy, do not concern us here. We may therefore consider Experience and Nature as being representative of the final major change in Dewey's conception of the field of philosophy.

In the closing chapter of this book, Dewey redefines his general conception of philosophy as a "criticism of criticisms." In this definitional formula, the two conceptions we distinguished before—philosophy as "vision, imagination, reflection" and philosophy as "social method"—are merged. They are merged but not fused.

Philosophy as a criticism of criticisms differs from other criticisms both by virtue of its generality and of its objective or orientation. Within each specialized occupation, within the boundaries of each profession, technical criticism, competent and restricted to that field, goes on. Specialization, professionalism, even departmentalization are unavoidable and necessary for the successful maintenance and progress of a condition of human society above that of a primordial horde, and of course for such a complex culture as our own. But these necessary conditions, if allowed to develop their particularisms and segregations unchecked would bring about the destruction of culture. The socio-cultural condition—the existential state of affairs, and not some transcendental vision—creates the need for an integrative medium.

Over-specialization and division of interests, occupations and goods create the need for a generalized medium of intercommunication, of mutual criticism through all-around translation from one separated region of experience into another. Thus philosophy as a critical organ becomes in effect a messenger, a liaison officer, making reciprocally intelligible voices speaking provincial tongues, and thereby enlarging as well as rectifying the meanings with which they are charged.^>16

Although terminologically this differs greatly from the conception of philosophy as a "general logic of experience," it is in its final intent not so very far removed from it. For, clearly, by "liaison officer" Dewey does not mean a Western Union boy. And, equally clearly, by a generalized medium of intercommunication he does not mean a "language" into which all statements of the particular voices can be translated so that by learning this language every one can learn what every one else has said (in so far as their sayings have been translated of course). Dewey's generalized medium is one in which the meanings are enlarged and rectified. Sheer translation does not do this—or if it does then it is bad translation. But to enlarge and rectify is precisely what philosophy is to do—the good of it. Philosophy, as a critical organ, is not critically diaphanous.

From the passage cited one might be tempted to conclude that the process of bringing meanings together from different fields is the whole of philosophic activity. Undoubtedly, the origination of the "generalized medium" must be conceived in some such way. However, because philosophy, from its inception, has not been a stranger to the ways of men—something from on high, separate and alone—it has, in the course of its history, been able to acquire a mind of its own. This mind—the complex of ideas and meanings we call philosophic—is, I think, the "generalized medium" whereof Dewey speaks. For to function as such a medium, or perhaps better said, to be such a medium, has been and is, according to Dewey, the rôle of philosophy in the history of civilization.

But to be a medium, and consciously and systematically to function as a critical medium of intercommunication are not quite the same thing. The difference is all-important. Philosophy has at various times been set up as a separate and peculiar science, sui generis—the holder of the keys to the universe. This, for Dewey, philosophy is not and has not ever been. The keys to the universe are not exclusively retained in any one pair of hands. They are everywhere about. What philosophy does hold is a key position within the development of socio-cultural experience. It is an intermediate between the technical sciences (natural and social) on the one hand, and on the other, the arts and technologies, including among the latter the technologies of associated living, the institutions of society, political and otherwise. An intermediate is not a go-between. An intermediate is a functional activity between two qualitatively differentiated functional activities. Philosophy, as an intermediate between the sciences and the arts, participates in both their functions, being exclusively identifiable with neither. In some phases of its work, philosophy nears the sciences: what Dewey calls the rectification of meanings: this is philosophy as "method." In other phases, it approaches the arts: the enlargement of meanings: this is philosophy as "vision." Neither can be separated from the other. It is a "double movement." And also, it is a "double movement" that does not leave philosophy unchanged. The enlargement and rectification can be effected in the socio-cultural world only as it occurs in as well as through philosophy. Just as philosophy is not a stranger to the ways of men, so non-philosophic men are not strangers to philosophy. Because of its intermediary function philosophic formulations and ideas have gone out into and penetrated all other fields. A thoroughgoing reconstruction in philosophy thus involves reconstruction of ideas in technically non-philosophic domains. And reconstruction of ideas in the latter often brings about and compels reconstruction in philosophy. In the historic spread, the double movement is continuously going on.

The other distinguishing characteristic of philosophy as criticism is its objective. The ultimate orientation of philosophic criticism is towards value. "Criticism is discriminating judgment, careful appraisal, and judgment is appropriately termed criticism wherever the subject-matter of discrimination concerns goods or values."¹⁷ In fulfilling this objective, philosophy accepts "the best available knowledge of its own time and place" and uses this knowledge for the criticism of "beliefs, institutions, customs, policies."¹⁸ If this criticism is not to be a particularistic series of unrelated objections to thises and thats—piecemeal, disconnected, directionless, uncontrolled and uncontrollable—some general concepts, which in their functional sum constitute a "general method" must be developed. In other words, a general logic of experience is necessary. Philosophy, in Experience and Nature, just as in Studies in Logical Theory, is to be this general logic. And when fully realized, philosophy will do "for social qualities and aims what the natural sciences after centuries of struggle are doing for activity in the physical realm"—if by "what the natural sciences are doing" we understand that functional division within the natural sciences which constitutes its theoretical part. When thus understood the comparison is exact: the theoretical division of the natural sciences is the general logic of activity in the physical realm and philosophy is (to become) the general logic of activity in the socio-cultural realm.

To understand the matter this way, does not involve destroying Dewey's fundamental doctrine concerning the inseparability of theory and practice, for the general logic of experience can be developed only through and in the course of the actual practices of experience as they concretely manifest themselves in the socio-cultural realm. However, in Experience and Nature there is a more explicit recognition on Dewey's part of the functional division between theory and practice as this division effects the content and conduct of philosophy itself.

What a general logic of experience looks like, and what is its interwoven relation with practice, can be seen by glancing over the range of Dewey's work. For he has not just been arguing that philosophy should become a general logic of experience. He has been producing one. This is what his works functionally sum up to, what, in their total integration, they are.

When we take Dewey's works severally, they very naturally group themselves into special (or specific) logics of the typical (or distinctive) modes of experience. Thus to mention only some of his representative works: Human Nature and Conduct is the special logic of the socioethical mode of experience; Art as Experience is the special logic of the esthetic mode;A Common Faith—of the religious; the early logical works, The Quest for Certainty and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry—comprise the special logic of the scientific mode of experience; The Public and Its Problems, Individualism Old and New, Liberalism and Social Action—comprise the socio-practical or utilitarian; and here belong all the publicist writings which in their dealings with concrete socio-practical problems are tryings out, experimental testings and elaborations of the special logic of the utilitarian mode; Democracy and Education and the great body of work of which this is only a representative, cut across and include in various ways all the other special logics for within the school, as Dewey conceives it, all typical modes of experience and all forms of socio-practical problems are involved; the school is not a factory which has an outfit of standardized machines and dies for stamping out standardized parts and a conveyor-belt along which the standardized parts are assembled into standardized models ready for sale. The school, or the total educational institution is, for him, both the germinal and cellular structure of society: the means by which society not only reproduces itself as a socio-cultural world but also the means by which it grows. And finally, Experience and Nature. All modes of experience are naturally interconnected, being socio-cultural differentiations of common experience. None, therefore, of the special logics enumerated is separated and isolated from the rest. Common strands weave through them all. The interweaving of these common strands, the integration of the special logics into a comprehensive logic of experience, is the special task of this book. Experience and Nature is the logic of common experience considered in terms of widest and most inclusive generality. The inclusive general logic of experience is the inclusive integration of the continuities that are disclosed through man in Nature and through Nature in man.

VIII

To sum up. Fundamental to Dewey's conception is that philosophy is not outside of and above all other human pursuits, cultivating in secrecy and silence a remote, staked-off preserve of its own; philosophy is and works within the open and public domain of all human activities, one among others, differentiated by its scope and function, but in no way set apart.

The keys to the universe are not in any one pair of hands. They are everywhere about. In the history of philosophy, one bunch of keys after another has been selected and set up as the keys to the universe, philosophy being the sole true keeper, when not also the one and only discoverer of the keys. And then the unappeasable problem has always arisen: How on earth to get rid of the other keys. Dewey's basic conception of the philosophic task—a conception which has persisted through all his changes and deviations—is just the opposite. Here are all these bunches of keys. We cannot do without any of them. The history of thought and ever-present experience prove this. Besides, even if we could dispose of any, it would be a distinct loss: we would impoverish life by just so much. However, just as it is futile and morally unwise to try to get rid of any, so is it morally unwise and theoretically unintelligent merely to collect them and string them along on a series of "ands."

The philosophic task—in which the moral and intellectual, the "vision" and the "method," fuse—is to bring them all into functional relationship with each other.¹⁹ This does not mean, of course, taking all the keys, melting them down and then constructing one great big key that will be the whole works—the idea that seems to prevail in most quarters. It means to reconstruct the keys so that instead of each one allegedly opening a different lock, they will naturally function to assist each other in the common enterprise. For Nature, after all, is not a set of separate locks and human beings the keysmiths. Indeed, in a very important and fundamental sense it may be said that the keys are the locks for they are Nature in so far as she constructs herself through our reconstructions.

The construction of one great big key is, in more philosophic language, the construction of a formal set or system of principles. In this sense Dewey has no system and, as far as I know, has never aimed to have one. But when we take the outline of the field of philosophic activity presented in Studies in Logical Theory as being of the nature of a rough sketch of a philosophic project, we can see that all of Dewey's work is the systematic fulfilling, expanding, revising, deepening, realizing of that project. All his works together comprehend a "system" but it is a system in a new sense, created in a new way. It was created by working back and forth between one field of experience and another, interweaving the threads of continuity as the creative process of reconstruction proceeded.

Dewey has not "solved" the comprehensive problem of the relation of mind to matter which is just the old terminology for his own comprehensive problem of the relation of theory to practice. But if ever this problem is "solved" the solution I venture to say will be reached only by the method so fundamentally characteristic of Dewey's life-long philosophic procedure. For his method of working—the "double movement"—seems to be the way Nature herself works. Every increment Nature gains on one side she converts into a method of work upon the other, thus accumulating as well as testing her increasingly complicated gains.

NOTES

¹ Reprinted in Essays in Experimental Logic, 99.

² Reprinted in Essays in Experimental Logic, 103-104.

³Essays in Experimental Logic, 83-84; italics in original.

⁴Reconstruction in Philosophy, 21.

⁵Ibid., 26.

⁶Ibid., 22; italics mine.

⁷Ibid., 26.

⁸Ibid., 188; Dewey'sitalics.

⁹Ibid., 192.

¹⁰Ibid., 193.

¹¹Loc. cit., 121.

¹²Creative Intelligence, 65.

¹³ Perhaps it should be explicitly stated that the intellectual and socio-cultural changes mentioned in this section were only the conditions that occasioned the emergence of the conflict in doctrine in Reconstruction in Philosophy. (A full list of the conditions would include, of course, as supplementary conditions, the philosophical controversies between 1903 and 1920.) The cause of the split in doctrine is to be found in a fundamental fault (geologically speaking) which lies deep in the original formulation of instrumentalism in Studies in Logical Theory. The limits of this essay make it impossible to go into this matter any further.

¹⁴Ibid., 55; italics in original.

¹⁵ In 1925, to be exact.

¹⁶Experience and Nature, 2nd ed., 410.

¹⁷Experience and Nature, 398.

¹⁸Ibid., 408.

¹⁹ In the conception of philosophy as a "criticism of criticisms" Dewey's two general theories of knowledge (or of philosophy) are merged but not fused. The actual fusion is attained in his concept of intelligence. Unfortunately, the fusion is implicitly achieved in his writings rather than explicitly recognized and formulated. An adequate discussion of this matter would carry us far beyond the boundaries of this essay. We must content ourselves with saying that "intelligence" for Dewey is a quality of human behavior which is completely actualized when the experience of living has become an intelligently cultivated art. It is not unnatural therefore that one finds Dewey's best and profoundest exposition of his integral conception of philosophy, or the nature of intelligence, in his Art as Experience.