Experience and Nature [Paperback]

John Dewey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

Analysis and evaluation of problem of knowledge, other systems, formulation of law, role of language, social factors.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications; Enlarged, Revised edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486204715
• ISBN-13: 978-0486204710
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Experience Recovered! An Embodied, Naturalistic, Empiricism, April 22, 2000

By 

Gabriel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Experience and Nature (Paperback)

In this excellent read, John Dewey further exploits his concept of "experience" as foundational to human knowledge. Dewey's concept of "experience" represents a breakthrough in empiricism, as "experience" for Dewey is not merely "sense impressions" as it was for earlier empiricists. Dewey's "experience" is an iterative process and thoroughlly embodied; the qualities of each individual experience become functioning parts of one's experience in a larger sense, serving to transform the qualities one will experience under certain conditions in the future. Fot the sake of illustration, consider a child's first experience of fire: it is beautiful, exciting, and enticing, until the child gets burned: then each subsequent experience of fire contains an element of fear and danger, as the previous experience transforms the experiences to come.

Dewey uses this concept of experience to provide a theory he calls "naturalistic empiricism"; a pragmatic theory of knowledge that provides a basis for his later inquiries into knowledge and human experience. His treatment of the ontogeny of knowledge provides a compelling, thoroughly materialistic, and Darwinian account of the development of thinking in the human animal without lapsing into an isolating solipsism or into a fanciful dualism. The prevalence of Hegelian philosophy in Dewey's earlier philosophic work and his training as a psychologist provide him with an eye for solid methodology, a powerful sense of the role of social structure in human thinking, and a talent for synthesis.

Experience and Nature is therefore a profoundly social text as well, where Dewey explores the role that social experience plays in the development of knowledge and communication as human attributes, or more to the point, as human activities. I have found this book to be a profound antidote to the despair and irony in writers such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and Rorty; the meaning and scope of existence is redeemed on an extremely individual level through community and relationships. This book is highly recommended for those with an eye for postmodern philosophy and theories of embodiment (Dewey is frequently compared to Maurice Merleau-Ponty), as it shares much with the hermeneutic tradition, while remaining grounded in a very scientific perspective.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dewey's most thorough and captivating work., March 19, 2007

By 

A.E.V. "Alice" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Experience and Nature (Paperback)

After deciding to work my way through every Dewey book I could still find in print, I finally got into this one. Dewey's other works are good, but this one is great.

This book is, minimally, essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the epistemology underlying Dewey's educational theory. Or, in fact, any of his other theories.

More than that, it is possibly the best single articulation of pragmatic philosophy; where William James applied pragmatic method to specific issues of morals and metaphysics, Dewey has here expounded on many of the broad implications of that method. The central ideas of this book are the inclusion of quality and ends in natural existence, which are shown to have broad implications for topics such as scientific inquiry, theories of value, and aesthetics. This is one of the best works of epistemology I have ever read. Best of all, it is rigorous and wide-ranging without becoming a System.

At most, it may be the most important work of philosophy ever written in the history of the universe. I'm not going to go that far, though.