John Dewey and Evolutionism: Contributions of Pragmatism to the Study of Able Action

Abstract

Here we investigate, from a pragmatist perspective, how evolutionist theories can assist our understanding of the nature of able action within the environmental dynamic, and possible contributions to the Philosophy of Mind and of Action. In The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy, John Dewey presents various considerations concerning the possible impact of Darwinian evolutionism on the concept of knowledge. Firstly, Dewey observes that the western philosophical tradition is strongly influenced by the intuition that to understand is to learn the immutable form or idea of an object. For Dewey, the concept of eidos, which scholars translate as species, permanent form above and beyond the natural flow of things, becomes the central principle of both knowledge and nature, and therefore the logic of science itself. The notion of eidos reflects a metaphysical doctrine highly influential in philosophy during the last two thousand years: that of a formal constancy in the natural flow of things, which scientific understanding must learn. According to Dewey, in Biology this doctrine exerted a strong influence on the notion of species as the living manifestation of different ways of being that transcend individuals. The observation of the permanency of general characteristics, from generation to generation, strengthened the notion of an essence of species, of which the individual was merely a temporary carrier. Because of this, the simple word “origin” in the title of Darwin’s work, combined with the word “species”, has provoked a revolution in philosophical thinking that, according to Dewey, is comparable to the Copernican revolution. This is because it introduces the perception that the notion of permanence of an ideal essence is not a valid concept for an understanding of a world where species have an origin and change. The Darwinian paradigm suggests that new species emerge due to a process of natural selection. The world does not remain constant, but evolves propelled by natural forces that act continuously. New species are not especially created to occupy these new environments, but derive from others in a complex process of adaptation governed by continuous natural selection. Of all his evolutionary theories, that of natural selection was the most difficult to accept. It can be defined as non-fortuitous differential reproductive success, acting on phenotypes; in other words, acting on individuals in a manner consistent with their choices.