John Dewey: for science or anti-negotiating licenses

Abstract

In the process of reconstructing philosophy, the challenge of articulating philosophy and science is posed to John Dewey and, as a consequence, the change in the method of operating from the former. Dewey developed a doctrinal program that aims to show how knowledge is based on experience. This is the scientific-naturalistic dimension of his work whose influence comes from Darwinian naturalism. In this sense, his project consists of a rigorous argument against the explanations in which experience and nature are presented based on arbitrary distinctions. In the work Reconstruction in Philosophy, Dewey developed his metaphysical project with a historicist dimension, proposing a reconstruction for philosophy. This perspective is of Hegelian inspiration, considering history as a “flow of events.” His argument consists of claiming a philosophy of experience insofar as it appropriates the scientific method. Dewey tries to think of a system developed from the application of the scientific method to philosophy but based on a philosophical conception of experience. Dewey’s conceptions about knowledge, the intelligent use of reason, and the social nature of philosophy contribute to the constitution of his conception of science. The philosopher’s goal is to develop a scientific and methodological project that will require another way of doing philosophy, which he characterizes as an empirical philosophy. Although Dewey defends a philosophy with a scientific aim, this does not mean that he subordinates philosophy to science. It happens that Dewey is opposed to the way in which the epistemological problem was formulated by tradition, that is, disregarding the connection process between things and between the connoisseur and the things. In this article, we present this philosophical project that we call empirical metaphysics. We started by arguing with Dewey about the need for the constitution and the formation of a scientific mentality with a view to social ends. This claim stems from the fact that Dewey considers that science and democracy share not only the same standard of investigation, the “method of intelligence,” but also the same moral virtues: a willingness to question, to seek clarity and evidence, to listen and respect the opinions of others, to consider alternatives impartially, to change points of view due to research and communication. Finally, we will discuss the pragmatic theory of existence whose objective is the constitution of a new metaphysics that consists of managing, in the temporal domain, the finite and the human in their relationship with the eternal and the infinite, that is, it aims to apprehend reality product of its conditioning factors. In his criticism of traditional metaphysics, Dewey implies that what one has in terms of these metaphysics is nothing more than refined intellectual techniques, derived from the rudimentary ideas of the popular faith about the supernatural and the natural, the divine and the human.