Abstract

This dissertation is an evaluation of John Dewey's reconstruction of experience. I begin by providing a summary of Dewey's conception of experience, gathering all the different distinctions Dewey made concerning experience. Secondly, I want to argue that we can only obtain a clear understanding of Dewey's notion of experience if we verify in what way---if in any way---his proposal redefines other conceptual tools of philosophical inquiry. The sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception of experience. ;Chapters Two and Three are concerned with exploring such conceptual consequences. In the second chapter, I will show how Dewey transformed previous philosophical distinctions into functional tools of philosophy. This will make clear Dewey's instrumental view of knowledge and how Dewey's perspective opens the possibility for an objective ethical theory. Though the functional interpretation of subject and object clarifies some problems identified in the first chapter, it raises difficulties regarding the place of the individual in Dewey's reconstruction. The third chapter will try to clarify such difficulties by examining how Dewey understood human nature, selfhood, and individuality. This analysis will indicate how imagination is important in experience, and that John Dewey's proposed conception of experience necessarily includes the notion of creativity and, therefore, recognizes the crucial creative nature of experience. ;In Dewey's conception of experience, the unfinished and open character of experience gives creativity its force. This is a theme that runs throughout Dewey's works but is never fully stated. In the last chapter, I return to the conception of experience and lay out the general traits of experience, showing that Dewey viewed experience as an organic, continuous, open-ended creative transaction. This will reveal that, under Dewey's philosophical project, philosophy stands as a discipline that grows by developing and working out hypotheses. Such interpretation shows the decisive significance of experience as method indicated in the first chapter, and also shows ways to verify the validity of such a proposal, providing future suggestions for philosophical investigations