The Necessity of Pragmatism. John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 675 publication of Dihhey's famous Leben Schleiermachers 087o), a massive work which steadfastly and somewhat romantically refused to consider Schleiermacher's thought apart from the historical conditions of his life and times. Although there is some ground for Scholtz's categorization, its disadvantage is that it does not sufficiently take into account the enormous influence of dialectical theology on the history of Schleiermacher interpretation in the twentieth century, an influence that arguably had greater ramifications for the interpretation of Schleiermacher's philosophical than for his theological thought. The second section of Scholtz's study is a valuable overview of the basic themes in Schleiermacher's philosophical thought intermeshed with a history of scholarship that pays close attention to both divergence and consensus in scholarly viewpoints. After an overview of the unusual blend of religion, poetry, and philosophical criticism that characterizes such early works as the Speecheson Religion (1799), the Soliloquies (18oo), the Confidential Letters on Lucinde (18oo), and the dialogue ChristmasEve (1806), Scholtz examines the "systematic disciplines" that comprise Schleiermacher's abiding philosophical concerns: dialectics, ethics, philosophical theology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, political theory, pedagogy, and psychology or epistemology. This work by work analysis is helpful both to the individual entering Schleiermacher's thought-world for the first time and to the specialist seeking a concordance of scholarly opinion of Schleiermacher interpretation. Scholtz is especially effective in this section in treating Schleiermacher 's lectures on dialectics, ethics, and the interface between Schleiermacher's philosophical presuppositions and theological reflection in his epoch-making dogmatics Der christlicheGlaube (l 821/~ 9; 183o/31). Schohz's work is intended as a research tool and is successful in this regard. Readers expecting constructive insights and argumentation will have to turn to the plethora of secondary sources on which Scholtz provides a running commentary. If there is a significant hiatus within the limitations of Scholtz's project, it is in his failure to include discussion of Schleiermacher's earliest philosophical reflections in the recently published Jugendschriften, Schleiermacher's earliest treatises in dialogue with Kant and Plato, written between 1787 and 1796. JOHN E. THIEL Fairfield University R. W. Sleeper. The Necessity of Pragmatism. John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. xii + 236. $~ 1.5o. This well-written reassessment of Dewey's central philosophical ideas has several noteworthy dimensions. In the first place, it convincingly identifies key themes which lend continuity to the development of Dewey's thought, themes which begin to appear at the time of Dewey's initial turn toward experimental naturalism and reach their full articulation in his mature works. Chief among these is Dewey's rejection of what he called in the 189os "apart thought," i.e., thought which attempts to impose a priori standards upon experience from some allegedly transcendental vantage point. While 676 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:4 OCTOBER 1988 Sleeper pays particular attention to this theme as it relates to Dewey's successive publications on logical theory, he also notes Dewey's persistent opposition to "apart thought" in its metaphysical, ethical, and aesthetic guises. This opposition, Sleeper argues, culminates in a sustained attempt to account for the genesis and legitimacy of normative standards in terms of a naturalistic theory of inquiry. Secondly, Sleeper aims to establish the overall coherence of Dewey's many philosophical endeavors. Much of Dewey's work, of course, is unified by his theory of inquiry, by what Sleeper labels his "logic of experience." But Sleeper maintains also that this logic of experience is tied to a "metaphysics of existence" and that a key link between these two is supplied by the theory of language Dewey borrowed from G. H. Mead and further developed for his own purposes. Sleeper's argument for this thesis, which draws heavily upon both Experience and Nature and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, is too complex for adequate summary here. Suffice it to say only that he attempts to show how Dewey's explorations of the biological and cultural dimensions of inquiry lead to (1) an ontology best described as "transactional realism," and (2) a view of metaphysics as an empirical attempt to map out those generic traits of existence which supply...