Dewey’s Naturalistic Mysticism of Meaning: Finite Transcendence

In this article, I argue for a naturalistic and extrovertive mysticism of meaning at the heart of John Dewey’s thought. Rather than a transcendence of a concrete finite point of view, and, therefore, of the natural world, I argue that, for Dewey, the mystical experience represents a radicalized perspectival transcendence into the hidden yet experienceable depths of the world. Not the obliteration but the aesthetic intensification of one’s being in the world and thus a radical dilation of the finite focus of clarity are what characterize Dewey’s mystical thought.