Forging the Self in the Stream of Experience: Classical Currents of Self-cultivation in James and Dewey

Though both are identified as foundational figures of classical pragmatism, James and Dewey are sometimes contrasted. For example while Dewey’s tendencies were toward the social, James emphasized the individual. Nonetheless, they share certain clear affinities. Beyond the putative commonalities of their philosophies, it may be argued that they were mutually interested in an ethic of self-cultivation. Denying both devout optimism and staunch pessimism for their empirical inadequacies, pragmatists assert that collective intelligence offers society the means to its own improvement. Given the pragmatic belief in freedom, amelioration is possible. This melioristic social orientation has an individual analogue, a moral bearing discernible in several writings by James and Dewey on the individual, the self and the moral life. Given sufficient freedom, the individual possesses the potential for personal growth. Implicitly and sometimes explicitly, James and Dewey endorse this idea through an ethic of self-cultivation, centered on a dynamic, empirical self. With the intent of defending this theme’s pragmatic affiliation and promoting its study, the following essay suggests continuity between self-cultivation and the dynamic, relational, and melioristic spirit of two of classical pragmatism’s central figures.