L'Idée d'Expérience dans la Philosophie de John Dewey (review)

300 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY world, and the intermediary position between an extrinsic view of consciousne~ with Marxism and an intrinsic view of the same with idealism. These studies introduce the Italian speaking reader to a tradition foreign to him. The field is too broad for a deep approach to the subject, but clarity and understanding make the reading profitable. The main line, on the one side, diverges more and more from dogmatism, but on the other side, converges towards phenomenology to the extent that it tends to the self-constitution of reason in a world deeply human, where psychology and sociology have something to say, where philosophy and science coexist, where subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are not antagonistic. ELEtrrHE~IUS WI~A~CE Claremont Graduate School L'Idge d'Exp6rience dans la Philosophie de John Dewey. By G~rard Deledalle. (Paris" Presses Universitaires de France, 1966. Pp. 570.) This volume by the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tunisia ie the work of many years of thorough research and gives us by far the most comprehensive exposition of the growth and substance of Dewey's philosophy that has appeared to date, and that probably will ever appear. Few historians will have the interest and patience to explore in such minute detail, not only Dewey's concept of experience, but the relation of its development to Dewey's own experience. This is a biography of Dewey's mind as well as an analysis of the various ways in which he used the term "experience." The theme which the author takes very seriously and which gives exceptional vigor to the volume is stated in Dewey's own words as a kind of frontispiece: "Better it is for philosophy to err in active participation in the living struggles and issues of its own age and times, than to maintain an immune monastic impeccability.... To try to escape from the snares and pitfalls of time by recourse to traditional problems and interests--rather than that, let the dead bury their own dead" (Philosophy and Civilization, p. 55). Fortunately there are philosophers who are also historians and who can revive for later generations the interests and struggles of the past; for the issues of one generation have a way of plaguing posterity. Therefore, though it may be a waste of present time to cultivate philosophia perennis, the history of ideas remains a perennial interest because it provides an important linkage between the varied lives that ideas live in different generations, and that gives to ideas a significant meaning far beyond their truth or falsity. Deledalle showed real insight when he divided his story into two parts. The first deals with the origin and development of the idea of experience during the formative years of Dewey's thinking, 1859-1904; the second deals with the various ways in which Dewey, after he had attained a distinctive idea of experience through a variety of philosophical experiences , applied his central idea to "the struggles and issues of his time" (1904-1952). During the formative years, it was not the concept of experience itself that was the primary object of his inquiries, it was the effort to give an empirical account of the problems that were brought to him as a child, as student, as teacher, as psychologist, and as moralist. The first part is divided into four chapters. Chapter I, "L'Exp6rience unitaire (1859-188~)," tells how Dewey was haunted by several types of "dualism": religious and domestic (his father and mother belonged to different churches); metaphysical (materialism vs. idealism); epistemological (positivism vs. intuitionism); social (rural Vermont vs. Oil City, Pennsylvania ). Chapter II, "L'Expdrience organique (188~-1889)," tells of Dewey's university studies at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan, when he faced the problem of adapting his studies of Kant and Hegel to the emerging biological and psychological discoveries about thinking and willing. Chapter III, "L'Ezpdrience dynamique (1889-189~)," describes the sudden reconstruction of his idealism in terms of experimental psychology and William James's theory of the relation between perception and conception. Chapter IV, "L'Expdrience ]onctionnelle (189~-190~)," describes the relation between Dewey's experi- BOOK REVIEWS 301 mental school...