The Integration of Hegelian Historicism with Darwinian Naturalism in Dewey’s Conception of Experience

This paper is an attempt to illustrate the integration of Hegelian historicism with Darwinian naturalism in Dewey’s conception of experience. Using a historic approach, John Dewey reaches a naturalistic description of experience in which he emphasizes the interaction, the agency and the transformation of experience. He goes on to emphasize a scientific and objective approach toward experience. Following a critical examination of the role of experience in Greek philosophy and in 17th and 18th-century empiricism in a particular cultural context, Dewey emphasizes this historic concept and tries to introduce proper alternatives suitable for his own era. Therefore, by embodying Darwinian biology in some Hegelian ideas, and by focusing on the concept of experience, Dewey tries to give a naturalized explanation of Hegel. In this paper, the convergence of Dewey’s historic and naturalistic views in his conception of experience is discussed.