Dewey’s Layered Complexity of Experience: Hegelianizing James, Jamesianizing Hegel

In this paper, I argue that Dewey’s conception of experience in Experience and Nature, while explicitly engaging with James, also involved an original appropriation of James’ radical empiricism through the lens of Hegel’s legacy. However, the cultural climate of the 1920s prevented Dewey from making any overt reference to the German philosopher. Both thinkers’ contributions converged in Dewey’s development of a notion grounded in the primacy of relations over relata. Hegel’s influence allowed Dewey to avoid the subjectivistic tendencies present in James’ initial account of experience. At the same time, James’ emphasis on the genuine plurality of experience and his profound anti-intellectualism enabled Dewey to resist reducing experience to mere cognition and nature to Spirit.