INFLUENCE OF DARWIN ON PHILOSOPHY

Prominent American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) had been schooled in the Hegelian tradition, but he later rejected Hegelian idealism for the pragmatism of William James. In this collection of informal, highly readable essays, originally published between 1897 and 1909, Dewey articulates his now classic philosophical concepts of knowledge, truth, and the nature of reality. Here Dewey introduces the scientific method and uses critical intelligence to reject the traditional ways of viewing philosophical discourse. Knowledge cannot be divorced from experience; it is gradually acquired through interaction with nature. Philosophy, therefore, has to be regarded as itself a method of knowledge and not as a repository of disembodied, preexisting absolute truths.