Thanks for that Tony. I am somewhat stunned also by the use of the
words "culture" and "ideal" which is so consonant with CHAT. This is
really great stuff.
I have bought a couple of books of Dewey's work in the past, but I
am always frustrated that I never find the material I am looking
for. Which books should I acquire to read material like the excerpts
you sent, and also Dewey's reflections on collective problem
solving, group dynamics and so on? Or is there a big collected works
which is affordable?
Andy
Tony Whitson wrote:
Here's the text again, without the extra line breaks:
lw.1.361 Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature
today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment
of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I
would abandon the term "experience" because of my growing
realization that the historical obstacles which prevented
understanding of my use of "experience" are, for all practical
purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term "culture"
because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully
and freely carry my philosophy of experience.
lw.1.361 I am not convinced that the task I undertook was
totally misguided. I still believe that on theoretical, as distinct
from historical, grounds there is much to be said in favor of using
"experience" to designate the inclusive subject-matter which
characteristically "modern" (post-medieval) philosophy breaks
[Page lw.1.362] up into the dualisms of subject and object, mind
and the world, psychological and physical. If "experience" is to
designate the inclusive subject-matter it must designate both what
is experienced and the ways of experiencing it.
lw.1.362 There is, assuredly, nothing novel in holding that
philosophy is distinguished from other intellectual or cognitive
undertakings by the comparative comprehensiveness of its subject-
matter; nor is it innovative to maintain that a linguistic
expression is needed to name philosophy's singular distinction. But
by an ironical twist of events which I failed to comprehend, the
theoretical grounds that can be cited for using "experience" as the
needed name are historically identical with the obstacles that
effectively stand in the way of the name being understood in the
senses I intended.
lw.1.362 The historical obstacles are now so conspicuous that I
can at times but wonder how they came to be overlooked. There was a
period in modern philosophy when the appeal to "experience" was a
thoroughly wholesome appeal to liberate philosophy from desiccated
abstractions. But I failed to appreciate the fact that subsequent
developments inside and outside of philosophy had corrupted and
destroyed the wholesomeness of the appeal--that "experience" had
become effectively identified with experiencing in the sense of the
psychological, and the psychological had become established as that
which is intrinsically psychical, mental, private. My insistence
that "experience" also designates what is experienced was a mere
ideological thundering in the Index for it ignored the ironical
twist which made this use of "experience" strange and
incomprehensible.
lw.1.362 The name "culture" in its anthropological (not its
Matthew Arnold) sense designates the vast range of things
experienced in an indefinite variety of ways. It possesses as a
name just that body of substantial references which "experience" as
a name has lost. It names artifacts which rank as "material" and
operations upon and with material things. The facts named by
"culture" also include the whole body of beliefs, attitudes,
dispositions which are scientific and "moral" and which as a matter
of cultural fact decide the specific uses to which the "material"
constituents of culture are put and which accordingly deserve,
philosophically speaking, the name "ideal" (even the name
"spiritual," if intelligibly used).
[Page lw.1.363]
lw.1.363 It is a prime philosophical consideration that
"culture" includes the material and the ideal in their reciprocal
interrelationships and (in marked contrast with the prevailing use
of "experience") "culture" designates, also in their reciprocal
interconnections, that immense diversity of human affairs,
interests, concerns, values which compartmentalists pigeonhole
under "religion" "morals" "aesthetics" "politics" "economics" etc.,
etc. Instead of separating, isolating and insulating the many
aspects of a common life, "culture" holds them together in their
human and humanistic unity--a service which "experience" has ceased
to render. What "experience" now fails to do and "culture" can
successfully do for philosophy is of utmost importance if
philosophy is to be comprehensive without becoming stagnant.»3
lw.1.363 Culture "comprises inherited artifacts, goods,
technical processes, ideas, habits, values. Social organization
cannot be really understood except as a part of culture." Even this
brief quotation indicates the inclusive or comprehensive
summarizing of the conditions and aspects of human life designated
by the word. Artifacts include habitations, temples and their
rituals, weapons, paraphernalia, tools, implements, means of
transportation, roads, clothing, decorations and ornamentations,
etc., etc. They, together with the technical processes involved in
their use, constitute the "material aspect of culture." But then
follows the significant statement: "The material equipment of
culture is not, however, a force in itself. Knowledge is necessary
in the production, management and use of artifacts . . . and is
essentially connected with mental and moral discipline, of which
religion, laws and ethical rules are the ultimate source. The
handling and possession of goods imply also the appreciation of
their value." The kind of cooperation involved in production of
goods and the common modes of enjoyment of the products "are always
based on a definite type of social organization." In short,
"material culture requires a complement . . . consisting of the
body of intellectual knowledge, of the system of moral, spiritual,
and economic values, of social organization and of language."
lw.1.363 The intimate connection of philosophical systems with
culture is further clarified by the fact that "the formation of
sentiments
[Page lw.1.364] and thus of values is always based on the cultural
apparatus in a society," the sentiments and values defining man's
attitudes "toward the realities of his magical, religious or
metaphysical Weltanschauung." And while I cannot dwell upon its
implications here, I cannot refrain from quoting the statement that
"Culture is at the same time psychological and collective."»4
Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716
twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________
"those who fail to reread
are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
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