ABSTRACT
The author begins by saying that Professor Dewey had broken with the whole tradition of philosophy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he had broken with the pretensions of philosophy. John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia and influential proponent of instrumentalism, had written Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought in 1910. When he says that the true American philosophy must be one of radical experiment, Professor Dewey opens up a curious question. The absolutists will assert that philosophies are not like clothes which change with the climate and the occupation, but steadfast principles by which man guides his course in a mazy world. All philosophies are experiments, but they are unconscious ones. They all represent an attempt to make ourselves better at home in the world.
